Posts Tagged real estate investment

Investing In Real Estate Investors

With the never-ending changes in our Real Estate Markets real estate professionals are starting to pay attention to the sound of new commission streams of income. Some realtors have either shied away or ran-away from such terms as “Cap Rate,” & “Cash-on-Cash Returns.” Terms that only the ‘smart’ and ‘numbers-oriented people use to determine if a Real Estate purchase is a “Good Deal”, or not. A majority of the realtor brethren attended real estate school because they are excited and passionate about the promise of selling real estate and making a fantastic living. That being said “Times are a Changing.” Even if you live in a Hot Market where residential real estate sells in 2-3 days there is an old approach to real estate that is growing faster by the day…..Residential Real Estate Investors.

This deft group of real estate investors is taking real estate and the real estate investment world into a new era! No longer accepting the crazy volatility of the Dow Jones and NASDAQ families. Unwilling to accept the investment practices of their fore-fathers these Investors throw caution to the wind for returns above the traditional 5-6% in their Roth or IRA accounts. These Investors are bold and oftentimes aggressive. Today’s Real Estate Investors are all about the fast fix-n-flip, high appreciation, and rock solid monthly cash-flows. Cutting their teeth on investment in their own home-towns is only the beginning as the Serious Investors turn to points outside their own back-yards to other regions that demonstrate greater promise and higher returns. You may say well how does this older adult view their investment opportunities? For starters the age of these stealth hunters ranges from 28 to 68. From “Rich Dad-Poor Dad” book series to Trumps magical presence on “The Apprentice,” the young real estate entrepreneurs are making their dreams happen to the tune of 3-5 acquisitions a year! Got your attention now? The typical Investor has good to great credit scores. Excellent cash reserves or hidden resources of partners with cash, and a willingness to make the deal happen at nearly any cost. The best kept secret of all is that these investing beasts travel in packs. Where you see one another is very close behind. In other words they know the people that you need to know to grow your investor database even larger. If the real estate professional does a good job the happy clients are likely to refer many of their fellow-investors. Not just investor clients but their regular every-day real estate business. Face it, if you can demonstrate to your clients how adept you are with their largest personal purchase of real estate, then wouldn’t you suppose they will be over their “trusted real estate advisors” opinion on buying a basic home, condo or beach house?

So what if you haven’t been focused in the real estate investment sector. And you are thinking this all sounds pretty good, let’s give it a try. First question to ask yourself is who have your clients been working with or exploring their options of real estate investing with over the past 3-4 months. Statistically 6 out of 10 clients have considered investing in real estate or have already begun doing so before their realtor even has a chance to blink an eye. Got your attention now? How about the fact that in less than one year I increased my annual commissions by 30% by just positioning myself within my primary data-base of clients. All I did was let them know that I was ready, willing and able to begin assisting them with their “Investment Realty” needs. What I learned during the first year was that if I could create an environment for my clients to learn more about real estate investing that they would thank me in a variety of ways….Most importantly they would call me before writing a contract and would make sure that I was involved in every contract that wanted to make a real estate purchase. Before long 30% went up to 45% and further. Even if you aren’t interested in expanding your client database, at least consider protecting the turf you have for so long spent tireless amounts of time and financial resources to maintain their allegiance. On the other hand if you are looking at your real estate career and are wondering how to reposition yourself for market growth certainly to go well into 2025, here are a few known facts about how real estate investors can improve your business.

1. Real Estate Investors are literally everywhere. Successfully tapping into your current database could increase your annual commissions by 20-30%.

2. Real Estate Investors will be loyal to the professional that helps fill the gap of their investment education. Workshops, mentoring groups, finding the “golden deals” in your market makes a huge impact!

3. Investing in Real Estate Investors doesn’t have to mean that you lose your “typical” residential realtor position. Being a real estate investment specialist means you are smarter than the average realtor in the market.

4. Mortgage professionals are struggling to provide real estate investors with property deals, so when you can place an investor into a good deal the referrals will begin to flow even more.

5. Real Estate Investors tend to be more conscientious about your personal time away. Investors also like to shop Monday-Friday for their deals before the “Weekend Warrior” investors get out into the competition. This translates into more normal hours and days of operation for you and your business.

6. Real Estate Investors buy-sell cycles are shorter than primary home purchasers resulting in more transactions in shorter time-frames.

If any of these points are encouraging you to seek new options in your business then make sure to sign up for the monthly “Grow your Real Estate Investment business” e-mail newsletter from http://www.InvestorLoft.com additionally, other excellent tools to improve and expand your real estate business can be explored at the InvestorLoft’s educational Shoppe.

Real Estate Investment Clubs

The real estate investment clubs provide tremendous resources for both beginners and experienced real estate investors. The real estate investment club is a place to meet and network with other investors. Patient and skillful application of investment knowledge and information is required for a successful real estate investing. For success in real estate, there should be a combination of the power of investing knowledge and the power of market information. A real estate investment club through its thoroughly researched real estate investment ideas can arm you with all the necessary information to invest wisely in real estate.

As the competition in the field of real estate are high, Real estate investors need to keep themselves updated constantly on the new trends and developments in real estate investment. There can be new laws and taxes governing real estate. All this is hard to maintain if you are not a full time real estate investor. A real estate investment club is then the ideal place for you. All issues regarding real estate investment can be discussed and sorted out through the medium of real estate investment clubs. Being a part of an experienced and efficient real estate investment club in itself should form a part of the strategy to become a successful real estate investor.

Details regarding all other aspects of investments related to real estate like mortgage investments can be discussed in real estate investment clubs. The real estate club members bring out several publications to guide real estate and home buyers. Most real estate club members also provide information through Internet. Today, there are several different real estate software programs available in the market to help real estate investors. Before selecting software, you can discuss it with your real estate club members as some of them might have already used it and have opinions on it. A good real estate investment club can act as a good forum to clear all your doubts regarding real estate investment.

Why Most Real Estate Investors are Doomed to Failure

Let me start by saying that, sure, real estate can be a good investment. Real estate provides a hedge against inflation. And real estate often amounts to a forced saving plan. But most of the people who’ve jumped onto the real estate investment bandwagon over the last few years are going to fail. Here’s why:

Ignoring Returns on Investment

When you compare bank accounts, you know that 5% interest means more money in your pocket than 2% interest.

Similarly, you know that a mutual fund with a track record of 11% annual returns has made more money than a fund with a track record of 8% annual returns. Duh.

One picks investments and evaluates investment performance by looking at the return on the investment. This rule is true for stocks, bonds, and everything else–including real estate.

Which means that investors who can’t or don’t know how to calculate the return on a real estate investment–and almost all amateur real estate investors fall into this category– fly blind.

To be fair, real estate return on investment calculations get tricky fast.

First, consider how easy something like a bank CD. If you buy a bank CD for $100 and a year later receive $105 back, the return on investment calculations are pretty easy. Divide $5 by $100 and you get 5%. That’s the return on investment.

But what about a real estate investment that requires a $50,000 down payment and then negative monthly cash flows of $500 for 43 months. If you sell the property in month 44 and net $85,000 in cash, have you really made money with your real estate investment?

You can’t truly know whether this imaginary real estate investment is a good deal unless you compare its annual return to your other options.

It turns out, by the way, that the imaginary real estate investment is a slightly better deal than the imaginary CD–something you need a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel to determine. Programs like Microsoft Excel include rate of return calculation tools like the IRR function which you can and should use to estimate returns on investments with complicated cash flows.

Ignoring Real Estate Tax Laws

Here’s another reason that real estate investors fail. Real estate investments dramatically complicate your income taxes. For example, the passive loss limitation rules mean that you typically can’t use depreciation tax deductions except in special circumstances until you sell the property.

Schedule E (which you use to report your real estate investing to the IRS) requires you to prepare profit and loss statements by real estate investment–a bookkeeping requirement that pretty much forces you to use a full blown accounting system like QuickBooks.

Finally, rampant misunderstandings about Section 121 of the Internal Revenue Code mean that while most people shouldn’t have pay taxes on the profit from selling their home, many do pay taxes.

And don’t even get me started on dealing with the unrelated business income tax you’ll pay if you use a self-directed IRAs for real estate. Or on the pitfalls of creating a daisy-chain of like-kind exchanges. Or about depreciation recapture if you segregate property costs into real and personal property components.

Here’s the reality sandwich. For many small investors, real estate so complicates your income taxes that you’re faced with two bad choices. Bad choice number one: Winging it on your tax return or relying on some infomercial, the real estate agent, or your brother-in-law for accounting and tax planning. (This approach means you’ll make all sorts of expensive tax accounting mistakes.)

Bad choice number two: Paying an experienced tax practitioner perhaps a $1000 a year or more to make sure you don’t foul yourself up. This of course pretty much eats up the extra profits you hoped to get from real estate. Which means that while you will have the satisfaction of doing your tax accounting right, only your accountant and real estate agent make money.

My advice to you? Learn how the real estate tax laws work and how to do real estate accounting before you start investing. Then, after you truly understand this stuff and do start investing, do as much of your own accounting as you possibly can.

I really don’t think you’ve got any other good choice as a small real estate investor. Sorry.

Summing Up

As I said in the first paragraph of this little essay, real estate can be a good investment. But the investment is way trickier than most new investors realize. And in order to make a decent return, I think you must understand way more finance, tax and accounting than the typical real estate investor.