Operations

Your operations define your long-term success in real estate investing. Fine-tune your process with: Asset Management | Asset Protection | Deal Analysis | Fundamentals | Growth | Lead Generation | Risk Management

Back To: All Topics 

Operations

Your operations define your long-term success in real estate investing. Fine-tune your process with: Asset Management | Asset Protection | Deal Analysis | Fundamentals | Growth | Lead Generation | Risk Management

Back To: All Topics 

PCBs: The New ‘Asbestos’?

PCBs: The New ‘Asbestos’?

BEWARE! If you own an apartment building or other commercial structure that was constructed in the 1950s, ’60s, or ’70s, you need to be aware of potential PCB contamination and any liability associated with it. PCBs could be the new "asbestos" in apartments and commercial buildings, as well as in ...
Insurance Myths Debunked

Insurance Myths Debunked

| Shawn Woedl | Article | Operations
EDITOR’S NOTE: This excerpt from “Debunking the 13 Insurance Myths for the Real Estate Investor” explores insurance exclusivity, named additional insured on your homeowner’s policy and using your homeowner’s policy to cover your investment properties. Whether you are just getting started or are a seasoned investor, our aim is to ...
Win-Win-Win: Business Strategies for Real Estate Brokers

Win-Win-Win: Business Strategies for Real Estate Brokers

Real estate brokers face the daily challenge of searching for ways to maintain growth and profitability. It can include contracting with new agents, flooding the market with direct mail and sports schedules, and boosting advertising expenditures on television, radio and print publications—many times with questionable results. Agencies might be better ...
An Intriguing Alternative

An Intriguing Alternative

Many factors have been driving the evolution of the world’s financial infrastructure since the economic debacle of 2007-2009. Traditional investment vehicles have been demonstrably unstable. Some of the financial giants that managed (and mismanaged) billions of dollars of investments were deemed “too big to fail”; they required U.S. federal government ...
Understanding Second-Lien Loans

Understanding Second-Lien Loans

Second-lien loans differ from mezzanine debt and preferred equity in several respects; each has different sets of rights. Preferred equity, for example, should not be subject to bankruptcy concerns, as it is not debt. And both preferred equity and mezzanine debt generally take over the manager’s control rights as a ...
Just Who Is Treasury Pick Steven Mnuchin?

Just Who Is Treasury Pick Steven Mnuchin?

How much do you know about President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed Cabinet nominee Steven Mnuchin? Senate confirmation will put former Wall Street insider Mnuchin at the helm of the Treasury Department. As chief, he would be in charge of the nation's finances, policy, banking regulations and the IRS. His name would ...
Tiny Houses

Tiny Houses are Big Deal

| Think Realty | Article | Operations
A specific appendix for tiny houses will be part of the 2018 International Residential code. This will allow people to receive a Certificate of Occupancy for their tiny house to meet provisions of the adopted code appendix. A two-thirds majority vote was needed on public comment RB168-16 passing the final ...
Trulia's American Dream Survey

Trulia’s American Dream Survey Reveals 2017 Insights

Renewed Republican optimism. Fewer Millennials believing homeownership is part of their American Dream. And the Sunshine state, Florida, dominating the housing market’s “to watch” list for 2017. These are just a few items revealed in Trulia’s American Dream Survey, with results published in the company’s annual 2017 Housing Outlook Report ...
Real Estate Investor Mindset

Do You Have a Real Estate Investor Mindset?

Do you have the right mindset to succeed as a real estate investor? I wish I could give you one simple silver bullet answer to that question. I wish it were that simple, but it’s not. There are many different traits or characteristics, I believe, that enable somebody to be successful ...
Home-Flipping

Home-Flipping Cools Off in Q3 2016

U.S. home-flipping activity decreased in the third quarter of 2016, after hitting a six-year high in the previous quarter, according to a new report from ATTOM Data Solutions. ATTOM Data Solutions is the parent company of RealtyTrac and curator of the nation’s largest fused property database. The Q3 2016 Home ...
A Facebook Face-Off About Housing

A Facebook Face-Off About Housing

Facebook doesn’t shy away from a problem, even one as big as California’s affordable housing crisis. The social media giant recently announced that it would begin combatting its home state’s massive lack of affordable housing squarely in the most expensive metro area in the country, San Jose, where the median ...
(c) Can Stock Photo / gina_sanders

Will Trump Really Dismantle Dodd-Frank?

As the Trump presidency takes hold, the debate over Dodd-Frank is growing. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to dismantle the banking reform act. Fed Chief Janet Yellen has promised to defend it. Congress has the power to change it. And, the battle has already begun. The House just passed an ...
commercial

Let Professionals Handle the Commercial Property Caretaking

| Patty Hartley | Article | Operations
The backbone of any commercial property is strong property management. If you have recently purchased a commercial building or have a building that you have owned for a while, there comes a time when you must truly consider hiring a professional property manager to skillfully guide the property through its ...
FHA Loan Limits Increase—For Now

FHA Loan Limits Increase—For Now

In response to rising home prices nationwide, the Federal Housing Administration has raised loan limits for 2017. So if you have been or will be looking to buy a home, you may be able to qualify for an FHA loan next year a bit easier than you could this year ...
6 Suggestions Trump's New Tax Plan

6 Ideas to Prep for Trump’s New Tax Plan

With Donald Trump in the White house, big changes are coming for taxpayers. New tax policies are still a moving target, but there are some things you can do now, to reduce your 2016 taxes, and prepare for 2017. Disclaimer: I am not a tax accountant. Any tax tips mentioned here ...
Back-Overtime

Will You Be Paying Back-Overtime in 2017?

If your real estate investing business has any salaried employees, you could find yourself paying them some serious back-overtime in 2017 if a recently blocked Labor Department ruling is overturned in the New Year. Late last month, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued an injunction against ...
Refi 2017

U.S. Home Refi Originations Increase

ATTOM Data Solutions’ newly released U.S. Residential Property Loan Origination Report for Q3 2016 shows more than 1.9 million loans – 1,919,180 – were originated on U.S. residential properties. This is down 2 percent from the previous quarter and up less than 1 percent from last year. Purchase originations were ...
Exit Position

Position Your Deal for Best Exit

And we’ve made it! This is the last installment of our special multi-part video mini-series sharing the steps that will help you dominate your deals. To recap, previously we covered your investment personality, exit strategy, how to find deals in your market & how to evaluate them and also how ...
home office

Renters, Buyers Appreciate In-Home Office Space

| Adam Artunian | Article | Operations
We calculate that 39 percent of people shopping for a new home work from home at least one day per week. Almost 25 percent of those homebuyers born in the 1960s and 1970s work at home at least three days per week. This shift in work and home life has ...
Real estate investor conference

5 Reasons to Attend a Real Estate Investor Conference

| Erica Hackmyer | Article | Operations
Sometimes the best thing for real estate investors to do is attend conferences. There are numerous conferences held across the country. You can meet with fellow investors, learn valuable insight from industry experts and expand your network of vendors and lenders. And get useful resources to help you grow your ...
values

3 “Values” of Real Estate Investors

Though we are most familiar with the concept of value as a number, it is so much more than that. Today we are going to focus on 3 measures of value in real estate investing. There are many other forms of value than just a numerical one that are present ...
What's Your Number?

What’s Your Number?

How much time do you spend on planning a vacation versus planning your financial future? This was a question asked to me years ago, and it hit home. Now, when I ask it of others, it hits them the same way it hit me. We spend months planning a vacation, ...
7 Ways Landlords Could Benefit from a Trump Administration

7 Ways Landlords Could Benefit from a Trump Administration

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 2017, with plans to fully “shake things up” on Capitol Hill. Whether he can pull that off remains to be seen. No one really knows what the future holds, but we do have ...
Scaling the Wall of Maturities

Scaling the Wall of Maturities

A significant portion of outstanding commercial and multifamily mortgages held by CMBS-backed lenders were to mature in 2016-17—an upcoming “wall of maturities.” Online marketplace lenders have a place in sorting out these pre-Recession commercial loans. After-Effects of the Great Recession A huge number of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) conduit loans ...
Happy Thanksgiving

5 Things We’re Thankful for in Today’s Real Estate Market

When William Arthur Ward wrote that “gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings…and change ordinary opportunities into blessings,” it is a near certainty that he did not have the 2016 housing market in mind. However, as a self-described “Christian optimist,” there is little doubt that were he still opining in ...