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Investment Properties Blog

8/29/08 New Content This Week

8/13/08 A Tale of Two Homes

Homes are still selling when priced right in Boise Idaho! I recently had a Seller client call wanting to sell a home they purchased in July of 2006 for $293,000. It was a single level home, just over 2,000 square feet, 3 car garage that was about 10 years old and backed to a beautiful common area w/rod iron fencing.

2/29/08 Micro Cap Investments

Guest post on investing in the stock market and micro caps:

Greed is something that investors often feel on their own experience. Greed has no top, no point of satisfaction. But that's not the true goal of investment. It's clear for everyone that the investment aim is profit. Real and tough competition starts when there's a profit from risky penny stocks otherwise commonly known as micro cap stocks.

If you are decided on small cap stock, you should set realistic expectations on the profits and specific targets. Trading small cap stocks is a very careful process. Whether it is after an increase of 50% or 200%, you should know them and stick to them.

2/22/08 NEW Content This Week

2/4/08 NEW Content

1/27/08 The Breakdown - In the News

1/21/08 Real Life Real Estate

Every once in a while, a good success story—or a negative turn of events—makes for inspiring literature and gives you ideas about what and what not to do with your property.

1/17/08 NEW Content

1/7/08 Happy New Year to All!

We're doing a big update on our site. Hope to have a lot of new, interesting, and useful content in the coming weeks. Thanks for visiting.

9/8/07 NEW Articles

Extra:

Hilarious video of the guy from Flipping Out - Jeff Lewis
Preparing for a Rental Boom

7/25/07 Top Lender Sees More Woes in Housing Market & Good Risk Mortages

Wow! Countrywide Financial, nation's largest mortgage lender is seeing defaults from good risk mortgages. Due to loss of jobs or divorce, many home owners are struggling to make their mortgage payments and having to foreclose it looks like. With all the hype in the housing market I think a lot of people got in over their heads and now that home prices are falling, they're struggling to even sell their homes and recoup on second mortgages.

We all want to get insider information, right? The latest news or news before it becomes news. Where should we buy property and when—where are the hot markets, the real bubbles? Is this a good long term property buy?

7/18/07 Terabitz - Real Estate Site

A real estate Web site that aims to be all things to all home shoppers will join the burgeoning ranks of online housing marketers today. Read more...

7/17/06 Redfin Versus Brokers

The news is that Redfin has got another round of funding and are looking to continue to shack up the real estate industry.

7/7/07 Finding Foreclosures: More Tips and Tricks

Finding great deals on foreclosures might require a little digging, but it’s definitely worth it. This article expands on the ideas we discussed in our first article, Locating Foreclosures.

Among all the methods to obtain foreclosures, you’ll probably hear more about auctions. Foreclosed properties are usually sold at auctions which function in basically the same way as an auction at the county fair or on eBay. The difference here, however, is that price tags are much higher and more risk is involved. Poor decision making, lack of knowledge, and excitement during intense bidding (which leads to overbidding) can be catastrophic. For this reason, it’s wise to be calm, realistic, sensible, and most of all patient. You don’t want to overpay or end up with a piece of property you can’t afford.

ROI = Appreciation +/- Cashflow divided by initial investment

For example:

Purchase Price: 449, 900
Appreciation: 6%
Downpayment: 45k
Cash Flow: $200 negative per month

449,900 x 6% = 26,994
Negative cash flow for year = $2400
$26994 - $2400 = 24,594
24,594 divided by 45,000 = 54% ROI first year

If you put 20% down ($90k) and you have $300 positive cash flow your ROI would be 26,994 + 3600 divided by 90,000 = 34% ROI

In summary based on the assumption of 6% appreciation and the cash flow, putting 10% down will give you a better ROI.

Contact: Anthony Navarro
Company: Trada Group
Tel: 415.227.4047 ext. 108
Cell: 415-305-3291

The Trada Group is the only company to develop and sell high quality, investment property across the US to individual real estate investors at pre-construction prices and provide professional on-site property management to maximize returns.

Learn more:

6/21/07 Student Helps Teacher Buy Home

This is a great story on a number of different levels. A student rises above the rough circumstances he grew up in, dad deported due to troubles with the law, to lead a seminar for teachers on how to buy homes, and also earn a scholarship to UC Berkley.

I think a lot of people don't realize that there a number of avenues to buying property, whether it's an investment property or your first home. It pays to get the ball rolling and keep your eyes and ears peeled. Attend a seminar when you have the chance. Set goals and create a plan. Rather than paying substantial rents, when not pay a mortgage. Sure, you have to way other things. Stability of your job, upkeep and maintence, how long you want to live in the area.

How she did it:

Lisa Shafer's monthly mortgage and tax bill for her $383,000 condo will be about $1,880. After income tax savings, she thinks it will come to about $500 more than the $1,022 she pays now for rent. She plans to get summer jobs to boost her income.

Down payment: $30,500

$10,000 from IRA (the Internal Revenue Service allows first-time home buyers to withdraw this amount without penalty)

Read more...

6/17/07 Celebrity Homes - Toby Maguire Sells Home

Every now and then we like to post a home sale by a celebrity, this Spiderman time it's for Spider Man, meaning Toby Maguire. He made quite a sum on this sale, his first home, in just four years. But not sure how much he paid to have the house re-designed by Waldo Fernandez, that may have made the home a much more attractive buy.

Where is Spider Man moving to now? Tough life, having a gym and spa in your home, not to mention a chef's and maid's quarters.

I got the inside scoop on a suburb just outside the city of trees: Boise, Idaho that is growing by leaps and bounds.

With a river running through Boise, full of trees and a getting the good four seasons (spring, summer, fall, and winte), less snow now, but heat in the summer. The Boise area is ideal for those who like the outdoors and are raising a family. Living costs are low and the up side is proximity to McCall, Sun Valley, Bogus Basin, Luck Peak (for water skiing). Here, the middle class can live like the rich, and Eagle is a nice area to start. Right now traffic is an issue believe it not the area is growing so much. For the investor, there are a number of opportunites to buy family homes, land and or townhouses.

From Rain City Guide (a great site that has a number of bloggers contributing to the blog on a regular basis, a lot of good information about real estate that's applicable to all regions, not just Seattle):

'Every once in a while, when I’m reading Bloodhound Blog I come across an idea so brilliant, so obvious in hindsight, I just stare at my monitor stupefied in amazement wondering, why doesn’t everybody do this? It’s obvious he has Dustin’s money quote hanging in his office. Maybe all that time in front of fruit computers has caused him to “Think Different“?

I am talking of course about Bloodhound Realty’s Sign Philosophy. Mr. Swann has blogged about the evolution of his signing philosophy and related marketing efforts, more than once during the past year. I was driving around my neighborhood this week, looking at the homes on the market, and it really hit home. I almost felt like howling at the houses on my block “Where is Greg when you need him?” The vast majority of the “for sale” signs in my neighborhood, are the usual boring rectangular shape and size. It’s sad because the most interesting yard signs in my neighborhood are from Redfin (memorable because of its non-rectangular shape and the BUY ME “button” on the sign) and from Plateau Real Estate, a small & local company down the street from me, (memorable because it’s logo has gradient greens and a unique font). It’s not like Redfin’s logo and Plateau’s signs are that great, but at least they try to stand out amidst an ocean of boring, rectangular, monochromatic signs from most of the big and independent brokers in the area.'

I'm all about shortening and skipping steps, and I think that's what the Internet's about and more so real estate. His comment about the price on the sign is key. Why do we have to get out of the car to grab one of this pieces of paper? Put the price on the sign. Now, whenever we come into a situation, whether it's buying a house, a car, or a book, we have much more information, from review sites online, blogs, articles, friends, and so on. The web gives the individual more information and the ability to do their own research.

From the Wall Street Journal. This is walled off so you do have to have an account at WSJ, usually don't like to post about articles that are walled off.

This issue relates more to commercial property, and using the 1031 exchange so you don't have to pay capital gains taxes.

If you plan accordingly, have a strong network of partners, you shoudn't have a problem finding a property to buy that is of equal footing and satisfy your 1031 exchange. The key is to plan, and not wait, always be thinking about what you need to put in place for a property in the future.

'Some smaller real-estate investors are turning away from a popular tax-deferral strategy that has attracted scrutiny after fraud allegations.

A number of investors had already started to reject the option out of concern about another problem: high prices for commercial properties.

The so-called 1031 exchange strategy allows participants to defer, or sometimes avoid, paying capital-gains taxes when they sell a business or investment property if they plan to buy another property of equal or greater value. To qualify for the benefit, the seller can't touch the money from the sale. Instead, the money typically is received and held by a "qualified intermediary" until it is used to buy a new property.'

Read more...

6/14/07 Attracting Vacation Home Renters

Make your home stand out. Add that extra feature that pulls in the renters. This doesn't just apply to vacation rentals but any kind of property. Sometimes you need to do that extra bit to rent, lease, or sell a property.

Think abou the region your property is located in, and what those tenants would need. Would an elevator in your building dramatically increase the number of tenants, or elderly tenants that live in your building say if the property is in a retirement community. Is your buidling near a college, would free Internet access greatly increase the cache of your building. Learn more below and think about how it applies to your situation:

In an increasingly crowded vacation rental market, high-speed Internet access, plasma televisions, and even 500-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets can help distinguish a home and bring in renters. “It’s a marketing tactic,” Ms. Karpinski said, “but it could be just the feature that pushes someone to your listing over, say, the 50 other condos that are just like yours.”

Read more...

6/13/07 U.S. Mortgage Foreclosure Filings Rise 90% in May

If you have experience buying foreclosed properties, then you're time is now.

U.S. foreclosure filings surged 90 percent in May from a year earlier as more homeowners fell behind on their monthly mortgage payments, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

There were 176,137 notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions last month, led by California, Florida and Ohio, the Irvine, California-based seller of foreclosure data said in a report today. The median price for a U.S. home slid 1.8 percent the first three months of 2007 as the housing slump entered its second year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The filings rose 19 percent from April.

Also see Inman.com for more on this:

Here's a rundown on the metro areas with the highest rate of foreclosure filings:

Stockton, Calif. (1 in 88 households)
Merced, Calif. (1 in 100 households)
Modesto, Calif. (1 in 118 households)
Las Vegas
Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.
Vallejo-Fairfield, Calif.
Sacramento, Calif.
Denver, Colo.
Detroit, Mich.
Miami, Fla.

6/12/07 Housing Market Hasn't Hit Bottom

For investors right now is a good time to do your research and look to scoop up some properties where sellers are trying to get out. There's a surge in foreclosures and now people who owned houses are looking to rent, so the apartment area will have a bigger demand and rents will stay at a good or increased rate depending upon the area you're buying in.

Think outside the box right now. What can you do to help others and at the same time increase your revenue in the real estate market.

'Dotcom-crash rhetoric/predictions back in 2000 and the housing-crash rhetoric/predictions in the last 12 months

Housing obviously won't experience as deep a correction as the dotcoms did, but I haven't heard a single persuasive argument explaining why this downturn won't look like every previous housing downturn: i.e., will last a lot longer and drop much farther than most people think--until price/rent and price/income ratios return to or below their long-term trend.'

Read more...

6/11/07 Tony, Carmela, Paulie and the Gang Loved Real Estate to Death

It is all about real estate--who has the money gets the power. Real estate gives you not only money but control. See how it plays out in The Sorpranos.
Sopranos House

Carmela was trying to establish herself, have her own money, by getting into the real estate game. Tony, in some ways wanted to keep his control over her and now allow her have her independence. Even deals she was working on he somehow helped connect her too. He wanted her to take the money she made and bet it--he had a sure pick he said.

'Perhaps it was inevitable that series creator David Chase chose real estate as such an animator of The Sopranos. So much of American money is tied up now in property in all its manifestations—private property, public-private partnerships on property development (the esplanade, with its hotel and galleria), public property. The show that captured so much of the national zeitgeist had to delve thoroughly into what's really now the national past-time.'

6/8/07 Investments for All Ages

There are many reasons that make real estate investment an attractive option. One of them is that there is basically no age limit. Just think about it. Anybody can do it. Latin Dad is 62 years old. And young people fresh out of college can get their foot in the door with real estate investing, too.

Although age is not a limiting factor, it is, however, a variable that will affect how you invest. A retired couple and adults in their twenties will have different strategies in how they wish to invest. Read more...

3/11/07 To Have, Hold and Cherish, Until Bedtime

An interesting concept, couples sleeping in separate beds or rooms like in the 50s, but now for different reasons. Maybe that's an addition or unique attritube that makes your investment property stand out from all the rest. You have a master bedroom and a women's own mrs. bedroom. The phrase 'master bedroom' is now being deprecated.

The NY Times article is about couples building or having separate bed rooms, to get some peace and quiet from snorers, jimmy legs, and late night email checking obsessive workers. Couples are looking for buildings with two separate bedrooms, or adding them on to an existing home. From the NY Times:

"In a survey in February by the National Association of Home Builders, builders and architects predicted that more than 60 percent of custom houses would have dual master bedrooms by 2015, according to Gopal Ahluwalia, staff vice president of research at the builders association. Some builders say more than a quarter of their new projects already do."

"At Escala, a condominium project in Seattle, a quarter of the 270 units have double master bedrooms, said John Midby, a partner in the development. In St. Louis County, Dennis Hayden, president of Hayden Homes, said that each of the 30 detached homes in his latest planned community would have two separate-but-equal bedroom suites."

“As a social pattern, this could increase,” she continued. “A lot of people I know fantasize about living in the same apartment building as their husband — but in a separate apartment. That could be next.” Read more...

2/22/07 Most Overvalued Housing Markets:

Latest analysis of 299 markets: See how your hometown ranks.

Sixty-five of the nation's 299 biggest real estate markets are severely overpriced and subject to possible price corrections.

That's according to the latest (third quarter) Housing Market Analysis conducted by National City Corp, a financial holding company, in conjunction with Global Insight, a financial information provider.

The report named Naples, Florida as the most overvalued of all housing markets in the United States. A single-family, median-priced home there sells for $329,970, 84 percent more than what it should cost -- $180,956 -- according to the analysis.

National City arrives at its estimates of what the typical house in these markets should cost by examining the town's population densities, local interest rates, and income levels. It also factors in historical premiums and discounts for each area.