Have you asked yourself lately?

I think too many real estate investors analyze real estate in a vacuum. Their analysis focuses on the property alone (which, don't get me wrong, is still important) while neglecting all the factors that will affect the property's performance. Simple supply and demand will do you a lot of good. What is the demand for that specific property type in that specific sub market? Is that demand increasing or decreasing? Why? Is it sustainable?What is the demographic of that demand? Does the demand have the capacity to pay? Why or why not? Does the current supply meet the demand? Is the supply increasing or decreasing? Is it able to increase? How much and how fast? Is it expanding or contracting faster or slower than the demand is increasing or decreasing? What are the alternative substitutions (SFR vs. apartment vs. condo, etc.) What features of a property are in demand by your target demographic in that specific submarket? these are a few of the questions we should be asking ourselves before even looking at a specific property. A more broad view can also be taken at the level of specific state/province, country, and dare I say currency? more on that in a future post.