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.

mortgage

Mortgage Industry’s Bad News, Good News for Investors

When LoanLogic’s senior vice president of industry relations and consulting, Les Parker, starts blogging about volatility, it pays off for real estate investors to listen. “This year is shaping up as a year of volatility,” he observed, going on to predict that loan originations would plunge “as interest rates rise ...
ponzi

A Ponzi Scheme, the SEC and a Real Estate Developer

What housingwire.com calls a “Mini-Madoff,” Robert Shapiro, luxury real estate developer of the WoodBridge Group of Companies, created a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, pilfering more than 8,400 investors. A minimum of 2,800 of those investors used their IRAs personal retirement accounts for the investment. Shapiro resigned from his position shortly ...
time-suck

The Time-Suck to Avoid at All Costs

No, it’s not Facebook. This time-suck is not even that two-hour lunch meeting or the team conferences that seem to invariably run over their designated 30, 60, or 90 minutes. It’s something far more insidious that is eating up your workday and decimating your productivity: the “gotta minute?” meeting. In ...
hq2

WSJ Stacks up HQ2 Cities with Some Disappointments

Last month, Amazon released its “short list” of 20 cities still in the running to host the web behemoth’s second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, which many analysts predict will revolutionize the winner’s local economy and turn an already thriving economy into a super-engine for growth. While all of the cities on ...
las vegas

Las Vegas Lagging Behind in Home Appreciation

When Black Knight, Inc., released its most recent Home Price Index (HPI) Report, analysts immediately noted that 12 of the 40 largest U.S. metros hit new highs in home values by the end of 2017. That list included Boston, Massachusetts; Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dallas, Texas. Notably, it did not ...
private

Expert Warning: Private Lending Social Media Scam

LinkedIn is arguably the most “professional” of social media platforms and, as a result, many real estate investors doing due diligence look to the website to find out as much as possible about potential private lenders and investment partners before they team up. However, even LinkedIn has its weak points, ...
mistake

“The Worst Mistake Ever” Revealed to Texas Agent

Julie Ziglar Norman, a real estate agent with Dallas-based Prime Properties Realty and vice president of business development at Ziglar Inc., has seen a lot of things. The worst mistake she’s ever seen in real estate, however, nearly defies explanation. “I think the worst mistake I ever saw an investor ...
rising

Rising Rents, Stagnant Wages, & the Burden of Unstable Housing

| Zillow | Article | Single Family
While homelessness may not be viewed as a looming issue on the horizon for those who are financially stable, or otherwise have secure and stable housing—it’s not as distant as some might think. With rents rising faster than wages, the burden of affording rent is looming larger and larger for ...
productivity

3 Ways to Maximize Your Team’s Productivity

It is hard to argue with the idea that the key to success in any business, including real estate investing, is getting the right people in the right seats. Best-selling authors from Jim Collins to Gino Wickman teach this in business books. Posters with expressions like “Teamwork Makes the Dream ...
retirement

3 Actions to Start Self-Directing Your Retirement

“Most financial advisors will tell you that you simply cannot have a better lifestyle in retirement than you did while you were working full time. Most financial advisors are wrong.” So begins Edwin Kelly’s 60-minute training on exactly how real estate investors should begin self-directing their retirement. Kelly, CEO of ...
7 Basic Truths About Building Wealth

7 Basic Truths About Building Wealth

| 10 pages | 2201 words | 10 minute read | Excerpt Let’s start with these 7 Basic Truths about Wealth Building: This basic truths document is designed to get you thinking, in the right direction, about building or enhancing your wealth. These 7 basic truths are principles that once ...
jack

Don’t be a Jack or Jill of All Trades

What’s it like to be a jack of all trades? I wouldn’t know, and you shouldn’t either. Often as entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners, we feel like we need to do it all: be everything to everyone, a jack of all trades, if you will. We believe that if ...
lender

Lender Reveals Biggest Investor Challenge

When Jon Shipley, a Senior Vice President at Longhorn Investments, thinks about horror stories, he doesn’t think about ghouls and gore. Instead, he thinks about the poor decisions real estate investors make when choosing their contractors. “Making the wrong choice in a contractor can completely change the outcome of any ...
time

Free Yourself: Fuse Time, Tenants & Tech

Ask Linda Liberatore, the president of national property management company SecurePayOne, what the most important thing in life is, and she’ll answer without a second thought: time. “Time is our most important resource, our true wealth,” she explained. “You want to learn to take the breath, to step back and ...
kb

KB Homes Debuts Germ-Free Doors

As flu season continues to wreak havoc and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issuing dire predictions about the number of flu-related deaths likely before the outbreak is over, national homebuilder KB Home has decided to keep up with the times by announcing its standard interior door ...
Think Realty Magazine February 2018

Think Realty Magazine February 2018

+ WHAT'S INSIDE Think Realty |  News & Events •Member Benefits Coaches Corner |  Panel in Print • How Food Delivery Could Change Everything About Commercial Real Estate Marketing |  Using Digital Media to Sell Real Estate Cover Feature |  Good Timing Runs in the Family Market Breakdowns |  2018 ...
Executing at the Level of Wow

Executing at the Level of Wow

| 16 pages | 2,152 words | 10 minute read | Excerpt What You’ll Learn about efficient property management and landlord operations: How to integrate technology solutions that cut task times in half The importance of selecting the automated tasks that work best for your business work flow How to ...
influencers

Think Realty’s 2018 Industry Influencers

In every business sector, there are individuals and groups who affect the conversation about their industry in meaningful ways. Some, like Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire who is credited with “removing the mob” from the Las Vegas casino sector, create legacies and legends that far exceed any truth, however grand ...
housing

3 Most and Least Affordable Rental Housing Markets

HomeUnion recently released its annual report on the most and least affordable rental housing markets in the country, and Chicago, Illinois, topped the list. “With its low cost of living, relatively large housing inventory levels, and high affordability, Chicago is an excellent market for residents entering the renting pool,” said HomeUnion’s director ...
norris

The Norris Group: Good Timing Runs in the Family

“The most important thing in the world is timing. I’d have to say that most of the wealth in real estate I have accumulated is because of good timing, and I would have to give credit for that wealth to the fact that I know when to get into a ...
program

Down Payment Program: Employers to Help Employees

A new program from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow borrowers to crowdfund their down payments from multiple sources, including their employers. HomeFundMe was created by mortgage banking firm CMG Financial, and allows employers to contribute directly to employees’ accounts for the express purpose of helping that employee purchase ...
housing

Realtor.com Report: Housing Inventory Ongoing Problem

Late last week, Realtor.com released its “State of the Housing Union,” an annual report published shortly prior to the president’s State of the Union address. The association stated, “The housing market outlook is looking bright on several fronts: strong buyer demand, particularly among first-timers, and a growing U.S. economy urging ...
investing

Investing at its Best

As investors, we look at properties through different eyes than most. We see the flaws and the telltale signs of hard use and neglect, but we also see the potential. We understand the importance of thoughtful discernment. We know from experience that success is in the details and that the ...
hq2

Amazon’s HQ2 Short List Silenced, for Now

The location of Amazon’s second headquarters will benefit in enormous ways from the influx of jobs and development that will come with HQ2 but cities vying for the position will be keeping quiet about what they’re offering while the contest continues. According to CNBC reports last week, Amazon has requested ...
Whole Home Cast Iron Repipe Video with Q&A: Blake Johnson

Whole Home Cast Iron Repipe Video with Q&A: Blake Johnson

Sitting at the Think Realty editorial desk, we were able to walk through a repiping project with Blake Johnson, owner of Fort Worth-based Finishing Touches Remodeling, by watching a video he shared with us. Awestruck at the amount of work, time, and money that goes into a repipe project as extensive ...