Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Real Estate Riches
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Financing
This topic will be covered in a few posts rather then just one , not just important it is also interesting to see how real estate financing works and how in this sort of investing you make your own rule.
Under financing I will cover many forms of loans and techniques to get finance. We will talk about home loan, mortgage, commercial loan, valuation, signature loan, vendor financing, credit card financing etc. so stay tuned!
Monday, August 27, 2007
Buy from a motivated seller
As stated earlier a lot of money is made at the time of buying, also in the mind since properties are prices in hundreds of thousands and millions and reflect more value then peanuts by any means, small amounts like a few thousand do not matter a lot. As an investor you would go through a number of properties before zeroing down one or two and after this write up the factor to zero down would be more towards the circumstances then the actual property. Remember you are an investor and not every property you buy is to be used by you as your primary residence or office space. You must shop around for property sellers who are willing to sell it for meeting commitments rather then those who just wish to sell. Once you find out the motivated seller, negotiating a better price become all the more easy. I am not one of those who is suggesting to absolutely exploit the seller but remember you are interested and a property at a given price may be negotiated for a few thousands or ten thousands less then its market value, Your price offer is still better then the next best offer available if any so both the seller and the buyer are into a win win situation. This is great opportunity to buy something of certain value for much less then its worth and the difference in price and value instantly ads to your net worth. Do it a few times and then you can talk to your banker with a straight eye in his / her face rather then look down when you next need a loan. Banks respect and give importance to people who already have high net worth. This tip if used can make you an important client at your bank of choice.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Dont fall in love with the property
In order to avoid that, make sure you use a spreadsheet where you put in the price of the property, its rental, the amount of interest you are paying on the amount of loan you have taken and see if the numbers make sense. i.e. does the return look sustainable? if yes go for it otherwise mover on. There is never a perfect house or property to buy, and its something you can always get better at so make sure if anything is worth falling love with its the deal with the numbers adding up in your favour. You have to become a sharp number cruncher to understand if any deal is worth it, otherwise move on to the next property.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Making Money when you buy
Against the general notion that you make money once you sell the property, I believe that property based wealth creation works faster if you consider the buying phase and and analyse it closely too. Needless to say there is money to be made, in fact lots of it when you actually enter the deal as a buyer. You know the prices, you know the sq. ft. rate prevailing in the area , you know that prices of similar properties move in unison, so when you stumble across a specific property which is well researched profile wise and notice that price is less then the average or can be negotiated ..... you have almost made money instantly. Not only will you ride the capital again till you sell it( I don't recommend selling generally) or refinance it, you will be ahead of the game to start with. Its not the easiest thing to come across an under priced property but not very rare either. You can negotiate deal to only go through if they are under priced or just walk away. We often shop around for best prices to go on holidays, buy groceries and get our cars fixed. Why not do it to our investments too?
Wealth Basics Rule # 4: Try to buy the property under the market valuation to get ahead in the financial race.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Real Estate Riches!!!
Create Wealth...Action Steps
Show me how to do it:
Other People's Money or OPM: One of the biggest benefits of real estate is you can buy it with other people's money(OPM)- While OPM can be any ones I will discuss the most standard ones that we get from banks and other financial institutions. The money here lies in the idea which is to acquire more and more good debt (Good debt is debt undertaken to buy something that goes up in value). This is the single most important benefit of investing in real estate. With time your debt amount either remains the same as all you pay is the interest or becomes less if you pay back principle as well as interest. Even if you pay interest only the rate by which your property goes up over a long period beats the interest paid hands down.It is almost like borrowing money to gamble in a casino, winning lots of money , and then handing over the the initial amount borrowed by the source such as a friend only herein real estate you are not gambling but is sure and certain and also the amounts we are talking about is much larger as well.
Wealth Basics Rule # 3: Always use debt to buy real estate even if you can pay cash down.
The amount of money you have can be used as an initial deposit in buying a few properties instead of one. With time when each of them grows in value you loan will remain the same and you'll be making money from Inflation and value rises.
Important Lesson: Debts are of two types Good and Bad
Good Debt: Debt undertaken to buy something that goes up in value such as home loan....it helps you move ahead financially.
Bad Debt:Debt undertaken to buy things that drop in value some times immediately after purchase. Credit card, car loan etc.
