October 2010

Commentary

The #2 reason real estate investors don’t become successful (and what to do about it)

by Jason Hanson | October 10, 2010

The #1 reason real estate investors don’t become successful is because they don’t do their marketing. I’ve been approached dozens of times at REIA meetings where I’ve had investors say, “Jason, I haven’t closed any deals yet, what am I doing wrong?” I’ll say to them, “how many postcards did you send out last month, [...]

7 comments Read the full article →
Economy

Unemployment Breakdown by City

by Ryan Moeller | October 9, 2010

I pulled unemployment data from Department of Labor, did a ton of copying, pasting, formatting it in excel then worked my magic.  This took me countless hours and now I have created some very useful breakdowns of unemployment in the US.  This is the most current data by the way.  What I found did not surprise [...]

1 comment Read the full article →
Landlord Tenant

Ten Realizations from my First Year as a Landlord

by Steve L. | October 8, 2010

I rented my first property in September of 2009.  Over the last 12 months I rented over 20 more as an owner/landlord.  These opinions might be a bit skewed as my sample size is only about 25 units and most of our tenants are interested in entry level single family housing. Here are 10 realizations [...]

18 comments Read the full article →
Commentary

Bank of America Halts the Sale of Foreclosures in All 50 States

by Joshua Dorkin | October 8, 2010
Thumbnail image for Bank of America Halts the Sale of Foreclosures in All 50 States

In another sign of the mass chaos that has crippled the US housing market, the AP is reporting that as of today, BofA has halted all foreclosure sales throughout the United States. While this is great news for many people who are set to lose their homes, some even potentially wrongfully, it is not good [...]

3 comments Read the full article →
Real Estate Investing

A Real Estate Investing Disaster: Learn From these Mistakes

by John Fedro | October 8, 2010

In 2005, against my strong demand that he not buy 2 investment mobile homes, my friend Brian purchased 2 of the ugliest rundown P.O.S. mobile homes I have ever seen. “How can I lose?!” he explained to me. Brian was a newbie real estate investor at the time that did not seem to need or [...]

6 comments Read the full article →
Taxes

2010 Small Business Act: You Have Been Drafted by the IRS

by Clint Coons | October 7, 2010
Thumbnail image for 2010 Small Business Act: You Have Been Drafted by the IRS

In the off chance you missed your IRS draft notice I thought I would remind everyone of their new responsibilities. As you know, the United States has run up a huge deficit and spending is no where near under control. In an effort to appear as if steps are being taken to to address the [...]

9 comments Read the full article →
Landlord Tenant

5 Strategies To Get Early And On-Time Rent Payments

by Shae Bynes | October 7, 2010
Thumbnail image for 5 Strategies To Get Early And On-Time Rent Payments

A common problem for landlords is collecting on-time rent payments.  Personally, I don’t mind late payments because I enjoy making the extra $50-100 per month but generally speaking you want to ensure timely payments if you can.  A couple weeks ago I had lunch with a friend and she shared some of the strategies that [...]

8 comments Read the full article →
Landlord Tenant

The New Landlord Checklist

by J Scott | October 6, 2010
Thumbnail image for The New Landlord Checklist

After years of doing rehabs, I’ve just purchased my first long-term rental property and put it on the market a few days ago… In preparation, I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time over the past couple weeks getting organized and preparing to be a landlord. I knew that when the day came, there would be [...]

6 comments Read the full article →
Commentary

Interest Rates and The Big Lesson To Learn from Japan

by Julie Broad | October 6, 2010

Besides bringing Sushi to North America – which I give thanks for on a weekly basis at least – the Japanese have shared many lessons with us. In the 1990′s when I was taking my undergraduate degree in business I spent some time studying Kaizen (the Japanese principle for continuous improvement) and JIT (just in [...]

2 comments Read the full article →
Economy

The Paradox Of Our Current Economy – It’s Heaven On Earth

by Jeff Brown | October 5, 2010

First, an apology for not being able to publish what I promised in last week’s post. My travel schedule and workload simply didn’t allow me to do it justice. The long and short of it, is that sometimes I suffer from being the punch line to a good news/bad news joke. The good news? I’m [...]

9 comments Read the full article →
Financing Real Estate

Charming the Den of Snakes – Where Have the Honest Financial Products Gone?

by Bryan Hancock | October 5, 2010
Thumbnail image for Charming the Den of Snakes – Where Have the Honest Financial Products Gone?

It seems that the recent financial meltdown and lack of financing has invigorated hucksters and those pushing “new” financial products.  I have seen a spate of posts about supposedly innovative financial products for simplistic funding needs.  Fully 40% of every dollar of profit in our country was made on financial products at the height of [...]

0 comments Read the full article →
Mortgages & Lending

FHA Case Number Transfers

by Justin McHood | October 5, 2010

From time to time, when you are working with a lender to get an FHA loan, a reason arises that you decide you want to work with another lender.  The reason that you decide to work with a different FHA lender once you have started the loan process isn’t all that important, but what happens [...]

0 comments Read the full article →
Commercial Real Estate

Commercial Real Estate Vocabulary 101 – Commercial Deal Analysis

by Khary Reynolds | October 4, 2010
Thumbnail image for Commercial Real Estate Vocabulary 101 – Commercial Deal Analysis

This is the final installment on the 3 part series discussing the different terms that relate to commercial real estate. In this post I want to discuss how to put all of the terms that we learned in the previous two posts together, in order to analyze properties and quickly determine whether or not they [...]

5 comments Read the full article →
Housing

Housing Market Insight – Week of October 4th

by Ryan Hinricher | October 4, 2010

Last week offered a much anticipated report on home prices from Case-Shiller, an update on interest rates, mortgage application volume, and a discussion over the foreclosure procedure mess that has many banks temporarily halting foreclosures. Case-Shiller: Prices Stable Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index was released this week showing prices were stable and up [...]

1 comment Read the full article →
Real Estate Fraud

Raising Your Own Real Estate Capital – Sure You Want to do That?

by Richard Warren | October 4, 2010

I often see forum postings from real estate investors looking to raise their own investment funds. These are often newcomers that are frustrated by their inability to obtain financing for what they’re sure are smoking hot deals. The banks have told them ‘no,’ hard money lenders laughed in their face, private lenders turned them down, and [...]

18 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

Copyright © 2004-2012 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
BiggerPockets® is a registered trademark of BiggerPockets, Inc.