Showing posts with label Tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tax. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

What Are The Top 3 Real Estate Investing Strategies?

Panama Property = MoneyImage by thinkpanama via Flickr

Real Estate Investment Methods



What Are The Top 3 Real Estate Investing Strategies?


By Eric Mabo

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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Monday, October 12, 2009

Property Selection - The Vital Component in Your Investing Tool Kit

SHANGHAI, CHINA - DECEMBER 12:  Visitors look ...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Property Selection is
The Vital Component in
Your Investing Tool Kit

Property selection, Choosing the right type of property and the right location for your investment properties will make an enormous difference to your ongoing success.

This can make a huge difference...

Here is a example of just how much difference effective selection can make.


Let's say that you were considering two properties of similar size and features. Both were townhouses with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a one car garage.

However Property A is new, the purchase price is $330,000 and it will rent for only $280, giving you a rental return of 4.4%. ($280 times 52weeks divided by $330,000 as a percentage.)

The Ideal Type of Investment Property

The ideal type of investment property has these characteristics:
  1. Buy new investment property
  2. Priced at the median price for the area
  3. Is in demand with tenants
  4. Has potential for future growth

Buy new investment property

There are a number of good reasons to focus your purchasing of investment properties on new properties.
  • Higher depreciation allowance to deduct from your tax bill.
  • Lower maintenance cost and therefore lower overall cost of ownership.

Median Priced Property

Buy property that is priced at or near the median price for the area.

The reason for this is simple. The property you want to offer for rental, especially when you are just starting out, is property that is closest to the most in demand type of property in any area.

This will ensure two things, that you always have a supply of ready and willing tenants to rent your property. (This is a very important part of your investment property business.)

Secondly, if your unit or townhouse is in demand then the value of your investment property will rise. This is perhaps the most important part of your investment business.

We've only covered two reasons so far.

Read on to discover why it is so important for you to become knowledgeable at effective property selection.

Buy a Property that is in Demand with Tenants

We have already touched on the importance of this above. Here are some other considerations to take into account.

A property in a better area will attract a better type of tenant and that will ultimately lead to less problems both with property maintenance and perhaps even collection of rent due and avoiding a default on rent.

Generally well located median priced property will prove to be your best bet for long term capital growth and rentability. After all the real money to be made in real estate is not by buying a property and reselling it a short time later for a small profit.

No the the real money to be made in property is to buy and hold as many well selected pieces of investment real estate as you can for as long as you can. In fact if you maintain a philosophy of just not selling this will in time provide you with a continually growing rent stream as well as a rapidly increasing equity base.






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