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Case Study: Maximize Your Investment Return Using Real Estate Software

With all the volatility in today’s real estate market, it’s more important than ever to understand the numbers before you buy. As my grandmother used to say, know how deep the pool is before you jump in! The right software can do just that (metaphorically speaking, of course), turning an often confusing and intimidating analysis into a straight-forward (and dare I say “fun”) exercise. The following case study looks at real estate investment analysis software, and how it can be used by investors—novice and professional, alike—to assess the financial viability and risk of a property.

This case study analyzes real world properties using real estate investment analysis software by GreyStone Analytics (full disclosure: I’m the founder and CEO of GreyStone Analytics, so please forgive any bias). The goal of the study is not to promote a particular software product, but to show how such analysis tools can help investors make profitable decisions. Read more

Free Real Estate Investment Software

Let’s say you’ve spent lots of time learning about real estate investing and finally started looking for properties. You end up finding a potential investment property and now you want to know if it will be cash flow positive. Sure, you could plug all your numbers into an excel spreadsheet and setup some formulas but I’ve got a better option for you.

There’s a free online property analysis tool where you can create, save, and print graphical reports displaying rate of return, cash flow, expenses, and more. I use it all the time whenever I come across a potential investment property even if an APOD (Annual Property Operating Data) is provided. It’s web-based so I can input and access the data from anywhere while I travel. Read more

How To Protect Yourself From Real Estate Liability

When dealing with real estate investment properties you want to make sure you’re always protected. I don’t just mean having a proper landlord insurance policy, I’m more referring to what’s called a living trust structure.

The most successful real estate investors out there today all have some sort of trust set up for each and every one of their real estate properties. This could be just their primary residence, or it could be dozens of apartment buildings they own. Since real estate deeds are a publicly accessible document, it means anybody can find out whose name is on title for a specific address. This type of trust structure which is better known as a Living Trust or Master Protection Trust is very useful for your real estate investments. It has many benefits one of which is especially important to celebrities and wealthy individuals. Do you think that Donald Trump or Bill Gates is names are listed as the owner of any property title document? I don’t think so. Read more

Real Estate Blog Has Moved Servers

For those of you who tried to access the Real Estate Blog over the past several weeks, you may have noticed some problems. I thought these problems would go away but they continued so last week I moved the Real Estate Blog to a new web hosting provider. My previous web hosting provider Host Monster (aff) kept having outages and hindered my site so I had to do something. I was with Host Monster for almost a year and rarely had down time up until recently. Besides the recent outages I’d like believe part of it has to do with the continued success and upward trending web traffic the blog has been receiving. I moved to a new hosting provider by the name of Web Hosting Buzz and have been quite happy with them even though it’s only been a week. Hopefully this up-time will continue and my readers won’t get frustrated when trying to access the site!

A Real Estate Purchase Agreement

A real estate purchase agreement is not a rough guide to a deal. It is a contract specifying exactly what legal obligations each side has. In other words, be sure it says what you want it to say, and has everything you need in it.

Normally, if you are buying a property that is listed with a real estate broker, they will have a purchase agreement ready to have the blanks filled in. If you have a buyer’s agent that you work with, he or she will have the necessary forms. There are the routine parts which are necessary, but not easily forgotten or done wrong. These include the following.

The Date - Names of Buyer(s) and Seller(s) - Address Of Property - Legal Description Of Property - Purchase Price And Terms - List Of Anything Included With Property - Date The Deal Should Close By - Closing Process - Disclosure Statement - Signature With Date For Buyer And Seller - Addresses and Phone Numbers Of Buyer And Seller. Read more

European Dream Vacation Home - Properazzi.com

For those of you interested in investing outside of the US, I’d recommend checking out a cool new European property search engine called Properazzi.com. This site collects listings from thousands of websites and presents them in a simple Google map sort of way. This clever play on words website currently boasts over 1.8 million properties listed in 45 European countries.

Find your dream second home or go global with your real estate investing plan by using this cool property aggregation website. It costs nothing to use and would be a great excuse to find a potential investment property to fly out and see and write off the whole trip!

5 Must Have Home Valuation Websites

There are many new websites popping up like zillow.com and auctioncloud.com which claim to give you a pretty good estimate of what your home or even your best friend’s home is worth. The technology out there today allows such sites to do this and are pretty impressive compared to the old days where you’d have to go around reading newspapers or speaking with real estate agents to find out what neighborhood homes typically sell for.

Here’s a quick list of the top home valuation (or home tool) websites I’ve recently come across listed in no particular order: Read more

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