Articles
Ready to get your read on? Dive into the article archive to help you build wealth through real estate investing. We feature top subject matter experts exploring every facet of the industry.
Articles
Ready to get your read on? Dive into the article archive to help you build wealth through real estate investing. We feature top subject matter experts exploring every facet of the industry.
Is that Home Inspection Worth It?
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Adam Pontier, owner of KCPE LLC. When I was young, my father bought a home that we gutted to the bare studs and put back together as our family home. This was my first taste of construction ...
5 Important Factors for Success in Residential Assisted Living Investments
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Gene Guarino, president and CEO of RAL Academy. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, approximately 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day while another 4,000 turn 85 every day. That is a huge opportunity for savvy real estate ...
Managing Large Portfolios of Properties
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Douglas Skipworth, Co-Founder and Principal Broker at CrestCore Realty. Did you know that the typical property management client owns “1.5 units?” Despite that low (and strangely divisive) number, the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) estimates ...
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Julie Ziglar Norman, realtor with Prime Properties Realty. Investing in real estate is one thing. Building wealth by investing in real estate is another. The first scenario is often a short-term, one-off plan; the second represents a plan ...
How the Internet is Changing Education and Real Estate
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Aaron Norris, VP of The Norris Group. Would you rather take an investment course from a local university professor with mild success managing a small portfolio or from Warren Buffet? Your answer is hopefully the latter ...
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) May Drive Millennial Home Sales
If your friends have recently purchased a home, then the odds are good you might start thinking about doing the same. If they’re posting about it on social media, however, you’re probably going to take some action. According to a new survey from Bank of America, about a third of ...
U.S. and U.K. Warn Private Homeowners About Russian Cyberattacks on Smart Devices
The United States and Great Britain have issued a new type of national alert: a warning about cyber attacks on individuals and private property. The two countries issued a joint alert this week indicating that private homeowners should be aware their internet devices are not only susceptible to hacking by ...
Renters Warehouse CEO Announced As New Think Realty Resident Expert
Kevin Ortner, CEO of Renters Warehouse, has been named Think Realty’s newest Resident Expert! His first two courses, Buy & Hold Strategies and Building your Rent Estate Portfolio, will focus on helping investors build wealth through rentals. Think Realty selected Ortner as a Resident Expert for his expertise in the ...
2018 Could be the Worst Year Yet for Housing Affordability
Thanks to rising home prices, rising interest rates, and rising demand for housing, housing affordability is likely to plummet over the course of 2018. Housing affordability, which is defined as the median price of a home that a household earning median income can afford using a third of their income ...
Price-Gouging Charges Leveled Against California Landlord
When wildfires destroyed thousands of homes in California last fall, tens of thousands of residents were displaced. As those households began to seek new places to live and to rebuild, many investors flocked to California as well. This is part of the housing/natural disaster cycle: When disaster strikes, real estate ...
Smart Wallpaper is Flame-Retardant, Alerts Homeowners in Event of Fire
Researchers at Shanghai’s Institute of Ceramics have developed a wallpaper that not only delay the spread of a fire but might call the fire department for you as well. The paper consists of fire-resistant materials including graphene oxide and hydroxyapatite nanowires. The combination enables the wallpaper to “sense” when heat ...
3 Reasons to Invest in Small Towns
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Michael Miller, Chief Marketing Officer of 5 Arch Funding. Are you an investor seeking fresh opportunities? If you haven’t yet considered fix-and-flip or rental property investments in small towns, now may be the time. Of course, any ...
4 Unique Ways to Source Off-Market Apartment Deals
This article was originally featured in March 2018 Think Realty Magazine and written by Joe Fairless, Principal at Ashcroft Capital. The most common type of apartment transaction is an on-market sale. An apartment owner lists their property with a broker, the broker markets the deal to the public, and, after a ...
Detroit Resident Makes Over Neighborhood, Builds Rental Portfolio
Jeff Cowin moved into Detroit’s Virginia Park historic district in 2010 when the area was still full of abandoned homes, blighted buildings, squatters, and crime. At the time, neither Cowin nor the neighborhood had any idea just how positive the new homeowner would be for the area. Today, Cowin’s street ...
Metro Detroit Home Prices Set to Rise
Thanks to relatively low unemployment, rising interest rates, a dearth of new construction, a large population of new metro residents, and tight housing inventory, Detroit, Michigan’s housing market could be heading into a heated territory. According to reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the area’s unemployment is hovering ...
Zillow Makes Waves with Pilot of Home-Sales Platform
This week, Zillow announced it will begin both buying and selling properties directly from and to homeowners, meaning that it will purchase homes directly from sellers, then resell those properties to buyers. The program will start as a test in two markets, Las Vegas and Phoenix, this spring. The move ...
10 Mistakes Property Owners Make When Writing their Property Listing
When it comes to marketing a rental property, many investors (myself included at one point) believe that a compelling set of numbers trumps any other information you might include in your property listing. While this might be the case once a buyer or potential tenant looks at those numbers, if ...
JFK Airport in New York No Longer in the “Top 20” for World’s Busiest Airports
New York’s JFK Airport is, according to the International Air Transport Association, no longer among the world’s 20 busiest airports. The reason, the ATA speculated, is likely “explosive growth of Asian airports” in New Delhi, India, and Guangzhou, China. Both locations’ airports recently entered the top 20. Atlanta, Georgia’s Hartsfield-Jackson ...
Activists Express Concern Over Amazon HQ2 and Housing
Shortly after naming 20 cities to its “short list” as finalists for its second headquarters, Amazon.com issued a demand for confidentiality on all offers and negotiations between those cities and itself on the topic of HQ2. According to Amazon, the project will bring in $5 billion in investments to the ...
Chinese Investors Still Buying U.S. Real Estate
Although the rhetoric has been heated on both sides as President Trump and President Xi trade threats about various tariffs and taxes to potentially be imposed on each other’s respective countries, Chinese real estate investors do not seem to be too worried about a potential trade war and its effects ...
How Blockchain Could Transform Property Record Transparency
This article was originally posted in the April 2018 Think Realty Magazine. It’s hard to go a day without news about Bitcoin these days and it’s easy to understand why. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin’s rapid rise late last year drew a lot of attention from the financial sector, with analysts espousing ...
Top 3 Hottest Luxury ZIP Codes in the United States
New data from Realtor.com indicates that luxury home prices in certain markets around the country are spiraling through the roof, and the trend does not appear to be cooling anytime soon. Researchers combined data on markets where median list price exceeds $1 million and markets where median list prices have ...
Mississippi Investors Plead Guilty to Bid-Rigging
Mississippi real estate investors who agreed not to bid against each other at foreclosure auctions are now facing fines and even jail time. Last week, three more investors pled guilty to designating a winning bidder in advance of auctions and accepting payoffs from each other in exchange for agreements not ...
3 Keys to “Making Magic Happen” in Your Real Estate Email Marketing
You’ve heard the phrase “Your network is your net worth" in terms of real estate marketing and email marketing, but when Charles Blair, “Mad Scientist” and founder of the Baltimore area’s Real Deal meetup, says it, he means something entirely different from just getting out there and introducing yourself to ...
Floodplain Codes to Change in Houston, Texas
The Houston City Council is hoping to prevent a repeat of the damage the city’s infrastructure suffered in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and the changes to municipal codes could affect some real estate investors. The council recently passed a new ordinance it designated as “designed to retool and strengthen ...
