SiteMap For Freedom Steps With Property Investing

Home Page
Begin Real Estate Investing the Easy Way
Discover how easy it is to begin real estate investing and build wealth with property. An experienced property investor shares his knowledge and experiences with you.

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How To Start
Your Real Estate Investment Guide
Use this real estate investment guide to help you get your first investment property and then move on to set yourself free with real estate investing.

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Finance
Real Estate Investment Financing, 7 Tips To Help With Getting The Best Result.
Real Estate Investment Financing - These 7 tips can enthusiastic and hopeful applicant in to an long term client of any financial institution.

Statement Of Financial Position - facilitate your property finance application
Statement Of Financial Position - give your self the best chance for a real estate investment loan by having a list of your assets and liabilities.

Refinancing Real Estate Investment, Your First Step To Freedom
By refinancing real estate investment, you gain access to money that is lying dormant and put it to use.

Loan to Value Ratio - learn what it is and how it affects you
Loan to value ratio (LVR) is a ratio that the banks and financial institutions use to assess the level of debt that a certain asset should have. The LVR for property is higher than the LVR that banks

Lenders Mortgage Insurance - use it to increase your investing power
Lenders mortgage insurance is a great tool in the arsenal of any potential investor. It will help you to borrow more when purchasing property, improving your return on equity.

Line Of Credit, The Sophisticated Way To Finance Your Real Estate Investments
A Line Of Credit will give you the freedom and flexibility to repidly move towards your property investing goals.

Use Your Home Equity To Finance Your Real Estate Investments
Your home equity will enable you to begin investing in property, and then it can make you wealthy. Read on to see how.

Other Finance
Property Investment Finance
Real estate investment finance puts power in your hands. It's an opportunity to vastly multiply your return on investment and be way more creative in your wealth building.

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Property Selection
Use these Property Selection Tips to Help You Find Long Term Success
Investment Property Selection is vital to your ongoing success. Use these tips to help you find the easiest to manage and most profitable properties.

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Business Plan
Use this business Plan to Keep you Focused and Moving Forward
Here is a simple business plan to guide you as you build your property portfolio and wealth through investment property.

Real Estate Investing Primer
Real Estate Investing Primer - Investing in real estate does not have to be complilcated. Here are some easy strategies to begin investing in property. property investing is not a get ricH scheme.

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Why Property
Why Property Investing - Compelling Reasons to Invest in Property
Why property investing as a vehicle for creating your financial freedom? Here are three good reasons to invest in property, plus several others you may not have thought of.

Financial Freedom Can Be Yours With Real Estate Investment Property
You can have financial freedom, sooner than you think. Here is a picture of how to do it.

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Flipping Property
Flipping Real Estate - Follow these 7 Simple Steps to Making Money
Flipping real estate - This outline shows two ways to do it and outlines 7 simple steps to follow

Make Money Flipping Property - Discover the real way to make money property.
Make money flipping property - This articles outlines 10 principles you need to be aware of if you want to flip real estate.

Flipping Real Estate Contracts To Build Your Capital Base
Flipping Real Estate Contracts is a low cost way for beginner investors to accumulate capital.

Tips For Flipping - 7 Simple tips for flipping real estate.
7 Tips For Flipping Houses that will help find and analyze the right property to flip and avoid the mishaps.

Calculate profits flipping real estate by understanding your costs.
Calculate Profits Flipping - This article outlines how to calculate your profits for any particular flip or contract assignment by understanding the costs involved in making a deal.

Risks Flipping Property - Be aware of the risks involved in flipping real estate
Risks Flipping Property - There are risks involved in flipping real estate, be aware of what can happen and you will avoid setbacks. This article gives a typical example of what can happen.

Real Estate Bubble Aftermath -, Disregard talk of a terrible aftermath....
Real Estate Bubble Aftermath - The end of the real estate bubble has been talked up by a number of sources, but who really benifits and should you pay any attention.

Wholesale Real Estate Investing - Skyrocket your net worth $20,000 to $100,000..
Wholesale Real Estate Investing - discover how you can find and acquire large chunks of equity for cents in the dollar and skyrocket your net worth by $20,000 to $100,000 on every real estate deal ...

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Software
Real estate investment software package s - Help with property investing
Real estate investment software package s can be divided into 2 groups. Those that help you before you buy and those that help you after you purchase a property.

Real Estate Analysis - How to Construct an APOD and Nail Your Next Investment
A must-read if you are working with or want to work with rental property. Learn what you need to know about an APOD, how to use it to evaluate the property's first-year performance, and how to constru

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Legal Stuff
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Disclaimer for freedom-steps-with-property-investing.com

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What Are The Top 3 Real Estate Investing Strategies?

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Real Estate Investment Methods

What Are The Top 3 Real Estate Investing Strategies?

By Eric Mabo

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There is a lot of information out there about real estate investing strategies. This information can be sometimes confusing, because it is never really clear what the best investment strategies are. This article focuses more on the best strategies that will work in the current real estate market. This is a biased market skewed more towards buyers. There are many homes for sale out there, however, they have very few people currently looking for a home to buy. Therefore, every investor in the market today needs to use those strategies that are most likely going to succeed in this market. He or she needs to focus more on strategies that are most likely to attract buyers or renters to their properties. Here are the 3 best options.

1. Buying for long-term hold: this involves buying a property with the intention of renting it out for several years prior to selling the property. They real estate investor in the situation looks for homes that have been deeply discounted, buys these homes, and then turns around and rents them out with positive cash flow. Their goal here is to make at least $200 a month after paying all of the expenses, which include the mortgage payment on the home, taxes, insurance and any other expenses related to maintaining the property. The advantage of using this strategy is that the tenants end up paying down the mortgage for the landlord. The home builds equity with time and is eventually owned free and clear by the landlord after several years of renting the property. The key here is to buy the property at a discounted price and rent it out with positive cash flow.
2. Buying for short-term flip: this involves buying a property at a great discount with the intention of selling it right away for a quick profit. The investor here buys the property with at least a 30% equity. He or she then turns around and sells the property to another investor leaving a 10 to 20% equity for the new owner. This is called wholesaling. (See Flipping the Contract or Wholesale Real Estate Investing) This strategy used to be very popular a few years ago. It is still being used today but it's not as popular as before. The key here is to buy the property only after you have already located a buyer. The best way to do this is to build an e-mail list of potential buyers. Another option is to borrow a list from someone else. Here is the step-by-step process: you build an e-mail list or you locate the list owner, now you locate a property with significant equity, you collect details about the property and send out an e-mail to your list, you now close on the deal and then turn around and sell it to the end buyer for a profit.
3. Using the lease purchase as an exit strategy: in this situation, you are buying a property with the intention of renting it out for one or two years prior to selling it. The first step here is to buy a property at a discount. You then locate a buy/renter who signs two agreements: the first is a lease agreement for 1-2 years, the second agreement is an option agreement. The buyer has the option to actually close on the deal within one or two we years. The investor cashes out at the end of the option agreement. The advantage of using this strategy is that you get very good tenants who actually take care of the property while paying a higher than usual rent. Thus you get positive cash flow and you serve the property at a huge profit within one to two years. The Investor also gets a good downpayment for the option agreement. So you make money up-front, during the 1-2 year lease term, and finally cash out a huge profit ($25-50K on a home selling for less than $200K). This is one of the best investing strategies in the current market.

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Eric Mabo is an an Atlanta-based Discounted Foreclosures Expert. He helps people find discounted real estate deals.

http://www.AtlantaforeclosureDeals.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Mabo
http://EzineArticles.com/?What-Are-The-Top-3-Real-Estate-Investing-Strategies?&id=923043

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Return From Real Estate Investment Methods To Business Plan for Property Investors Or go to Freedom Steps With Property Investing

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Wholesale Real Estate Investing - Deals That Can SkyRocket Your Net Worth 10-Fold

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Wholesale Real Estate Investing

Deals That SkyRocket Your Net Worth 10-Fold

Alain Diza

So what is wholesale real estate investing? Why should you be interested in learning about it?

Consider these parameters for a real estate deal:
Property Value: $250,000, Purchase Price: $160,000, Repairs: $2,500.

If you analyze the numbers, you see that the equity available in this deal is $87,500 (Property Value minus Purchase Price minus Repairs).

          Property Value:  $250,000
            Less
          Purchase Price:  $160,000
          Repairs:           $2,500
            Leaves
         Available Equity:  $87,500

So here's a hypothetical question for you: Assuming that the information above is accurate, and the property is located in an area that you view as acceptable and/or favorable, then: If I offered to give you this deal in exchange for $10,000 in cash, would you do it? Remember - this is hypothetical. The real question here is this: Would you exchange $10,000 in cash for $87,500 in equity? For most savvy investors, the answer is: Absolutely YES!

Wholesale Real Estate Investing

This is called "Wholesale Real Estate Investing" - the process of buying a lot of equity at a very significant discount from another real estate investor who has already done the hard work of finding a deal and getting it under contract.

Just think about that - consider how easy real estate investing would be for you if you had a network of real estate investors in your area (and maybe even all over the country) who, several times each month, offered you the opportunity to purchase significant amounts of equity for a severe discount...

...It would be quite easy to become wealthy, fairly quickly, wouldn't it?

The answer again, is: Absolutely Yes, it will.

It is through smart "wholesale real estate investing" that you can increase your net worth by $20,000 to $100,000 on every real estate deal that you do.

...Now the burning question becomes, "Where exactly do I find these wholesale real estate investing deals?"

I know of at least 3 solid sources...

You've got to admit - it will be a pretty wonderful thing when you know how to find great real estates deals in which you can trade a small amount of cash for a large amount of equity without even having to find the deals yourself...

...And that's exactly what "wholesale real estate investing" is all about.

Finding Deals Like This

So let's get right to it. Here are 3 places to find wholesale real estate deals:

1. Visit the local real estate investing club in your area. Almost all of these clubs have networking opportunities to work with other investors who wholesale deals regularly, and this is an easy way to find great opportunities.
2. Watch for ads in the newspaper, television, and in other media that advertise slogans like, "We Buy Houses", or "Sell Your House in 9 Days" or anything similar to that. Most of the time, these people are real estate investors, and they are happy to wholesale deals to people like you.
3. Watch your email-inbox. Why? Because if and when you choose to enroll in various free e-courses online, such as that via tm-RealEstateInvesting.com, you'll be provided with automatic notification about great local and national deals as they become available. But be forewarned - you've got to act quickly whenever these deals are announced, because obviously the response is always significant.

Happy Hunting!

About the author: Alain Diza

Alain makes it easy to step into the world of Wholesale Real Estate Investing. Learn the principles and private strategies the 'gurus' are charging thousands for.

Get your free e-course at: www.tm-RealEstateInvesting.com

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Return From Wholesale Real Estate Investing To Flipping Real Estate  Or go to Freedom Steps With Property Investing

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Related Pages

Home Page

Flipping Real Estate | Make Money Flipping Property | Flipping the Contract | 7 Tips for Flipping Real Estate | Calculating Costs & Profits when Flipping Real Estate | The Risks Involved in Flipping Real Estate | Wholesale Real Estate Investing | The End Of The Real Estate Bubble - Is It As Bad As They Say?

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Commercial Real Estate Appreciation - How You Can Increase the Value of Your Property in Any Market

Image via Wikipedia

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By Karen Hanover

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Because commercial real estate (CRE) property value is based on net operating income (NOI), if you can increase the NOI, you can not only increase your cash flow, but you can also increase the property's value as well.

Let's take an example: a 100 unit apartment complex producing $100,000 of NOI in a 10 Cap market is valued at $1,000,000.

NOI/Cap Rate= Value

$100,000/.10=$1,000,000

By increasing that NOI to $190,000, in that same 10 Cap market (meaning the market pricing that investors will pay for that income (NOI) hasn't changed), POOF, the property is now valued at $1,900,000.

$190,000/.10=$1,900,000

So in addition to putting $90,000 per year more cash in your pocket you just increased your equity by $900,000. Sound good? Are you amazed by way I quickly manipulated those numbers to make the example fall into place? Are you saying to yourself, "Well Karen, that's all good on paper, but how could I just magically increase the NOI by $90,000?" Well, after all of the articles I've written as an authority on CRE, you should just trust me but since you're the skeptical type, I'll show you!

As stated previously, if you can increase NOI, you can increase the value of the property. There are 2 ways to increase NOI.
1. Take in more money
2. Spend less money to operate the property.

Notice I didn't say, reducing the debt service paid to the lender. Although this will ultimately increase your cash flow before taxes, it has absolutely no effect on the value of the property. The property is worth the same amount of money whether it has a mortgage or is owned free and clear. Make sense?

Let's just say that after you purchased this 100 unit apartment complex, as the leases expired and were either renewed or the units re-rented, you increased the rent by a mere $25 per month. That's a monthly increase of $2,500 and a yearly increase of $30,000.

$25 x 100 units = $2,500 per month $2,500 x 12 months = $30,000

So POOF, you just gave yourself a raise of $30,000 per year. Congratulations!

By the way, how much would you have gotten if you increased rents by $25 a single family house? That's right... $25! That is the beauty of commercial real estate!

Now, let's just say that to reduce operating expenses you make the capital investment into individually metering the units with their own utility meters so the tenants can pay for their own utilities instead of you, the landlord. If the savings to you is a mere $50 per month, that would equate to $60,000 increased NOI because of decreased expenses.

$50 x 100 units = $5,000 per month (decreased expenses) $5,000 x 12 months = $60,000

So POOF, you just saved yourself $60,000 per year in utility expenses thereby putting the extra $60,000 into your pocket each and every year you own the property. Remember you earn these cash flows year after year, not just once. Now let's look at the effect on value in the same 10 Cap market. $100,000 + $30,000 (increased rents) + $60,000 (decreased expenses) = $190,000.

IF: $100,000/.10 = $1,000,000 THEN $190,000/.10 = $1,900,000

So you can see that you can not only influence the amount of money you earn from cash flow, but you can also control the value of your investment regardless of market conditions.

In residential investing, there is only one strategy. Regardless of how you acquire the property (foreclosure, etc.), the goal is to buy low and wait for the market to go up so you can sell at a profit or refinance. In this market, residential investors may be waiting a long time... a very long time. Additionally, if they don't have positive cash flow in the interim, they will not see a return on that investment for years to come.

By investing in CRE, you earn a return on your investment from Day 1 because of the significant cash flows. Additionally, by improving the NOI through your own efforts, you can increase the value of your property regardless of market conditions. It is for these reasons that CRE is a much safer and more profitable investment than residential investing.

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Take a FREE Online Course! http://www.cieinst.com

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Karen Hanover is well known as a Certified Commercial Real Estate Advisor, President of the National Apartment Investors Association, Chairman of the National Commercial Real Estate Advisory Board and Senior Instructor for both the Self Storage Education Institute and the Apartments Education Institute.

As a CCIM Candidate, a highly prestigious designation, often called the "Ph.D. of commercial real estate" Karen works as a busy commercial real estate agent with Marcus & Millichap one of the nation's largest and most highly regarded commercial brokerage firms.

Sought by industry insiders for their toughest deals, Karen has helped thousands to create wealth in commercial real estate with less risk even in today's uncertain economy.

Karen founded the Commercial Investment Education Institute which provides educational instruction for investors on multiple subjects including apartments, self storage, office buildings, retail centers, mobile home parks and more. Her courses are taught in a friendly and easy to understand manner.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karen_Hanover
http://EzineArticles.com/?Commercial-Real-Estate-Appreciation---How-You-Can-Increase-the-Value-of-Your-Property-in-Any-Market&id=1364445

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Deciding if a property is a good investment

Real Estate Investment Analysis

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Deciding if a property is a good investment

Real Estate Investment Analysis allows you to quickly avaluate and compare several potential investment properties and decide which one is for you. It will help you decide if a particular property is the right investment for you.

Using figures you can easily find you can quickly determine the financial plusses and minuses related to a partilcular piece of property.

The first step to effective Real Estate Investment Analysis is to understand the income and expenditure related to particular investment property.

INCOME: Rental income is generally the first and only income stream most investors consider for an investment property. However in addition to the rental income you gain from an investment property your situation may warrant considering the capital gains as income.

I believe it's better not to sell...

Hint: When you want cash, consider refinancing your real estate investments - see RETIRING USING YOUR GROWING PROPERTY INVESTMENT EQUITY BASE if you keep your real estate investment properties you are not selling your retirement plans. You will need to consult an accountant to find the details of how you can declare capital gains as income but the general principles are out lined in this article: MAKE THE MOVE FROM HOBBY TO PROFESSIONAL INVESTOR

EXPENSES: There are two general types of costs (EXPENSES) associated with owning an investment property: interest costs and holding costs.

Income - Rental Return

The first thing you need to understand about rental return on an investment property is that verbal estimates by real estate sales people can be very misleading. That being said the way to determine a better idea of the real potential rentl return that a property might bring is to find out what similar prperties are renting for in the same area.

How to Calculate Rate of Rental Return

Rental return is calculated as a ratio against buying price. A rule of thumb calculation for rental return that many real estate imvestors use as a quick comparison is as follows:

Gross Annual Rent / Total Purchase Price Expressed as a Percentage

For more detail on calculating rental return, see How to Calculate Rental Return On a Real Estate Investment For example if you purchased a rental property for $300,000 and were renting it out for $300 per week then your rental return would be calculated as follows:

(300 * 52) = $15,600 / $300,000 (times 100 to express as a percentage) = 5.2%

I have found that if the resulting figure is in the vicinity of 6% or over you are in good shape. In the example above the rental return is a little on the low side but not by very much, so if other factors are positive there is a good chance that you will soon be getting above 6% just because of the normal increases in the rent you can acheive for this property.

For example just say that the next year the rent goes up by 15% then you are receiving $345 per week. In which case your return would be 6%. From that point on you are in a very healthy financial position with this property.

(345 * 52) = $17,940 / $300,000 (times 100 to express as a percentage) = 6%

Expenses

In terms of analysing a real estate investment a percentage of purchase or advertised price as a factor to get a ball park figure for how much it will cost to own and run that property. The first thing to do is determine the interest cost per year by multiplying the advertised price by the interest rate you would be paying.

Then find the estimated running costs by multiplying the annual rent received by an expense factor, (you may need to ask your agent or another knowledgeable investor for what applies in your local area.

An example will make this much clearer:

Go from this page Real Estate Investment Analysis To The Parent Real Estate Investment Methods Page Or Return To Freedom Steps With Property Investing

Real Estate Investing, Is it the ultimate way to invest for long term wealth

For better or for worse, I have based my long term retirement strategy on real estate. More specifically, investing in real estate. I have been doing this for about 9 or 10 years now.

You might say "Well that's OK for you, you got in when property prices were low."

My answer would be that prices always seem low when you look back and there is never a time when the prices seem cheap relative to the income and property availability at that time.

With that being said I will say that in the beginning I had to change my attitudes quite a lot in order to best take advantage of opportunities at that time. In other words I had to do a lot of stretching. For example, I live in Sydney, Australia. Back in the year 2000 when I bought my first investment property it was in Brisbane.

Now it would have been much more comfortable to wait until I could afford to pay the $300,000 price difference for roughly the same property in Sydney. But I chose to get started immediately with what I was able to do and defer purchases of investment property in Sydney until the equity I had in my portfolio supported Sydney's more expensive prices.

The point I am trying to make here is that by starting straight away and investing in a well located property in Brisbane, I was able to take advantage of the capital growth of my first property to buy a second and third in Brisbane before I would have been able to purchase my first in Sydney.

Real Estate Values Double Every 7 to 10 Years

You may have heard this before and thought "That might be right, but I'll just wait until prices go down."

The big news is that the best time to buy investment real estate is right now!

Even with the "economic crisis" that we have been thrust into, what is happening? The real estate prices are falling somewhat here in Australia, this is producing great buying opportunities.

My outlook is that in another 2 to 3 years this crisis will be behind us and then 7 to 10 years after that property will have doubled again.

The question is what is your mindset? Do you feel like all your plans for the future have been suddenly made redundant because of outside factors? You can seize the initiative back by setting in place some plans for your future now. Sit down, take a calm look at your current situation and assess where you are and where you would like to be in 5 to 10 years time.

Nine years ago when we bought our very first property after thinking about it for over a year, I never would have believed that today I would be holding a property portfolio worth several million dollars.

In a future post I'll go further into the strategies and philosophical shift that allowed me to do this. It's exciting to sieze the initiative back from thise who will take it away if you let them. The journey has been an exciting one for me and my wife.