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.
In 10 short years, from 2005 to 2015, the number of people turning 65 each year exploded from 2.2 million to 3.5 million. Many of these older Americans are increasingly choosing to rent. With this surge of older renters, developers are building age-restricted or so-called “active-adult lifestyle” apartments. These apartment ...
Getting a loan doesn’t have to be a difficult process, according to Ron Blum, founder of Atlas Capital and Asset Management. In fact, building a portfolio doesn’t have to be complicated, either. Atlas offers quality properties in blue-collar neighborhoods; internal underwriting of fixed-rate, 30-year loans; and property management service—all under ...
The Term Sheet is often used in a real estate transaction as a preliminary document that is incidental but not integral to the ultimate transaction because it is usually defined as “non-binding,” “confidential,” “preliminary” and/or “expiring.” But that should not lull either party in the transaction—property buyer or property seller—into ...
Closing the Gap with Mezzanine Financing
Mezzanine finance is a bit like it sounds—the semi-floor, halfway up the stairs, that in department stores like Fields and Macy’s was used for just about everything in between the women’s and men’s displays on the first and second floors. In real estate finance and the “capital stack,” the first ...
When crunching the data for our Q3 2016 Single-Family Rental Market Report, ATTOM Data Solutions identified five sets of local markets representing different types of opportunity in the single-family rental space based on investor preferences and appetite for risk. Let’s look at each of those in some detail. Low Vacancy ...
When Marco Santarelli, founder of Norada Real Estate Investments, bought his first property at the age of 18, his gut told him the transaction held the key to his eventual financial freedom. What he did not realize at the time was just how many other investors would find financial freedom ...
In May 2016, San Diego, California, was the “eighth-hottest” home market in the United States according to Realtor.com. That had the media, analysts and even some economists starting to whisper the word “bubble.” At that time, Think Realty Magazine took a hard look at the San Diego housing market (“San ...
It seems like a week doesn’t go by without a company announcing it experienced a cyber attack, often with dire consequences for its bottom line and stock price. The security company Symantec reports that more than 500 million personal records were lost or stolen in 2015. And while small- to ...
Without question, the real estate business has a positive impact on communities in very visible ways. Houses are repaired and brought up to code to sell. Historic buildings are restored as trendy condos. And retail centers are revitalized. Believing their impact can be even greater, some leaders choose to extend ...
When Matt Rodak, CEO and founder of Fund That Flip Inc., funded his first deal in January 2015, he was already confident he had a winning real estate combination on his hands. So confident, in fact, that he quit his high-paying corporate job running sales for a billion-dollar insurance company ...
5 Housing Markets Set for 2017 Population Surge
When populations surge in size, housing prices and transaction volumes tend to follow. For that reason, many savvy real estate investors closely follow timely Census data released about population movements on an annual basis (not the data collected and released every few years). This December, the U.S. Census Bureau released ...
Make Sure Staging Reflects Reality
Virtual staging is becoming more and more popular as sellers leverage a variety of software and photoshopping options to make their homes look their very best. Not surprisingly, virtual staging has also led to some pretty nasty disputes when reality and virtual reality don’t entirely match up after closing. However, ...
Home Affordability Drops to 8-Year Low
The Home Affordability Index, which shows national affordability of housing, shares that Q4 2016 was at its lowest level since Q4 2008. The report, issued by ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of Realty Trac, shows that 29 percent of the U.S. county housing markets were less affordable than their historic ...
Will Trump’s Immigration Policy Lead to Another Foreclosure Crisis?
It’s no secret that President-elect Donald Trump made a lot of promises on the campaign trail and was pretty controversial while he did it. One of the biggest things that he promised voters was that he would take a hard stance on immigration policy; specifically, that he would start deporting ...
Google lawsuit has implications for real estate investors
A challenge to strict Google personnel policy bears watching by real estate investors and others who also often find themselves subject to non-compete, non-disclosure rules. However the court fight plays out, there are lessons to be learned. A Google product manager has brought suit against the search giant, saying that ...
Will Fed Rate Hike Crash the Market Again?
The Federal Reserve finally raised rates for the first time this year at its December meeting and suggested there could be three more rate hikes next year. There are varied opinions about what this could mean for real estate, so let’s tackle it! After threatening to do so for several ...
New Year Book Choices for Real Estate Investors
At Think Realty, we love to share knowledge. Listed below are our team's book choices for you, the real estate investor and is a terrific way to start the New Year. These books are perfect for the experienced investor, a new investor or simply a curious want-to-be investor. Some are even available on Kindle! ...
3 Ways to Stand Out from the Crowd
How will you be remembered as a real estate investor? Or more specifically, what is going to set you apart from the crowd of real estate investors in the eyes of a distressed homeowner seeking a buyer for that property? It’s a measure of your success that allows you to ...
2016 Book Choices for the REI in Your Life
Are you finished with your holiday shopping? Do you have a real estate investor to shop for? Maybe there is a new or soon-to-be new real estate investor in your life and you are puzzled about what kind of gift to give them. Well, here at Think Realty we always ...
A New (Female) Buying Power in Real Estate
Women are, once again, changing the face of the housing market, and they’re not waiting for spouses, partners, or anyone else to do so. The buying force represented by single women in real estate is rising and, over the past three decades, the number of “single-female” transactions has risen from ...
Is Villainous ARM Making a Second Grab?
With mortgage rates rising, more and more homebuyers are considering something that most probably thought out of the question: taking on an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) in order to make a home sooner than they otherwise could. ARMs (and the lenders who originated them) received a large portion of the blame ...
Longer Closing Times Could be the ‘New Normal’
It looks like “hurry up and wait” could be the new normal for real estate investors and traditional home-buyers who are eager to close on their new properties. According to recently published information from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the average time-to-close this year was nearly four days longer ...
Total U.S. properties with foreclosure filings had a noticeable decrease of 18 percent in November, per a report from ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of Realty Trac. The total 86,561 foreclosure filings in November was down 18 percent from the previous month and down 17 percent from one year ago ...
Non-Yahoo Users at Risk from Massive Hack
If you have ever, for any reason, had a Yahoo email account or used the search engine in any sort of personalized way, then the odds are pretty good that at least a little bit of your personal information is now floating around out there in the ether waiting for ...
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 ...
