Real Estate blog

Archive for the ‘Houses for Sale’ Category

In any market, but particularly a buyer’s market, the listing that looks the best, shows the best and feels the best will sell faster (that is given the listing is also priced properly!). The best staged home will sell faster when all other things are comparable (price, terms, location).

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There’s a multi-factorial equation brewing out there that is going to impact real estate investors.

More and more young people are getting into real estate investing.

Real estate investors looking for a realtor in Houston should check out Eurika Coleman, a real estate professional that I’ve been working with for the past few years.

Ok, so I’m in the middle of a 1031 tax deferred exchange, the result of a New Years resolution to cash out of a high-end townhouse that had generated some equity and reinvest into a property(ies) that generates better income.

Real estate books are a mixed batch. There are those that I recommend, such as Eldred and McLean’s excellent Investing in Real Estate, now in it’s fifth edition. On the other end of the spectrum is Robert Kiyosaki’s bestselling fable Rich Dad Poor Dad, a dangerous and misleading book if ever there was one.

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When it comes to returning a tenant’s deposit when he vacates a property I have tended to go down one of two paths. I either a) return 100% or b) keep most/all of it. I don’t tend to have a lot of cases that fall in-between.

I’m usually leaving some money on the table when I return 100% of a tenant’s deposit, but for me that’s ok. If a tenant leaves the house clean and the landscaping looking nice then I won’t charge him just because he left a few coat hangers in the hall closet.

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I’ve written that I’m not a big fan of the legislation currently making its way through congress that would require lenders to cut homeowners a break as they look into the chasm of foreclosure. While I’m not against the idea of giving consumers a helping hand – particularly when doing so shores up the economy – I am against the idea of trying to characterize such moves as free, tax-neutral bailouts funded which the banks will fund. These costs are always passed on to the consumer.

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There’s no getting around it: there’s simply too many real estate agents out there.

I wrote in a recent post that real estate investors who work with a Realtor will generally end up overpaying for their services; if you pay a $12,000 commission check it’s highly unlikely that you’ve actually gotten $12,000 worth of time or effort out of the Realtor that supported you. And note that a healthy portion of that fee will be passed directly to the buyer – the idea that “the buyer doesn’t pay a commission” is a myth.

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I’ve often mentioned that real estate investing is all about people. Here are three ways in which this general principle manifests itself.

Information wants to be free: Real estate investing certainly has an element of secrecy, as does any business endeavor that involves negotiations. For example, when you’re on the buy leg of a 1031 exchange you don’t want the seller and you’re running short on time you don’t want the seller to know that you’re under pressure to make a deal work. And when you’re selling a property that you just bought FSBO you don’t want the buyer to know that you purchased it for a song.

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