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.

RentFax™

RentFax™

| Think Realty | Article | Profiles, Topics
What is RentFax™? RentFax lightens the burden of rental property research, helping you make faster, better, more profitable, and more confident decisions about investment property. Simple, flexible, and cost-effective, RentFax combines high quality real-time data, predictive analytics, and insightful reports to assist real estate investors, lenders, property managers, and others ...
Glutton for Punishment or Naive DIY’er?

Glutton for Punishment or Naive DIY’er?

Abby Tillman and her husband chronicled their first foray into real estate investing, buying a rental property, in Think Realty’s “Rookie Investor” blog series. The following article is excerpted from that blog. You know those things that everyone tells you not to do, but you think, “It won’t be like ...
Looking Back: Where We Were Thinking Realty in the Past 12 Months

Looking Back: Where We Were Thinking Realty in the Past 12 Months

Think Realty started 2017 off with a partnered group event in San Diego, California, where we joined forces with the San Diego Investment Club. The conference featured local and national speakers who covered timely topics including diversification, economic predictions, property insurance insights, and how to leverage real estate investing strategies ...
Where We’re Thinking Realty in 2017 and 2018

Where We’re Thinking Realty in 2017 and 2018

Think Realty National Conference & Expo - Atlanta, GA “Pathways to Smart Investing”  |  October 14-15, 2017 at the Westin Buckhead Every local housing market holds multiple routes to successful returns in real estate, but Atlanta, Georgia, is particularly noteworthy for the vast array of opportunities its housing market represents. At this ...
Real Estate, Not Rocket Science

Real Estate, Not Rocket Science

Hall and Fuller believe that successful investing hinges on consistency. Part of that “clockwork” relies on all parties in a transaction being clear about a couple key definitions. Turnkey Rental: a real estate investment purchased rent-ready, often with a tenant already in place and paying rent. Cash-Flowing Property: a property that is ...
Best Marketing Practices for Investors

Best Marketing Practices for Investors

| Eddie Wilson | Article | Operations
Often real estate business owners ask me how they can generate more leads. The other question they ask is closely related: What is the hottest new way to generate leads? While I do stay current with marketing trends and current market opportunities, most of the tried-and-true older methods are just ...
Contained Investing

Contained Investing

When you think of alternative investments in real estate, you might not think of changing the building materials or the physical framework of the property. Maybe you should. Container homes, built from cargo shipping containers, are altering the way people think about and visualize new homes. Upcycling materials in the ...
Curb Appeal Gone Native

Curb Appeal Gone Native

We all know that a buyer’s first impression of your property will likely make or break the deal. Given that landscaping can add up to 28 percent to a home’s value, taking the time to understand what makes your lawn really work may prove invaluable. According to landscape economist John ...
Really Big Deals: Getting In on the Farmland Phenomenon

Really Big Deals: Getting In on the Farmland Phenomenon

Farmland: Any land used for farming. Rural: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines rural areas as those that are nonmetropolitan and have “open countryside, rural towns (places with fewer than 2,500 people) and urban areas with populations ranging from 2,500 to 49,999.” Over the past decade, international investors have doubled ...
Investing in Corporate Housing: Monetizing the 30-Day Stay

Investing in Corporate Housing: Monetizing the 30-Day Stay

Corporate Housing: A solution for corporate employees who need monthly lodging, usually provided through businesses offering fully-furnished private residences for stays of 30 or more days. Pain-Per-Dollar (PPD): The amount of work that each dollar you invest “costs” you on a property. For example, a typical vacation rental has a high PPD ...
Think Realty’s Guidebook to Turnkey Rental Real Estate

Think Realty’s Guidebook to Turnkey Rental Real Estate

Turnkey Property: A turnkey property has historically been defined as a piece of real estate that can be purchased as-is and immediately rented out. Turnkey has expanded in recent years to include anything that can be conducted from a distance (i.e. a turnkey fix and flip) but generally refers to rental ...
rental performance

6 Ways to Accurately Assess Rental Property Performance

Whether you have one income rental property in your portfolio or dozens, you should be tracking your investment portfolio’s performance. Part of that process includes evaluating each income property individually to determine whether it is serving its purpose in your portfolio and to assess the viability of future, similar investments ...
5 Keys to Effective Social Media Marketing Domination

5 Keys to Effective Social Media Marketing Domination

As a real estate investor, you need leads to find deals, right? That’s the function of marketing. Done well, it can bring an abundance of opportunity to your investing business. Recently, Think Realty Resident Expert Abhi Golhar shared his recipe for success in social media marketing. ---- In the Netflix ...
3 Disasters Where Self-Directed Investors Made a Huge Difference

3 Disasters Where Self-Directed Investors Made a Huge Difference

Lately, the news has been full of natural disasters and recovery efforts. Everyone in the country wants to help with the recovery from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. In fact, one self-titled “IRA Expert” even implied in a very public promotional campaign that real estate investors using their self-directed retirement accounts ...
The Truth About Tax-Free Profits in Real Estate IRAs

The Truth About Tax-Free Profits in Real Estate IRAs

If you love the idea of huge real estate investing returns but dread the tax bills that come with financial success, then you share a common bond with just about every other investor in the country. However, if you realize that there are actually ways to create “tax-free profits” in ...
Is Your Market Too Hot to Handle?

Is Your Market Too Hot to Handle?

Investing in a hot market can be exciting. Watching the values of your properties climb is absolutely intoxicating, and many investors spend a great deal of time and energy trying to identify the next hot market before their competitors in order to get in early and make a mint. However, ...
What Your IRA Custodians Cannot Tell you

What Your IRA Custodians Cannot Tell you

| Editorial Staff | Article | IRAs
Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and 401(k) custodians wish you wouldn’t make this mistake, but they can’t tell you directly! It’s literally illegal for them to do so because they’re not allowed to give investment advice. One of the most common ways that 401(k) owners fund real estate deals when they’re ...
Houston

Harvey’s Impact on Real Estate Investors in Houston

Damage caused by Hurricane Harvey is leaving homeowners and investors calculating their losses. But for some, there is a potential for gains. While flooded properties in Houston are likely to drop in value, real estate experts are predicting prices and rents will rise in areas that were not affected by ...
3 Ways You Never Expected You Could Invest in Real Estate

3 Ways You Never Expected You Could Invest in Real Estate

You’ve probably heard of the traditional means of investing in real estate: buy-and-hold, fix-and-flip, rentals, rehabs, wholesaling. These are all time-tested, tried-and-true options for real estate investors at all levels of experience and with all levels of capital. However, in every crowd, there are a few people who just want ...
Co-Borrowers: Single Family Home Purchase Loan Originations Report

Co-Borrowers: Single Family Home Purchase Loan Originations Report

ATTOM Data Solutions, released its Q2 2017 U.S. Residential Property Loan Origination Report, which shows more than 2 million (2,033,296) loans were originated on U.S. residential properties (1 to 4 units) in the second quarter of 2017, up 27 percent from a three-year low in the previous quarter but still ...
Home Flipping Rate Plateaus in Q2 2017

Home Flipping Rate Plateaus in Q2 2017

ATTOM Data Solutions released its Q2 2017 U.S. Home Flipping Report. Showing 53,638 single family homes and condos were flipped nationwide in the second quarter of 2017, a home-flipping rate of 5.6 percent of all home sales during the quarter. The home flipping rate of 5.6 percent in Q2 2017 ...
Think Realty Magazine Goes Monthly

Think Realty Magazine Goes Monthly

Think Realty, the industry leader in residential real estate investor education and resources, has moved from bi-monthly to monthly publication of Think Realty Magazine with its September issue. The increased distribution better serves Think Realty’s growing member base, providing timelier content for its readers that includes expert contributions, market research ...
The 2017 Think Realty Honors Finalists

The 2017 Think Realty Honors Finalists

Each year, Think Realty honors the leaders and change-makers of real estate who represent the best the industry has to offer. These individuals are nominated by their peers, and the finalists are determined by an independent panel of judges who are former Think Realty Honors recipients themselves. This year, our ...
Low Housing Inventory = Opportunity

Low Housing Inventory = Opportunity

It’s become a regular headline: low housing inventory is responsible for fewer sales. With slow but steady economic growth, low unemployment, consumer optimism, and strong demand for housing, it seems builders would be scrambling to get new homes on the market. However, sales of new inventory is still about a ...
Silver Lining: Hurricane Damage Can Help Home Values

Silver Lining: Hurricane Damage Can Help Home Values

In recent weeks, the United States has been hit with not one but two major hurricanes. In fact, at time of this writing, it is still somewhat unclear exactly how far-reaching the effects of Hurricane Irma, which is working its way through Florida and up the east coast, will be ...