Knowledgebase
All of Think Realty's extensive content archive is at your fingertips. Filter by media type and keyword to hone in on exactly what you need.
Knowledgebase
All of Think Realty's extensive content archive is at your fingertips. Filter by media type and keyword to hone in on exactly what you need.
California Passes “Solar Mandate” on New Construction
Yesterday, California’s Energy Commission voted to require solar panel installations on nearly all new homes by January 1, 2020. Not surprisingly, solar shares surged upward in the wake of the vote while homebuilder shares fell, since the move will add somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000 to construction costs. However, noted ...
The Promise and Pitfalls of Accessory Dwelling Units as an Affordable Housing Panacea
Apaucity of affordable housing that threatens to inflame a burgeoning homelessness crisis and trigger an exodus of well-paying jobs is forcing local governments to consider creative solutions to this intractable problem. One such solution is to streamline the development of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in the hopes that real estate ...
The Rise of Infill Development
The need for development is on the rise. Whether it’s in the form of a need for more housing, more commercial space, or more retail space, there is always a need for more development. The question has always been, “Where is it best to develop?” A common phenomenon we are ...
3 Steps to Effective Investing Strategies in a Widening Market
Over the years, our real estate company has found there are three major, universal decisions every investor must face (and make) before pulling the trigger on an investment: picking a property type, choosing a strategy, and selecting a market. Navigating that process has always been crucial to getting good returns, ...
The Future is Now for Artificial Intelligence in Real Estate
From Hollywood to Wall Street, the term artificial intelligence (AI) is an agenda item. Everyone wants at least one peek into how AI will impact their business or industry. It probably comes as no surprise, then, that the giant data company Salesforce is been dedicated to the advancement of AI, ...
Los Angeles and Atlanta Top “Most Popular Neighborhood” Lists
Zillow recently announced its 20 “most popular neighborhoods” results, and Los Angeles, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, are home to the first- and second-place results. Presidio Heights, located in San Francisco, rounded out the top three. Zillow identified neighborhoods with the highest number of page views per listing during the first ...
Hawaiian Volcano Continues Destruction in Big Island Residential Areas
When Kilauea Volcano, a volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, erupted last week, the flow of molten lava represented a huge danger to the inhabitants of the island, several thousand of whom lived in areas directly in the path of the lava. For example, in Leilani Estates, a subdivision that has ...
FHA Borrowers Can Now Access Solar Panel Installation Loans
More and more homeowners are expressing the desire to install solar panels in their homes, and an increasing number of lenders are working hard to help them obtain the funding to do so. One lender, Guild Mortgage, recently announced it would assist homeowners using FHA loans to purchase their properties ...
Renovation Rockstar: New Orleans Edition
New Orleans-area investors Braden Smith and Chris Leniek are not afraid of much of anything in their unique real estate market, so taking on a two-bedroom/one-bath home in need of a near-total remodel was pretty much par for the course. “We buy run-down properties, fix them up, then sell them,” ...
Renovation Rockstar: First-Time Townhouse Success
When Jason Lipsitz and his business partner, Lee Fondiller, co-owners of South Hill Homes, got a first glance at their very first fix-and-flip deal, they realized that they were in for some serious work. Fortunately, that work came with some pretty serious returns, as well. “We got the lead from ...
Freddie Mac Offering Affordability Incentives to Multifamily Owners
Freddie Mac will offer low-cost loans to owners of multifamily properties who keep their buildings affordable to households earning 80 percent or less of an area’s median income for the duration of the loan. “Freddie Mac is the country’s largest backer of apartment loans,” observed Wall Street Journal writer Laura ...
A New Luxury Trend Strips Down Properties Before Showing
Although most homeowners do not want to start “from scratch” when they move into a home, certain high-end buyers like nothing better, and high-end sellers are accommodating that desire by employing a practice known as “white-boxing” to make their homes a blank canvas for the next buyer. White-boxing involves stripping ...
Regional Spotlight: New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA), is anything but simple. From its 73 “official” neighborhoods that some locals claim do not really exist to its storied history replete with pirates, natural disasters, and one of the country’s first “skyscrapers” (erected in 1807), the city is a beautiful and confusing cultural and architectural ...
A New Room Takes Top Place in Remodeling
A new survey from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) indicates remodeling the bathroom is more important to homeowners than remodeling the kitchen, although both rooms dominate other remodeling projects. The survey, which asked respondents about their remodeling projects in 2017 and what types of changes they made, indicated ...
Building Community in Real Estate
It is not uncommon to hear real estate investors refer to their businesses as “supporting the community.” This statement is highly accurate, given that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) estimates that there are nearly 28 million small businesses in the country and, of that 28 million, roughly 10 percent ...
Investor Spotlight: Mark Filler of Apex National Real Estate
Mark Filler, founder and CEO of Apex National Real Estate, has already hit some pretty big milestones in his career. After 20 years in the mortgage business and founding (then selling) multiple national companies, the Harvard law school grad and business partner Chris Shaxted, who has 25,000 new construction homes ...
Kevin Ortner, the CEO of Renters Warehouse, is in a unique position to “think big” about rental real estate. After all, his company spearheads one of the most effective, influential outreach programs in the history of the industry via their far-reaching radio presence and Ortner’s own book, Rent Estate Revolution™ ...
3 Bathroom Trends Evolving in 2018
Meet the Expert: Katrina Rice is a professional kitchen and bath designer with 84 Lumber’s Kitchen & Bath Design Studio in Eighty Four, Pennsylvania. 84 Lumber’s Kitchen & Bath Design Studios exist in more than 30 of 84 Lumber’s 250 stores nationwide and are staffed by experienced professionals. She is ...
D.C. Congressmen Sleeping on Cots, Can’t Afford Housing
According to a report from the New York Post, some lawmakers are sleeping on cots in their offices in order to save money on renting a D.C. apartment during the times of the year Congress is in session. One representative told the Post, “Washington is too expensive.” He added, “If ...
DocuSign Value Soars After Initial Public Offering
E-signature company DocuSign, which led the charge into digital real estate closings, went public last week. All signs indicate that the company will continue to gain value as more and more real estate professionals realize the value of a digital closing. The company started the initial public offering (IPO) with ...
3 Red Flags Your Tenant Screening Process is Flawed
Determining if your tenant screening provider has quality criminal and eviction data is essential if you want to maintain a standard of accepting quality applicants. With faulty or subpar data, you leave your property open to potential threats, which can include lost revenue, extensive damages, lawsuits, and fines. To discern ...
How to Effectively Leverage Business Diversity in Your Real Estate Business
Trailblazers, innovators, and disruptors shape today’s new entrepreneurial normal, and nowhere is that truer than in the housing industry. Today’s successful companies stand out for their ingenuity, uniqueness, complexity and supercharged pace of technological change. Staying at the forefront of change requires extraordinary understanding and agility. Hiring for conventional skills ...
Creating Your Content Marketing Plan
Your real estate business can benefit from content marketing in several ways. You can generate leads for deals and for buyers for those deals. You can build your brand and reputation in your specific industry sector. Furthermore, effective content marketing helps you establish that all-important network of valuable contacts and ...
Doctors Could be the Key to Your Next Commercial Investment
Doctors and medical experts have always tended to be in real estate as well as medicine. They often own the buildings that house their practices and, once they get a taste of the joys of real estate ownership, start expanding their portfolios with both commercial and residential properties. Recently, I’ve ...
Progress Report: The Evolution of the Build-to-Rent Industry
Lately, the hottest topic in real estate investing is “building-to-rent.” Before the housing crash, very few investors would have considered this strategy because everyone wanted to own their own home and lenient mortgage lending requirements made that a very real possibility for most people. Today, however, thanks to the combination ...
