Real Estate blog

Archive for the ‘Properties’ 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).

(more…)

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

I’ve often stated that one of the most important factors in your success as a real estate investor is your ability to select, screen, and retain quality tenants. This is something that I think I’m pretty good at, which has helped me as an investor.

I was going to write an article about this not to long ago when, bam, I ran into a problem: tenants who stopped paying.

The tenants were a flaky young couple that I knew I might be taking a chance back when they signed the lease in May. But I decided to rent to them and mitigated my risk by signing a short lease (six months, with renewal contingent on timely payment), charged them first and last month’s rent upfront, plus one month’s rent as deposit. I won’t go through the boring details, but they ended up breaking the lease and abandoning the property while they owed me money. If you find yourself in a situation like this one here are some points to keep in mind.

(more…)

BusinessWeek recently ran an interesting article on Option ARM mortgages (also known as pick-a-payment, negative amortization mortgages, NegAms, deferred interest mortgages, and various other aliases).

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Real estate investing is all about relationships and dealing with people. In this column I’ve written about the need for trust in order to build long term symbiotic relationships. I’ve also written about using contracts to build a solid legal safety net.

So…which is it? Back in the ‘60s a management theorist Douglas McGregor originally wrote about two theories about managing relationships: Theory X, which is a negative view that assumes that people are inherently lazy, dislike work, and need (want) to be controlled, and Theory Y which argues the opposite – that people are self-motivated and will choose to seek responsibility and do good work.

(more…)

It’s hard to argue with the success that Robert T. Kiyoski has had with his Rich Dad series. Head over to Amazon.com and you’ll see almost fifty items on offer; Rich Dad in English, Rich Dad in Spanish, Rich Dad for women and kids. Even Rich Dad in Chinese. My personal favorite is the DVD Rich Dad’s 60 Minutes to Getting Rich. Ok, it’s a bit pricy at $79.99…but that’s a small price to pay for a DVD that will make you rich in 60 minutes, right?

(more…)

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.

(more…)