Commercial Real Estate Investment Articles

The Real Estate Professional status is a designation given by the IRS based on the number of hours that you work in real estate activities versus other activities. It doesn’t mean that you have to become a real estate sales agent or broker. You don’t need to drive around showing people houses or putting out “for sale” signs.

It is virtually impossible to complete a successful short sale without dealing with the loss mitigation department at the bank. So, how do you deal with loss mitigation successfully? We can shed some light on that.

I was speaking on financial intelligence a while back to a group of university professors in Singapore. At the end of the talk, one of the professors asked me:“Where did you learn about business and why do some people make more money than others?”

This article is Step Two in the series “10 Steps to Subject to: Get Paid to Buy Pretty Houses in Nice Subdivisions.”Seems simple, doesn’t it?

I’ve gotten so many comments from readers that I decided to compile the best 100 tips into a series of articles for CRE Online to publish over the next six months leading up to the Creative Real Estate Online Convention. I will be at the Convention for the third year in a row, and I truly hope you will too. It is a GREAT event!

Many real estate investors determine the value of an income property by using the capitalization rate, aka cap rate. It is probably the one most misused concept in real estate investing.

[This article is Step One in the series “10 Steps to Subject to: Get Paid to Buy Pretty Houses in Nice Subdivisions.”]

How do you know what a commercial income property is worth? How do you know that you can get your desired return on your investment? Is there a way to calculate the maximum you can pay for an investment and still achieve your investment goals?

Each of us resides in at least one of the four Quadrants of the CASHFLOW Quadrant. Where we are is determined by where our main source of income comes from. Many of us rely on paychecks and are therefore employees, while others are self-employed.

Each of us resides in at least one of the four Quadrants of the CASHFLOW Quadrant. Where we are is determined by where our main source of income comes from. Many of us rely on paychecks and are therefore employees, while others are self-employed.

When you are buying a house on a lease option, you must protect yourself from paying your rent payment to the seller, but him not paying the lender.

There’s an old real estate scam going around again. New investors who don’t know better are being taken in by more experienced investors offering to help them get started investing in real estate.

A compilation of the recorded documents relating to a parcel of land, from which an attorney may give an option as to the condition of title. Also known in some states as a “preliminary title report.”

I sent out 250 postcards to out-of-state property owners in one zip code. Several people called back, and this one was an old 1955 Spartan mobile home in a “55 and older” mobile home park, completely set up. The guy lived in Texas and said he had power of attorney to sell it for his dad who inherited it.

Back again with another “I can’t believe that this fell into my lap!” Success Story. When we retired to Tennessee, the first property we bought was a 1949, 2-bed, 1-bath farm house on an acre within the city limits with a 600 square foot loft barn in good condition. The house was in good condition, and we thought that we wanted to make it our primary home by adding on and renovating.

I have been investing for about 30 years, so I have lots of stories about making money on rehabs. This was an interesting one. It was a four-plex in a good location, but had been owned by a law firm. They had bought it for a tax shelter, but no one wanted to deal with repairs, managing it, or showing vacancies.

A homeowner called me and said she wanted to sell her home because they were behind on payments. She had tried to sell the property, but there was a problem with title. The property was titled to two people. The lady who owned the property had bought the property with her boyfriend, and he had passed away five years go.

My wife and I recently retired to Cookeville, Tennessee from Las Vegas, Nevada. We are in our late forties and decided to leave the “rat race” after twenty some years of working.

I would like to share this success story because it has been six years in the making! I bought the Ron LeGrand “Wholesale/Retail” course in 2001. Prior to that I had done some “research” into flipping houses.

In January 2008, I purchased a 1996 mobile home for $5,500. It was a bank repo that needed interior work. I sold it “as is” within two weeks for $12,500 cash.

This deal is a little more creative than my last deal, We Turned a We Turned a “Don’t-Wanter” into Monthly Income. But like I said before, every deal is a good deal if the price and terms are right.

I have been waiting a long time to tell a Success Story, but here it is! I have purchased a couple rental properties conventionally, but this was my first creative real estate deal.

In May 2006, I learned of a property for sale by friends of the family, and I asked what they were looking for. When they told me the price, $180,000, I said I would buy it without looking at it. Since I was familiar with the area, I knew this was a huge deal.

This story has been a while in coming, so forgive me if I tend to be a tad bit wordy. Yes, the title wasn’t just a headline to get you to read this story. Indeed, I am totally physically blind. No, the blind are not magic people. We don’t hear better than others, have better senses of smell, or anything else the media would have you to believe. We live the same lives you live–just in the dark.

“Low income” doesn’t mean “low profit…”My wife and I got into the real estate investing business with the intention of doing two things: 1.) We want to retire early and see the world, and 2.) We want to teach our 11-year-old son from an early age the value of investing wisely while working hard to achieve his goals.