Author: Alex Anderson

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad book series, has said more than once that you don’t have to have money to make money. In “Cash Flow Quadrant” however, he reveals how much money he paid for his first investment condo. What if you want to buy a condo but you don’t have a few thousand spare dollars lying around to make it happen?

You can still make your purchase. The trick is, you just have to think about things a little bit differently.

If you have not seen the movie “Schindler’s List,” you probably should. Not only is it a great bit of social consciousness, its writers did a good enough job on Schindler’s character to give you a glimpse into his business know-how. The man wanted to build a factory because he knew it could make him a lot of money during the war. Thing was, he didn’t have the capital to build that factory.

But the Jewish community did.

He went to them and presented his idea about how, in return for their investment capital, they could take some of the goods produced and sell them on the black market. He talked to a lot of investors. He raised a lot of money.

You can do the same thing, and indeed a lot of people do. If you see a good deal on a building and you haven’t the spare millions lying around to purchase it, put together a cooperative to buy the property. Even if you receive only 10 percent of the property’s earnings, that will be a nice, tidy sum if it’s the right property.

That is why you shouldn’t content yourself with starting too small.

According to Ken McElroy, who authored Rich Dad’s “The ABC’s of Real Estate Investing,” there is nothing wrong with small bits of real estate. He simply says that there is no reason to relegate yourself to them out of fear that you don’t have the skills to go larger, because it doesn’t really require more skills. You wind up outsourcing a lot anyway.

What a larger chunk of real estate will do, however, is allow you to interest more investors, as they stand to make more money off the deal. A larger piece of real estate will also be very unlikely to slump into zero occupancy.

As McElroy says, if you rent out a single-family unit and that family moves out, you have an occupancy rate of zero, and the property becomes a liability until you can rent it again. If you own interest in a 50-family building and 10 families move out, you still have an occupancy rate of 80 percent. The property is still an asset. You’re still making money. And you know you stand to make more again when you get those 10 units refilled.

All of that doesn’t even begin to take into account the relative ease of getting a bank loan for the purpose of purchasing an investment property. The bank knows they can make money off that property if you default, regardless of your credit history.

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Author: Brad Wozny

Real estate investments do not make you a millionaire overnight. It takes time and hard work to learn the ropes. Land is a scare commodity and is bound to get even more scarce as more and more people buy properties. There is always money to be made, from real estate investments.

Planning the real investment is essential. Most people buying real estate, first buy the property and then think, as to what to do with it. There is no gain in such deals. So it is best to plan your needs and act accordingly. Draw up a plan; find an investment to match that plan and then buy. Take note that real estate investing is all about investing in the right property at the right time for the right price.

Real estate investing is not about getting rich overnight. It works out profitable in the long run provided you understand the nuances of the business. Time, patience and hard work are the three pillars you need for real estate investing.

Real estate investing involves a lot of people, starting first from your real estate agent. You also need the services of a home appraiser and inspector to get clearance for the investment you are going to make. You also need the services of a lawyer and finally a person who is going to finance your real estate investments. These are the people whom you need when you are going to buy property. You will also need cooperation from people like electricians, painters and plumbers when you renovate houses. Maintaining a good relationship with these people is essential for your business to run smoothly.

One reason as to why people do not make much from real estate investing, is that they pay more than the market value for properties. This mostly happen when you do not make a market survey or not enough of research is done before buying the property. Take time to study the market, do extensive research and then only take the decision otherwise the real estate investment is not a viable proposition at all.

Before entering into a contract, make sure to read the fine print. Most people do not take care to read and understand contracts, being in a hurry to close the deal. ‘Pay now, repent later!’ Loopholes in contracts will stay undetected if care is not taken to read the contract thoroughly before putting your signature to it.

Take care to examine the property you are planning to buy otherwise you may land up parting with a fortune for refurbishment and also not have buyers for the property. Take care to research on the investment.

When you buy property to rent out, the income you receive from rentals should be able to cover your recurring expenditure, your mortgage payments as well as your own personal expenses. If this does not happen, then the investment is a failure. The asset can turn into a liability before you know it. Real estate investing is an on-going process and does not stop with just one deal. You need to be continuously having deals to make it a profitable business.

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Author: Gagandeep Dhaliwal

Commercial Real Estate refers to the property that has potential to generate extra income for the owner of real estate. Commercial real estate generally includes office buildings, retail properties, apartment units, condos and raw land. Every property that can produce revenue for the owner is known as commercial real estate. It doesn’t include habitable real estate like houses or apartment buildings.

In 21st century, large number of people is generating income with commercial real estate. Commercial real estate business is based on certain principles. These principles are generally same for property owner, developer as well as for commercial real estate agent. Commercial real estate agent helps you to identify the best features of commercial real estate agent. Real estate agent enables you to make a finest deal of commercial real estate. Commercial estate agent is helpful to both buyers as well as tenants.

You should choose best commercial real estate as per your requirements. Choose your property at best location that has great future. Commercial real estate at good location will offer more benefits in the coming days. You’ve to choose finest piece of land that you can use efficiently. You may select commercial real estate nearby high traffic areas that can be easily used for full-service restaurants, hotels, stores or other shopping malls.

Investment in commercial real estate business is the best way to get more revenues. Always keep in mind that a right time investment is the best opportunity to earn more profits. You should consult financial advisors that will provide help to find the best commercial real estate. Investment in commercial real estate is good for large as well as small-scale businessmen.

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Author: Joel Teo

Unequivocally, the real estate market does not have a set trend that it would follow without a glitch. There are slumps and then there are ascents. If all you hope for is to make money via appreciation of your asset, then you probably need to open your eyes to a plethora of other avenues that real estate offers for bagging significant profits. Peruse this primer on how to make money in real estate investing, in order to know about a few of such avenues.

The perceptive investor isn’t solely dependent on asset appreciation to make money. Here are a few other ways that you can make money in real estate investing:-

Positive cash flow from a credible tenant – The rent typically covers the mortgage payment, insurance, taxes, etc. Having paid all that, the amount remaining is your income for the month. A discreet investor would normally have money in reserve, in order to cover the mortgage expense when the property is vacant.

Fixer-upper – This is probably the most favored and the most lucrative form of real estate investment. For instance, you could purchase a property for $70,000 and spruce it up by putting in another $30,000. And then the renovated property could well be worth $170,000 – a high yielding investment technique, isn’t it?

Buying at a wholesale rate – When you purchase a property well below market price, you effectively set the stage for a huge gain when you eventually sell it. Such properties can be bagged at either the pre-foreclosure or foreclosure stage. Since the homeowner is financially distressed, the investor has a great chance of purchasing the property for a bargain price.

Tax deductions save an awful lot of money – As the saying goes, money saved is money earned. Since real estate investment offers a host of tax benefits, the investor has access to increased equity.

Amortization results in equity growth – Say you purchase a property with only 20% down payment and the rest being mortgage finance. Then you find a tenant who provides you monthly rent, which can be used to pay off the debt. As the mortgage debt shrinks, the equity increases. Once the debt is fully paid off, the investor holds 100% equity in the property.

Rent appreciation – This is another excellent way to make money in real estate investing. As the cost of living increases, so should the rent of properties owned by you. Even a petty increase in the monthly rent provides greater cash flow on an annual basis.

Discreet management of assets – You must manage your assets diligently. If you don’t heed to your tenant’s complaints about a recurring problem, your tenant might very well leave the house. And with them would go the chance of positive cash flow. A vacant property simply eats away funds, which are needed for its upkeep. Therefore, proper asset management is crucial.

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Author: Stephen Campbell

Real estate includes landed property and such other possessions that are permanently and immovably attached to land like buildings. Investment is the process of purchasing assets in order to make profits by either selling these assets at a later date or by deriving other benefits like rent or dividend from the possession of these assets.

Therefore real estate investments involve acquisition (unlike other economic or financial investments, real-estate is purchased), holding and sale of rights in real property with the expectation of using cash outflows for the potential of future cash inflows, and hence, generating a favorable rate of return on that investment.

Benefits and Scope of Real Estate Investment

In contrast to stock investments, which requires more actual investment of assets from the investor, heavy leverage is possible in a real estate investments. That is to say a real estate investor can use other people’s money to amplify his rate of return and control a much larger investment than would be possible in stock and other types of investment. There are also other advantages of investing in real-estate.

Returns on investment in real estate include cash flows after paying annual tax, equity build up through increase in the value of the asset and cash flow after sale of real-estate after tax on the sale is paid. Some other non monetary and intangible benefits are also associated with investing in real-estate. For example pride of ownership, the security that the investor controls ownership and diversifying the investment process are some of the benefits of this type.

Real estate investment in productive during phases of urbanization, which more often than not is the result of industrialization. What happens in that the introduction of industries created the requirement for manpower, which triggers a wave of migration from rural areas and low tier towns. Naturally these people will require housing and the demand for houses fuels a demand for land, which in turn pushes land prices northwards. This is what is happening presently in many countries across the globe- India, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Poland, The Baltic States, Brazil-to name a few.

In most of these countries the aforementioned trend has been found to hold true. There are no hard and fast rules on how a person can become a successful real-estate investor. The first and foremost requirement is that of having a good feel of which way the wind is blowing. That is to say that the person should know which areas are likely to experience a land boom. This knowledge can be acquired by being in touch with real-estate professionals or even with policy makers, who know where a particular investment will materialize. Then he should have the appropriate skills to raise adequate financial resources for the purchases. Once this is done the person should have the insight as to when the sale or the lease has to be made. This would give him the best deal.

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Author: Joel Teo

Most people spend their time wondering when the real estate market is good to enter and purchase real estate based on some friend’s recommendations. Others are more emotional and buy real estate on their whim and fancy. Such ideas may work sometimes but are not very reliable indicators on when to enter and exit the real estate market. Thus this article highlights a 2 step process to analyze your real estate investments.

Firstly, in real estate investing, just like in the stock market, there is readily available public data, which you can chart to determine if the real estate boom or bust is bottoming out. Like in any investment, try to purchase the instrument at the bottom of a cycle so that you gain on the rebound. Similarly take the rental yield cycle into consideration when you do your maths to determine whether the property is worth acquiring since you want to ensure that you have enough monthly rental to cover your mortgage installments even in the leanest of rental periods.

The best way to analyze this real estate investment analysis is to look at charts and data with regards to the relevant data. You can find a list of real estate related data sources at my site at http://www.realestateinvestment101.info/Statistical_Data.html. You want to look and examine in which part of the real estate cycle, your prospective real estate property lies in and how the rentals are doing in your potential real estate investment. Thus after this analysis, you will know where the pricing of your real estate investment is heading and plan accordingly.

Secondly, after analyzing statistical data, go down to a real estate agents office and talk to them and ask them about their outlook for the real estate investment sector that you are interested in investing in and ask them for indicators of good rental yield in terms of location and whether any events or developments would help to increase rental yields in an area. If for instance they know that a new business district is slated for development next to your prospective purchase, you want to know that too as it would mean a huge jump in price of acquisition and rental yields and a huge gain in your real estate investment.

Always spend some time planning what information you want to get out of the real estate agent before you go down and always know what type of real estate investment property so that you can save his and your time when you view properties. After a while you will get a rough sense of the property prices in an area and when you see a bargain property investment you will know it’s the right one for you.

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Author: Jacques Coquerel..

Now that you are finally convinced that your future is bright when you invest in real estate, your next problem is how you can join when you have a struggling credit rating and an ailing bank account. But you really want to try your hands on investing even in a single property. Like the saying goes if there’s a will there’s a way, you just have to peel your eyes for opportunities.

Before we delve further into the topic, you need to know that there are three kinds of resources you need to enter real estate investing. These are, of course, money, people references, and your entrepreneurial ability. Now the second and the third essential are relatively easier to accomplish so let’s discuss these two first.

The people, the right people! Your real estate investing career is much easier accomplished when you have the right people to help you. Especially if you’re new to this income-earning strategy, you need the right people to show you around. There’s a lot you need to learn from choosing properties, making deals, rehabilitation and the like, and of course, you also need to learn your different exit strategy.

When you surround yourself with the right people in the business, you’ll learn the things that you need soon. But choose the people you associate in real estate investing wisely to avoid those who’s only after of your money. There are a lot around in this industry. But it’s good to know that by just attending mastermind groups and real estate conventions, you can meet people that are ready to help you with good intentions.

To keep your real estate investing business floating and growing, you need your business skills to be dynamic that can keep up with the changing times. Because real estate investing is a business, your business skills are what determine the future of your investing. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t join real estate if you don’t have business skills to begin with because you can learn them; especially if you start doing the actual investing.

The issue on the importance of money when you enter real estate investing, however, is the most controversial. People say you need money to make more money. Is this famous tag line also true in real estate investing? Let’s clear the matters about this issue once and for all.

Yes indeed, in real estate, you need money to make more money. But, it doesn’t have to be your own money. There’s a lot of leeway for you to be creative in finding a way to fund your investing business. You can use leverage to acquire your first property. Leverage is when you use a small amount of your money and borrow the rest from somebody else.

In fact, the lesser of your own money you spent on investing, the higher your Return On Investment is going to be. Leveraging works by putting your own small amount of money to be match by a larger amount usually by a mortgage lender. Now you’re given a chance to own a property that is out of your budget’s reach before and a chance to double your possible profit.

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Author: Jamel Gibbs

Taking your real estate business to the next level is not as hard as it may seem. Actually, it is quite simple. In order to really move your business to new heights there are a couple of things you need to do. In this article I will briefly explain how to take your real estate business into orbit.

Outsourcing: If you ask me, the only way to take your business to the next level is to outsource your business. Outsourcing is hiring people or companies to take care of certain parts of your business for you. A lot of real estate investors are control freaks over their business and that is a big mistake. They think that they can do everything on their own. To be honest, no one can do everything on their own. In order for you to break new barriers in your real estate business you must hire people to help you.

Phone Services: One way that you can outsource is to hire call answering services. Most services like these will screen all of your calls and you can even give them a script. Once they have screened your calls they will email you. At that point you can pick and choose who you want to call back. If the deal is good, you can tell the answering company to put urgent in the email subject heading.

Direct Mail Services: Another way to outsource your business is to hire a direct mailing company. Make sure you research companies that specialize in the type of leads you need. Most direct mailing companies will automatically advertise for you on a monthly basis according to your budget. This is an easy way to stop procrastination when it comes to spending advertising dollars. This is also a good way to save time with putting labels on post cards and other forms of mail.

Other: You don’t always need to hire a company to outsource your business. You can hire people to do certain things for you that you cannot do on your own, or just don’t have enough time in the day for. College students are great for doing paperwork for you. They are also good for running errands and things of that nature. You can hire people and teach them how to do things the way you want it to be done. If they can do it half as good as you and you hire 2 or 3 people to do the same thing, then your doing good.

Hiring people and companies is definitely the way to go if you want to hit that next level in your real estate investment business. When your budget is right you should consider doing so. Think about it, if you’re worth $200 an hour, why would you be doing a job worth $10 an hour. Hire someone to do that job for you. When you do this you can focus on what your good at which is bringing in more business.

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Author: James Orr

Sometimes investors ask me if they should invest outside of their local markets. I personally own property in three different states, but I don’t necessarily recommend this for everyone. For those in markets where positive cash flow is nearly impossible to achieve - like California - I strongly encourage investigating new markets that are friendlier to investors. On the other hand, investing out of state can present some significant challenges.

You can overcome most challenges if you choose your market wisely and have realistic expectations about the time that it will take to build a strong team there.

My basic criteria for picking a new market to invest in are as follows. First, look at the economics. The market has to be capable of providing rental properties that cash flow. Also, you want to acquire properties that will appreciate over time. Find out what the long-term trend has been: slow and steady growth (3-4%) over the past twenty years is preferable to rapid growth (10-15%) in the past five years.

Second, take stock of what resources you already have available to you in your chosen market. Do you have family or friends that could help you in a pinch or that could recommend a great real estate agent to get you started?

Third, is this a place that you would like to visit anyway? While it is possible to purchase and manage properties remotely, your chances for long-term success are much greater if you are willing to put in the time necessary to get to know the market first hand. Also, meeting and building relationships with your “dream team” will flow more smoothly if you put in some face time with these very important people.

Perhaps the most important factor to successful investing in a non-local market is having a knowledgeable, investor-oriented real estate agent. A good real estate will do far more for you than simply point out which houses would be good additions to your investment portfolio. They will put you into contact with all the other professionals that you need: mortgage brokers, title companies, maintenance/repairmen, and property managers. The last of these being perhaps the most crucial to long-term success - without a reliable property manager, it is extremely difficult to deal with the regular tenant and maintenance issues of rental properties.

Overall, I do recommend investing in non-local markets. But the investor must be ready to put in the time necessary to find the right market and to grow a strong team there.

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Author: Heather Sei Tz

If you think that because the residential real estate economy has gone bust that there is no way to make money in this market right now, think again. There are thousands of upscale neighborhoods across the United States in which new construction of homes was halted because of the collapse of the real estate market. Most of the homes that were under construction had been purchased by real estate investors who hoped to flip the home upon completion to a new buyer and make a sizable profit.

When it became apparent that the majority of people who were commissioning new construction homes to be built were investors and there were not a lot of buyers, the entire market crashed. Investors lost money and many developers went out of business. They had a lot more homes in their new subdivision for sale than there were buyers. On top of that, they owed banks money for financing the subdivision. Pretty soon, banks took over these areas, which are located throughout the United States and particularly in Florida, California and Nevada. These areas were booming in the 1990s and then crashed.

There are many homes in these upscale neighborhoods that are in the process of construction. When the builder went bankrupt, the construction was halted. Banks took over but have no interest in getting these properties constructed. They are simply looking to get their money back.

If you know about new construction or are in the trades, you can buy one of these partially constructed homes for a fraction of their cost and finish the construction yourself. You have to be careful, though, that you understand what you are getting into.

You will have to know about building codes and make sure that the home is completed in accordance with the codes. In addition, you should also be aware that some municipalities have ordinances that require that construction be completed within a specified amount of time. If the house has not met that specification, there may be fines associated with the property. A title search will allow you to discover if there are any fines that have been levied against the property from the municipality for non completion of construction.

In addition to doing as much of the work on your own, you can also find labor relatively inexpensively throughout the United States. The trades were hit hard during this recession and there are many people who are experienced in all aspects of home building that are out of work. Many small trade companies have even gone out of business. You can find cheap labor to help you finish the construction of your house.

Buying new construction is usually a way to make money in real estate during any type of market. But even in this recession, you can buy partially constructed homes, finish them and then get ready to sell. Although you may make a small profit selling the home after construction is completed, you can make an even larger profit if you look for the long term investment and wait until the market turns around.

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