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Anyone who’s been in real estate long has heard of the various percent rules floating about; the 70 percent rule, the 50 percent rule and the dreaded 2 percent rule. These rules are, of course, just rules of thumb to be helpful guides when evaluating properties. But while I believe ...
Fed’s Asset Purchases During 2008 Questioned
Skeptical economists have authored and presented a paper criticizing the Federal Reserve’s asset purchases during the 2008 financial crisis. They argue that in the future, instead of making large scale asset purchases (LSAP), which were a key part of quantitative easing (QE) in the wake of the housing and financial ...
Telemarketing Scam Targeted Investors
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois recently indicted two California residents on charges related to a national telemarketing scam targeting real estate investors. The charges included conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and result from the two individuals’ participation in a scheme that involved selling ...
ATTOM Data Solutions Acquires Onboard Informatics
ATTOM Data Solutions, announced it has acquired Onboard Informatics, the leading provider of neighborhood data and data-enabled turnkey products to the real estate industry. “Onboard has a long and accomplished track record as an innovator in enhancing and democratizing neighborhood data assets, paralleling our own mission of powering real estate ...
Nashville Housing Market offers Room to Grow
Nashville, Tennessee, is, quite simply, sitting in the catbird seat when it comes to real estate. The “Music City,” so named in 1950 by radio broadcaster David Cobb thanks to its longstanding position as the home of country music, is hitting all the right notes these days. Positioned in the ...
Single-Family Rental Rates Up Year-Over-Year
According to the CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index (SFRI), 2017’s rents were higher than those of 2016. This continues a seven-year trend of rising rents that started in 2010, although analysts noted that the price growth rate has decelerated gradually since it peaked at 4.3 percent in February 2016. The index ...
Foreclosure Rates Lower in Highest-Risk ZIP Codes
ATTOM Data Solutions, released its 2017 Environmental Hazards Housing Risk Index, which shows median home prices in U.S. ZIP codes in the highest 20 percent for environmental hazard risk appreciated at a faster pace than the overall U.S housing market over the past year, past five years and past 10 ...
7 Ways to Determine Your Property’s Value
Real estate values estimation has several uses ranging from sale listings of real estate and analysis of investments to property taxes and insurances. However, it’s particularly necessary when it comes to real estate sales and passive investing. After all, the property value is not just based on the initial payment made or ...
Hall of Fame Coach Mack Brown inspires at Think Realty Conference in Dallas
We had a blast at our Dallas Conference & Expo with former University of Texas head football coach and our event kickoff speaker, Mack Brown. Watch along as Brown offers insights into how to be successful in life and in business—starting with practical tips you can implement today. Thank you, ...
Credit, Using it Creatively & Responsibly
I once used a promotional “zero-percent-interest-and-zero-points" cash advance feature on my $25,000-limit credit card to buy a $25,000 property. Then, I refinanced it with a local community bank at 100 percent loan-to-cost (75 percent loan-to-appraised- value) within six months, right before the initial interest free period expired. That credit card ...
Green Pig Marketing Stunt Backfires on Brokerage
A real estate brokerage expanding into the Seattle, Washington, market got a lot of attention recently with a marketing campaign that may have misfired. The company installed about 1,500 small, green pig cutouts around the city to announce its new presence. The idea was to demonstrate how the company would ...
Redefining Legacy: It’s Not Just Financial Wealth
Many years ago, I was asked to give a speech in Charleston, South Carolina, to an audience of extremely wealthy men who were nearing early retirement. At that point in my life, I had already spoken on behalf of dozens of great corporations, albeit mostly about setting and achieving big ...
Dallas Area Investors Reveal Market Insights
Dallas, Texas – Seven local investors spent an hour digging into the local Dallas-Fort Worth real estate market this past Saturday, February 24, 2018, at the Think Realty National Conference & Expo. The Local Market Panel, hosted by Cathy Crowe of All Star Home Group, consisted of local experts from ...
Dallas, Texas – “We are all in different phases of stuck, and we need a bridge to productivity.” Robert Nickell, founder of REIVA, summed up his personal experience in real estate with these words. Nickell’s company offers the services of trained, dedicated virtual assistants (VAs) to real estate investors to ...
5 Economic Indicators Every Real Estate Investor Must Know
Dallas, Texas – When Carrie Cook, president of Ignite Funding, thinks about the roughly $460 million her real estate investment company is managing right before she goes to sleep at night, she sleeps just fine. While some investors might find numbers like that to be a bit intimidating even when ...
Why a Studio Apartment Could be Better than a McMansion for Your Real Estate Business
Dallas, Texas – “If you have a big, beautiful ‘McMansion’ that you’re trying to rent out right now, I’m betting you’re finding that market isn’t too hot. In fact, I’m betting a one-bedroom apartment or a studio might be much hotter, and I’ll tell you why.” That’s how Gene Guarino, ...
Real Estate Cryptocurrency to Launch Soon
A real estate firm in Los Angeles, California, has come up with a new way to fund real estate investments that literally cashes in on the investment trends associated with cryptocurrency. The company, Aperture Real Estate Ventures, will launch a real estate-backed cryptocurrency at the end of February. The currency ...
Top 5 Cities for First-Time Home Buyers
Certain things make a real estate market relatively more attractive to first-time homebuyers than another. For example, first-time buyers benefit from low down payments, which tend to be found in areas with affordable median home prices, multiple financing options, and good employment opportunities upon which to base their new household ...
Mortgage Rates Hit Four-Year High
According to Freddie Mac, national average mortgage rates rose to 4.38 percent last week on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. That rate, while still historically low, is the highest posted since April 2014. 15-year fixed-rate mortgage interest rates averaged 3.84 percent (up slightly from the previous week), and five-year hybrid adjustable-rate ...
Roth IRAs: The Best Legacy-Building Tool
If you leave nothing else for your loved ones, be sure that they inherit a Roth IRA from you. Even if the account has a tiny balance, leaving behind a Roth IRA provides a legacy benefit of overwhelming value: a lifetime of tax-free investment profits. In short, an inherited IRA ...
3 Things Not to do at a Real Estate Conference
We’ve talked to countless meeting hosts, presenters, and power-networkers to come up with a list of the three worst things you can do at a real estate conference. Take a hard look at this list and then, yourself. If you’ve made these mistakes in the past, be sure to avoid ...
Housing Markets Most Impacted by Tax Plan
The Republican tax proposal unveiled in late October and passed in December, included at least two changes to the income tax structure that could potentially have significant impacts on homeowners, and by extension the housing market. We’ve created two heat maps to illustrate which local housing markets could have the ...
“Buying Time” in Creative Ways
Ask a real estate investor why they left their “9-to-5,” and they’ll usually say something about having more time. Investors are, in many cases, parents and grandparents seeking more time with family. Just as often, they are passionate entrepreneurs and community servants seeking more time in which to enact their ...
Deal Funding with Credit Card Stacking
If you are a real estate investor and have been looking for capital to fund your real estate deals, there is a good chance you have heard of credit card stacking. Credit card stacking is the practice that credit brokers use to help individuals acquire credit by applying for multiple ...
What is Time to a Real Estate Investor?
Time itself is an investment. Often, you put in time for a very specific purpose or to achieve a certain goal. That goal could be to obtain more time. For real estate investors, the initial investment of your time may mean you later have additional days to spend with family ...
