Real Estate Investing For Real | A BiggerPockets Investment Property Blog

Have You Registered for the BiggerPockets REI Summit 2012 Yet?

Our Real Estate Investing Model in Detail

by Michael Zuber on February 8, 2012

The questions I get most frequently via email from the BiggerPockets audience are: – Can you tell me more about your model? – Why do you think it works? – Can I copy your model in my market? – How can I participate in it? Instead of responding to emails weekly around these topics, I thought [...]

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Economy

How the Robo-signing Settlement will Affect You

by Steve Cook | February 8, 2012

As the result of a massive settlement negotiated between states and lenders that is almost complete, major changes are in the offing that will significantly change the way lenders, especially the largest banks, service defaults and foreclosures. For investors, especially those who invest in major foreclosure markets in states in participating, the settlement will have [...]

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Real Estate Investing

Purposefully Planning Your Retirement – What Is Time To You?

by Jeff Brown | February 8, 2012

Over the last 35+ years I’ve spoken with literally hundreds of people convinced they were seriously preparing for retirement. The problem for many is one of scale. For a couple in their 40s who make $80,000 yearly between them, $250,000 is one heckuva lotta money. Yet, if they’re 45, retiring at 65, turning that amount [...]

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Economy

Are Housing Solutions Really Part of the Real Estate Problem?

by Chris Clothier | February 7, 2012

Cash is King If you’ve been paying attention recently to the drivers of the real estate market, you may have noticed that there is a decided uptick in the number of ‘Cash Purchases’ taking place throughout the country. Some estimates put the actual number of cash transactions at over 100,000 monthly across the U.S. This [...]

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Real Estate Marketing

Response Rates for Direct Mail at Different Times of Year

by Sharon Vornholt | February 7, 2012

Do you track the response you get from your direct mail campaigns each time you send one out? I hope that everyone said yes, because you should be. Tracking your response from each mailing is the only way you can figure out if it’s working like it should. It’s imperative that we spend those precious [...]

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Short Sales

The Evolution of Short Sales

by Melissa Zavala | February 7, 2012

When I was first invited to write for BiggerPockets, I was told that I had editorial freedom—but I should keep to my all-time favorite subject, short sales. Between the BiggerPockets Blog and my other gigs, I think that I have probably written about 2000 articles about short sales. I also calculate that sometime in 2012, [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Property Management: Offense, Defense and Special Teams

by John Wilhoit | February 7, 2012

America’s great spectator sport is front and center with the Super Bowl taking place this past Sunday. In professional football, serious resources go into the process of putting a good team on the field. Each team has three smaller teams; offense, defense and special teams. Every good property manager needs the same structure. Is your [...]

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Real Estate

Why I’m Getting Sued by a Tenant

by Jason Hanson | February 6, 2012

I once read a real estate book that said, “If you’re a real estate investor, it’s not a matter if you’re going to be sued, it’s when you’re going to be sued.” Well, I’ve been in the business about 10 years and I’ve dealt with dozens upon dozens of tenants and sellers and I am [...]

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Landlord Tenant

So You Want to be a Landlord? Really?

by Richard Warren | February 6, 2012

Several days ago I read a great post by Michigan landlord, Dennis Fassett, in the Biggerpockets blog section (article). It would have been hysterical if only it wasn’t so true. He discussed what he called The Boyfriend Disorder. He wrote about what happens when a prospective tenant shows up to view a property and has [...]

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Real Estate

Real Estate News by the Numbers: Week of January 28 – February 3

by Douglas Lazovick | February 4, 2012

A quick rundown of the important real estate news from the week of January 28 – February 3, by the numbers: 8.3% – U.S. unemployment in January, the fifth straight month that unemployment has dropped. All together, 243,000 jobs were added in January, 100,000 more than economists had expected. 1.3% – Drop in home prices month-over-month [...]

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Real Estate Marketing

How We Improved Our Facebook Ad’s CTR by 2,000%

by Jeff Logue | February 3, 2012

Recently we started running some split tests for our Facebook real estate marketing ads, and one of the ideas we tried is known as the “Where In” campaign. In other words, this is a way to pull in traffic via Facebook by displaying an advertisement that portrays a local landmark, which visitors can guess at [...]

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Real Estate Investing

Even Note Investing Has Guru Traps

by Kevin Kaczmarek | February 3, 2012

Our education in any business is infinite, and my passion in note investing has given me the opportunity to meet with some amazing people in the note business and I actively look for new information to perfect my craft. Currently I receive daily newsletters and publications on the concept of note investing, some of which [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Investment Property Valuation: Residential vs Commercial

by Spencer Cullor | February 2, 2012

A man and his realtor walk down the street and the man says “Realtor, I want to buy that house,” pointing to a beautiful 3 bedroom 2 bath home, “What should I offer?” The realtor responds, “Well, I’ve looked at the comparable sales in the neighborhood and it looks like another 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home [...]

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Real Estate Investing

Real Estate Investment Schools of Thought Vary – As Does Their Mileage

by Jeff Brown | February 2, 2012

Many years ago a guy in his early 40s called for an office appointment. He’d invested in his first small income property, and was troubled by the advice his 70 year old dad had offered. In fact, there was tension between them about what investment strategies the younger man should employ. Dad, we’ll call him [...]

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Real Estate

Know The Flood Zone Before You Buy

by Ken Corsini | February 1, 2012

Today I learned a valuable lesson about the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the flood zone designation from our municipal tax database. I’ve known not to rely on the square footage or even the number of bedrooms listed in the tax assessor’s database, but I’ve always assumed that the flood zone designation was accurate. I have [...]

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