Don’t let property management get the best of you as a real estate investor. Instead, get the best property management for your large multifamily investment. Let’s talk about a simple technique that will help you avoid making some big mistakes.

When it comes to cap rate, there’s so much misinformation and misapplication of its definition and use. In particular, cap rate should not be used to determine the right price to pay for a property or to decide the quality and suitability of a real estate investment. Here I explain the only reaso...

Perhaps no topic is more overrated, misunderstood, or debated than cap rate. I would also argue that cap rate has more inaccurate or misinformed articles written about it than pretty much any other topic on real estate. Why not just forget everything you’ve read about it, and start from scratch h...

Many passive investors confuse distributions with performance, so if the distributions are coming, the plan is coming together. Bernie Madoff’s investors probably thought that, too. So, how can you really tell how your investment is faring—especially if the syndication sponsor is overstating perf...

If you’ve been looking to invest passively in a real estate syndication, you’ve probably noticed that most offer a feature called preferred return. It seems that as awareness of syndications has increased so have misconceptions about preferred return. Let’s clear up what it is and, more important...

Everyone wants to talk about success. But what about failure? When we fail, we learn the most important lessons. Here’s how to leverage your mistakes, turning the bad into something good.

When I was growing up, my grandparents lived in the mountains outside of a small, rural northern California town, far removed from the comforts of modern city living. They had electricity, but t...

Before I became a full-time real estate investor well over a decade ago, I worked for a city’s public safety department, which is a combined police and fire department under one roof. It’s sort ...

When investing in single family homes, you have to sit around waiting for the market to appreciate to realize a higher value. When you own an apartment complex, you are in control. If you want t...

Many single family landlords have it easy. Their tenants tend to stay for a while. They are oftentimes more stable. Some of them even take good care of the home that they are renting. It can som...

A few months ago while on vacation in Hawaii, my wife Suzi and I had just sat down for breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants. As we were perusing our menus, a man walked by our table talk...

Last year I wanted to refinance some of my small rental properties. Four properties, a hundred grand here, two hundred grand there… but you would have thought that I was seeking to solve the mys...