Steps to Success in Real Estate – Creating Value for Sellers

Value is an extremely subjective term. The “worth” of something to one person could be nothing, while another might consider that same thing to be very valuable or useful. Our goal when dealing with a property seller would be to … Continue reading

How Much Money do I need to Invest or Lend?

If there’s one question that I hear more than any other, it’s how much money do I need? I’ll attempt to answer that question in this article.  There are several factors that might affect how much you’ll need, or potentially … Continue reading

What is Passive Investing?

Passive investing is a great way to get stable, predictable, and in many cases superior returns on your savings or retirement funds. Passive investing could be any number of things, but for this article I’ll be speaking about passively investing … Continue reading

What is Private Lending?

What is private lending? Private lending is an excellent way to generate an excellent return on money that might otherwise be sitting in a bank account making little to no return. In this article I’ll explain the advantages and disadvantages … Continue reading

Steps to Success in Real Estate Investing – Creating Value for Sellers

The average American probably thinks of a greedy “fat cat” when they envision a capitalist or business person. In reality, the most successful people in business know that their reputation is the most valuable thing they own, and negotiations involve … Continue reading

Steps to Success in Real Estate Investing – Selecting the Correct Property Type

All too often people, including real estate investors, try to oversimplify the real estate investing process. The truth is it’s complicated, but that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult. It’s important to understand the details and the “why” of … Continue reading

Steps to Success in Real Estate Investing – Selecting the Right Market

The old adage of location, location, location still rings true in most areas of real estate. However location isn’t the only thing that matters and it doesn’t necessarily guarantee your success or failure. There are too many factors involved to … Continue reading

Steps to Success in Real Estate Investing – Invest for Cash Flow

If you’ve been researching investing in real estate I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about cash flow. The reason it’s talked about so often is that cash flow is the #1 most important factor in your success. This is a … Continue reading

Steps to Success in Real Estate – Make Money when you Buy

Money money money. It can’t buy happiness, but it can buy real estate, which when done right can help you reduce your stress, and your work hours, and hopefully lead to a better quality of life. That’s the end goal, … Continue reading

Steps to Success in Real Estate: Learn and Take Action

I’ve compiled a list of steps to succeeding in real estate investing. This article is intended to deliver information on what I believe is the first steps in being successful in real estate investment, which are learning and taking action. … Continue reading

6 tips for rental management

6 tips for rental management If you’re managing rental properties here are 6 tips for rental management to help maximize their performance.  Knowing the best practices and utilizing them properly can help make the difference between a successful consistently cash … Continue reading

Should I Buy a Home Warranty for My Rental Property?

On the surface this may sound like a no brainer, because on the surface a home warranty sounds like a GREAT deal. The unfortunate reality is there are huge trade offs to be made on this and you’ll have to … Continue reading

How to Invest in Debt

If you’re like some people, the thought of owning a rent house or apartment complex creates more anxiety than excitement. That is totally understandable. It’s still possible to invest in real estate related investments without the hassle or risks associated … Continue reading

Should I allow pets in my rental property?

As an experienced professional rental property manager I’ve had lengthy discussions with a large portion of my clientele about this very topic. There is no one simple answer to the question, but there are some guidelines and a lot of … Continue reading

What is Rental Property Management and how much does it cost?

Rental property management may not be a familiar term to you, and honestly there’s no clear cut definition of what a property management company is or does. For the purposes of this article I’m speaking about a company that handles … Continue reading

Is there a difference between being a real estate investor and being a landlord?

My Simple Rules for Owning Real Estate

Investing in real estate sounds really complicated, especially because there are so many ways to do it. In this article I’m going to focus on the most straightforward way that most people are familiar with, single family homes. To a … Continue reading

Buy it in cash, or finance it?

I hear it all the time: “I just don’t like debt” or “I want to get these properties paid off as quickly as possible” and honestly, I totally understand.  I had a very similar mindset not that long ago, and … Continue reading

How Much Does It Cost to Invest in Real Estate?

That is another great question.  And like most of the articles I’ve written about real estate there isn’t a simple answer I can give you for it, but I’ll attempt to run down as much information as I can think … Continue reading

How do I evict a tenant?

I’m going to start this off by saying first and foremost evicting a tenant should always be a last resort. The court system is notoriously slow, inefficient, and depending on your location can be anything from inconvenient to really unfair … Continue reading

How do I screen and select a good tenant?

This is a great subject, and I’m glad you’re asking this question, because it’s incredibly important to the overall success of your rental property. Obviously your tenant is the source of a lot of things, some good, and some potentially … Continue reading

INCREASE your ROI by using a Property Manager

I know what you’re thinking, the title sounds ridiculous right?  10 years ago I would have agreed with you that property managers COST money, they don’t make you MORE money!  Since then I’ve learned a lot about rental properties, and … Continue reading

What’s the best way to finance my rental properties?

One of the biggest factors in the return on your investment is the way your properties are financed.  Levered (or financed) properties *almost always* deliver a higher rate of return than unlevered (paid off) properties do.  Here is an illustration … Continue reading

Is it better to use a property manager or manage my properties myself?

I can understand the appeal of managing your rental properties yourself.  After all when I started off I managed all my properties myself, and it was years before I hired a property manager to do it for me.  I’ve experienced … Continue reading

What is the value of a property manager?

A good property manager can significantly increase your return on investment.  A lot of people ask “how can that be when they are costing me money?”.  Honestly it’s simple to answer that question. A good property manager can act as a … Continue reading