The Value of Long-Term Rentals

By Peter Vekselman

Regardless of what specific real estate investing strategy you employ in your business, real estate represents the single best method of creating long-term, sustainable wealth available today. While the stock market can be extremely explosive and subject to radical day to day shifts in value based upon economic news, oil prices, and political instability around the world, real estate is remarkably stable and has consistently trended upwards in value for the last 100 years. While it is true that real estate values have taken a severe kick in the teeth as of late, investors utilizing a buy and hold strategy are still making money while the rest of the market is struggling.

In order for this strategy to work, it’s necessary for you to purchase property as inexpensively as you can and to ensure that the cash flow generated from your property is consistently more than the expenses associated with owning it. In order to guarantee that this happens, you need to perform an accurate cash flow analysis of your property before making the purchase. The following components are critical to your success:

Income – the single largest income item associated with your property will be rent. It’s imperative that you know your local real estate market and how much similar properties are renting for. If you estimate that your property will rent for $1500 per month and market conditions will only support $1200 per month, you can very quickly get yourself into trouble with negative cash flow.

Expenses – Novice real estate investors often don’t have a true grasp of expenses or how to accurately estimate them. Because of this lack of knowledge, many investors have been known to blindly accept expense figures offered by real estate agents or the property seller. This is dangerous because the seller has an incentive to minimize expenses in order to make the investment look as attractive as possible in order to get it sold; the real estate agent stands to earn a fat commission check. When you estimate the expenses for your property, use documented, provable expenses whenever possible, but also use the smell test. Don’t forget to factor in an allowance for vacancy because no property can remain rented 100% of the time without fail. You should also be sure to factor in an expense for property management, whether you intend to manage it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you.

Reserves – Regardless of how new a property is, things are bound to break or need replacing. For instance, water heaters, furnaces, and appliances will invariably break down. When this happens, they need to be replaced. By setting cash aside for these situations, you can be prepared when or if repairs become necessary. If nothing ever breaks, cash will be available for you for any other purpose.

As long as your property will provide you with positive cash flow on a consistent basis, you won’t be rocked by market fluctuations, including rapid depreciation of real estate values. You’ll still have a positive cash flow to rely upon for consistent monthly earnings. In addition, as the number of properties you own increases; your monthly income will improve. If each property you own has a positive cash flow of between $200 and $500 per month, you can see how lucrative owning 15 or even 20 properties can be.

This monthly income is ongoing and life-changing. You can literally reap the rewards of real estate investing by building a generational cycle of wealth creation that will live on long after you exit stage left.

Holding property as a long term rental also offers tremendous tax benefits to you through depreciation – an ingenious tax code creation of Congress that allows you to take a depreciation tax credit while the actual value goes up – while deferring capital gains taxes until you sell.
Invest early and invest often in property that will provide you with ongoing cash flow. As this cash flows into your real estate business you can use excess funds that you don’t need for your day-to-day needs to fund acquisition costs of additional properties that will allow you to better take advantage of other investing strategies that will provide you with potentially huge infusions of cash, further enhancing your bank account and allowing you to live YOUR American Dream.

Peter Vekselman has been successfully investing in real estate since 1996. He has completed over 1000 real estate deals, owned a construction company, been a private lender, and owned a property management company. Peter currently works with clients all over the US http://www.CoachingByPeter.com

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Marble Supply and Construction Providers

By Alexender Smith

Marbles are an important component in real estate construction. Every construction work is imperfect without inclusion of marbles in some most desired portions of buildings. Marble tiles, granite slabs, and other marble components play a very important role in initial decoration of every home, office, residential or commercial property. To get the maximum possible attractive look and feel, one needs to fully utilize the beauty of marbles and other natural stones.

For getting right marble for your construction purposes you need to consult an experienced marble supplier. Not every marble supplier is as experienced as you need. Therefore, before making decision of selecting your marble supplier, take a look at the marble products collection at their store. That will provide you with a fair idea of their reach and expertise in marble product supplies.

Marble suppliers are generally in contact with several marble manufacturers or some of them are marble manufacturer themselves. It’s better if you chose a marble manufacturer cum supplier for your all marble needs for construction purposes. It will keep you less worried for timely delivery of marble slabs, granite tiles, and other decorative marble products.

If you do your market research well, you will most probably end up finding a marble manufacturer, supplier as well as a construction consultant providing all kinds of services related to marble products, their installation, and maintenance for a fixed period of time. Marble consultants can help you in choosing the best textured marbles for your flooring needs. Prefer those suppliers who can provide you supplies of all required marble products, so that you don’t have to run from one supplier to another supplier in order to get all natural stone products ready to complete timely construction.

Even for interior decoration of your home, office or other commercial properties you need to be in touch with your marble supplier. Your interior designer and marble supplier together can make better home decoration plans. A perfect marble supplier can reduce your interior decoration budget to the minimum by providing you an excellent and magnificent look only by using different color or textured marble collection. By using granite slabs in kitchens and bathrooms you can create a different private ambiance for you inside your home. You can provide a younger environment to the kid’s room by using perfect shaded marble tiling and flooring.

All these are just some benefits of contacting an experienced marble supplier. You can even have a better experience by working with them. They can provide you better construction experience only by providing their fruitful suggestions and inputs. So, it’s not a bad decision if you have planned to spend some more money on marble products and taking services of a marble construction consultant.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions, bid on your projects, or schedule an appointment to learn more about us. Visit us at: http://www.pacificbedrock.com

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Take Home Refinance Seriously

By Ivan Cuxeva and George Mclovin

A lot of people hear about home refinance through family members or friends who have gone through the process of refinancing and they decide that this is a next step for them, too. It’s important to take refinancing seriously as there can be serious risks and benefits associated with the process. If you don’t take it seriously and you don’t do your home work you could end up in serious financial trouble and you could even lose your home. Many people think that you cannot go wrong with refinancing, but this isn’t the case at all! You need to take the process very seriously and consider each move before making a permanent change.

Don’t Rush into Home Refinance

There are a lot of things to consider before you jump into home refinance. If your intention is to save money you should know that there are many ways to save with refinancing. You need to think about your own personal situation and your plans for the future before you decide which refinancing program to go with. Many people are surprised to learn that the loans out there are so numerous that there truly is something to fit the needs of everyone, but refinancing is not one size fits all, you have to slow down and take a serious look at all of the options.

Wondering what you need to slow down and think about? The first thing you need to think about is what sort of loan you have now and how you could improve upon it. Many people sort of blindly refinance, not really knowing why they are doing it or how they could make their situation better. It would be difficult to choose a home refinance loan if you don’t know what you are trying to improve upon, so slow down and gather the pertinent information and then go from there.

The next thing you will need to think about is how much longer you plan on living in your home. The reason for this is that if you only plan to live in your home for a couple more years you might want to go with a type of loan, such as a variable rate loan, that will give you a very low interest rate for the remaining time in the home. If you plan to live in the home for more than five or six years, then you may want to choose a fixed rate, which will give you a slightly higher interest rate but it will not increase as time goes along. This means that you will be able to budget your monthly payments for the term of the loan.

As you can see, there are some serious considerations when you are looking to refinance. You need to consider all of these things so you are sure to save as much money through the process as possible. The more informed you are the more money you save through the process, and isn’t that why you were doing it in the first place? Don’t rush, take every detail seriously, and if things don’t seem to add up in your favor, don’t think that you have to refinance now. There is plenty of time to refinance, but now is not the right time for everyone. Taking refinancing seriously and making each move with caution will pay off in the end.

Refinance.com provides more information about Home loans with affordable interest rates, to learn more and see if you qualify visit http://www.refinance.com/ today!

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Using The Internet To Buy And Sell Real Estate

By Jamel Gibbs

he internet is a very viable way of doing business. You can take your business to new heights with the assistance of the internet. Since doing business online is the wave of the future, real estate investors are scrambling to convert their physical business to an online business. This article will explain how to buy and sell (wholesale properties) online.

The internet is still in its infancy and like an infant it is growing rapidly on a daily basis. Everyday there is a new internet surfer. Some of these new surfers are people who are looking to buy real estate at good prices, and others are people who are desperate to sell their properties quickly. So as an investor who is looking to set up an effective internet business what are some of the things you would need to do?

Get a website: The first thing you will need to do is get a website. If you want to be online then you will need a site. Nowadays you can get a site up and going very inexpensively. To compete with other investors make sure you have a professional looking site that will draw your clients in. Make sure that your wording on the site will attract the attention of your prospective customers.

Advertise the site: Next you will need to advertise the site. One of the best ways to do this is by using Google ad words. This is by far the best way to advertise your site for new customers. Another way is to join forums and blogs. Post some information about what you do on these forums and blogs and you will be able to draw traffic to your site using this technique also. Another way to advertise your site is good old fashion newspaper advertising. Using newspapers is always a good way to target your local market. Be an active advertiser and the leads will come.

Buyer’s information: When the leads start to pour in you will want to collect their contact information. The most important information you would want is their name, email address, and phone number. Since email is being over saturated with spammers right now, you would want see if you can get their physical address as well. The reason you want their physical address is so that you can send them post cards and other direct mail. This will increase your business dramatically. On your website make sure you have a form for your new clients to fill out so that you will be able to send them new leads when you get them.

Send: Now its time to cash in on your website. When you have gathered new leads and you have built a list to send the leads to, all you have to do is put the property information in an email and send it to your list. Once you do this just wait for the phone to ring and the money will start pouring in. As time goes on you will tweak your list and identify who the true buyers are. Once you have a descent amount of true buyers, focus your time on advertising for new leads to send them. Remember that the money is in the list of buyers. You can literally sell properties at rocket speed if the price is right.

If you want more information on how to make huge profits in real estate investing the easy way go to: http://www.freezerodownsecrets.com the information is free.Want to see how my last paycheck was more than some people’s yearly salary, and how you can make the same kind of money?

Find out here for free: http://www.freezerodownsecrets.com

Jamel Gibbs own one of the fastest growing real estate investment businesses in Pennsylvania. He’s originally from Brooklyn New York. He became a real estate agent at the tender age of 21 years old and a broker shortly after. Jamel started buying real estate when he moved to Pa and he now has a successful investment business. He also coaches others who are interest in making massive profits in real estate.

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Mortgage Meltdown Has Banks and One Major Home Builder Looking For Answers

By Brian Quigley

Lehman Brothers just posted their first quarterly loss since going public in 1994. The have raised 6 billion in new capital since February 2008, however analysts state that they have a massive portfolio of illiquid assets, like many of these institutional banks. i.e, Countrywide. State Street, another huge bank, just sold 2.5 billion in stock, cushioning against the loss of write downs, which has a negative effect on the value of their shares with their shareholders.

Conversely, one of the nations largest homebuilders of luxury homes, Toll Brothers, is seeking another form of recourse. HELP! They are calling on Congress to jump start the economy by inducing homebuyers to get off the sidelines, and buy homes. They want governmental aid with helping their business. They are losing millions and already posted their second quarterly loss. They have 174.6 million in write downs this year, with revenues down 30%. Most of this is due to cancellations of contracts, as homeowners are opting for less expensive homes during this economic downturn.

It is no question that everyone is feeling the pinch right now. With all the doom and gloom in this market, there is opportunity. The old adage, “when there is blood on the street, someone is making money”, holds very true. Foreclosures are at record highs, as investors are picking up deeply discounted real estate, and moving into these homes as their primary residences. Getting qualified for a mortgage is a lot more stringent in this market, however if the loan makes sense, underwriters will approve your loan.

In closing, everything is cyclical, and we are going through a very nasty downturn, however the buying season is in full force, so hopefully these banks can start recouping some of there losses in Q3 and Q4 of 2008. Highly unlikely, however it sets up a more promising 2009 and 2010.

Brian Quigley is owner of Fusion Financial Mortgage in Denver, CO and is a full service mortgage broker in Colorado. You can learn more about Brian and Fusion Financial at http://www.fusionfinancial.org

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