Jeff Brown, Author at The BiggerPockets Blog

Archive of Jeff Brown

Licensed since 1969, broker/owner since 1977. Extensively trained and experienced in tax deferred exchanges, and long term retirement planning.

Jeff has written 170 articles for The BiggerPockets Blog.

Real Estate Deal Analysis & Advice

What’s Your End Game?

by Jeff Brown May 14, 2013

When investing long term, what is your end game? What’s the bottom line reality you wish to generate when all is said and done? Ask 100 people that question and, in my experience you’ll hear retirement as the answer at least 97 times. Let’s define retirement here as concentrated on income. Captain Obvious for sure, [...]

10 Read the full article →

Opinion

Real Estate Agents — Are They Valuable To Investors?

by Jeff Brown April 30, 2013

Real Estate Agents — Are They Valuable To Investors? This is a discussion savored best as an observer. Having been on just about every side there is in the industry, I can tell ya this. Put 10 agents in a room and you’ll get 11 answers to the question. Ditto with investors. Experience tells me [...]

20 Read the full article →

Retirement

A 100% Employer Match On 401Ks – The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?

by Jeff Brown April 23, 2013

One of the things I like most about writing on BiggerPockets Blog is the comments and questions from readers. Some of those comments inspired this article, as they compelled a reasoned answer worthy of more exposure than the comment section for one article. The article in question can be found here. Whenever I encourage folks [...]

25 Read the full article →

Real Estate Investing

Increase Debt To Retire Better And Become Debt Free Sooner — What? Huh?

by Jeff Brown April 9, 2013

What kinda double talk is this? Like so many things in life, first impressions are often best kept in reserve ’til the whole story is known. The principle we’re gonna use to make this happen in real life is simple, and old as dirt. Borrow money at a low interest rate, and pay it off [...]

34 Read the full article →

Retirement

Which Retirement Income Option Would You Have Taken?

by Jeff Brown April 3, 2013

The elephant in the room whenever two real estate investors are talkin’ real estate is, duh, retirement. That elephant is ever present in a world class website dedicated to real estate investing like BiggerPockets. Over 110,000 members speaks for itself. Experience tells me that well over 90% of those members are doin’ their level best [...]

13 Read the full article →

Retirement

A Review — How’s The BoomerHerd Faring On The Retirement Front?

by Jeff Brown March 26, 2013

The short answer? Terrible. The long answer is, as usual, somewhat complicated and nuanced — or that’s what the media preaches. The other day I saw something on TV that had me playin’ it back to ensure I’d heard it right the first time. In a nutshell, they said . . . If a couple [...]

20 Read the full article →

Real Estate Investing

Man Plans — God Laughs — It’s About Options

by Jeff Brown March 20, 2013

BawldGuy Axiom: The investor with the most options, wins. So often we spend quality time planning our futures via real estate investing. The underlying assumption being that somehow, some way, the plan will survive years, usually decades of the ebb ‘n flow of local, national, and global economic events. My experience shows we’ll say we [...]

4 Read the full article →

Real Estate Investing

Your Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card Has Arrived

by Jeff Brown March 14, 2013

Real estate investors in many (most?) of the nation’s markets have been held hostage since the infamous busting of the mother of all bubbles. For the first time since I can remember, properties in a buncha these markets can now be sold in a relatively reasonable time. Still, for a majority of folks, encumbered properties [...]

4 Read the full article →

Retirement

A Retirement Case Study: When Time Isn’t Your Friend

by Jeff Brown March 5, 2013

More and more these days I find myself chattin’ with Boomers about retirement plans gone rogue. Honest analysis has shown the reality of what might be a bitterly disappointing retirement — or worse, a postponed retirement. It’s not that they don’t have capital and/or equity. No, it’s that the inertia of their current plans indicate [...]

18 Read the full article →

Real Estate Investing

Let’s Talk About Murphy — And His Critic, O’Toole

by Jeff Brown February 18, 2013

Murphy’s Law — If anything can go wrong, it will. BawldGuy Axiom: Murphy’s alive and knows where we live. If you don’t plan ahead via very generous cash reserves — I call it a Sominex Account (Ambien for the whippersnappers.) — you’re beggin’ for problems down the road. If you’re not afraid of Murphy, flyin’ [...]

6 Read the full article →

Retirement

The Real ‘How To’ For Real Estate Investing — The DIY Retirement

by Jeff Brown February 12, 2013

I’ll begin this with a mea culpa. I don’t want folks to take this the wrong way. I’m an OldSchool Alum, and though I learn new things all the time, realize that fundamentals don’t change. When we fall off our garage’s roof we don’t fall sideways, we fall down — pretty quickly at that. The [...]

7 Read the full article →

Real Estate

Keepin’ Your Eye On the Ball — Retirement Income

by Jeff Brown February 5, 2013

Ah, wise advice — but what ball? When investing in real estate for the long haul, almost always with retirement income as the end game, the ‘ball’ is that very retirement income. When making decisions on potential moves — buying, selling, exchanging, financing and the like — short term benefits often get short shrift. The [...]

7 Read the full article →

Flipping Houses & Rehabbing

A Simple Strategy Made Real

by Jeff Brown January 30, 2013

You’ve got $150,000 plus fix-up cash, and you’re rarin’ to go. You’re goal is to acquire a home to fix up, and without using debt. Problem is, you’re in a $200,000+ market. What to do? Before we begin, the seller you’ll need to find will have to want income, and not have any debt on [...]

7 Read the full article →

Retirement

Fastest Growing Generation: The OopsGeneration?

by Jeff Brown January 22, 2013

I’d never tell anyone that a couple grand a month plus an SS check is to be celebrated. Yet my experience has taught me, in my opinion, that most current American retirees would run over Grandma for that much retirement income. No more is the old joke about “Hi, welcome to Wal.Mart” funny. Far too many [...]

13 Read the full article →

Real Estate Investing

Most Things Work — Until The Day They Don’t

by Jeff Brown January 15, 2013

One of my favorite baseball memories is of my son developing one of the stealthiest pickoff moves to second base you’ll ever witness. He picked off runners who knew about it. Instead of relying on lightning quickness, this move mirrored the strategy of the left-hander’s move to first. The baserunner simply wasn’t seein’ what his [...]

6 Read the full article →

← Previous Entries