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Investing in Real Estate is One of the Best Ways to Make Money

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There are many ways to earn money from real estate.

When you buy a stock, the only way you can make money is if the stock appreciates in value, and you sell it at the good time. With real estate you can make money in many different methods.

  • Rental income. Rental income is the main source of profit investors are going for when buying a rental.
  • Buying below market value. Earn an instant profit buing a property for under market value. Think foreclosures, quick sales, and awesome negotiation skills.
  • Selling high. Make extra money by staging the property to attract buyers over market value. With stocks, you always buy and sell at market value. With real estate, you can try to beat the market.
  • Increasing equity. Take a mortgage to finance a rental and increasing equity with every mortgage payment. I put down 25% on my last rental and with mortgage repayments am around 33% equity at the moment, those 8% of the property value were paid by rents and are increasing my net worth every month.
  • Leverage increases returns. If you put 20% down on a property, you will still receive rental income based on 100% of the property value, making it a great return for your 20%. Say your property is worth $100,000 and you charge $750 in rent with $500 in mortgage, taxes and fees. You have a $250 profit on $20,000 down. That is $3,000 a year, or a cool 15% return on your deposit.
  • Leverage makes you profit on the full selling price. If that same $100,000 property you bought with $20,000 down sells for $120,000 a few years later, you get your $20,000 plus principal payments back, and a $20,000 profit. It is only a 20% profit over the full value of the property, but thanks to your leverage, you are making a profit of 100%, minus principal payments to the $80,000 mortgage. The higher the leverage, the larger the return.
  • Renting smaller units. You can divide your family house into a duplex or a triplex and increase the rent. I rent three rooms by the room, to three tenants. I can charge more than if one family was renting the whole place.
    Renting to businesses. Businesses are a different type of tenure and rents are generally higher. They are also safer if you choose a well-known business to rent to.
  • Tax benefits on interest. You can often deduce the mortgage interest from the rental income, and create a tax-free profit.
  • Tax benefits on improvements. You can also reduce the cost of the improvements from the rental income, while the added value to the property is yours to keep.
  • Profit from a lump sum on a refinance. So you bought your $100,000 property, and put $10,000 worth of improvements, that the tenants paid back with rents. The property is now worth $125,000, you can refinance to get the $25,000 cash and put 25% down on your next $100,000 rental!
  • Profit from extra cash flow on a refinance. If you are able to refinance a property to lower your mortgage payments while the rent stays the same, you are generating more cash flow every month. You can build a cushion for maintenance, save up for a deposit on a new rental, or have more passive income to live off.

There is less risk in real estate leverage than in stock leverage

Stocks are volatile. Penny stocks and currencies even more so. Some trading companies will allow you to trade on leverage. That means if you buy 1,000,000 shares of a penny stock valued at $0.05, the trading company will not require that you fund your account with the full $50,000, it will let you buy the shares with only $5,000, BUT if the share goes down to $0.045, which it almost certainly will, you will get a margin call and your whole account balance will be wiped out.

With real estate, you can put the same $5,000 as a deposit on a $50,000 or even a $100,000 house, and rent it. If you have a renter, you don’t really care about the ups and downs of the market, as you are able to meet your monthly repayments. If the property sits empty for a while, all you have to do to keep it is pay the mortgage yourself. It isn’t fun, but it is much better than seeing your whole trading account annihilated by a margin call.

Give Crowdfund Builder a try today!

Investing in Real Estate Made Easy

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Buying real estate is not just finding a place to call home. Investing in real estate has become a common investment over the last 50 years.

Although the real estate market has plenty of opportunities for making big gains, buying and owning real estate is a lot more complicated than investing in stocks and bonds. This article, explores real estate as an investment.

Rental Properties
This is an investment where a person buys a property and rents it out to a tenant. The owner is the landlord and he/ she is responsible for paying the mortgage, taxes and costs of maintaining the property.

Hopefully, the landlord charges enough rent to cover all of the aforementioned costs. A landlord may also charge more in order to produce a monthly profit, but the most common strategy is to be patient and only charge enough rent to cover expenses until the mortgage has been paid, at which time the majority of the rent becomes profit.

Furthermore, the property may also have appreciated in value over the course of the mortgage, leaving the landlord with a more valuable asset. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, real estate has consistently increased in value from 1940 to 2006, then proceeded to dip and rebound from 2008 to 2010 and has been increasing overall.

There are, of course, blemishes on the face of what seems like an ideal investment. You can end up with a bad tenant who damages the property or, worse still, end up having no tenant at all. This leaves you with a negative monthly cash flow, meaning that you might have to scramble to cover your mortgage payments. There is also the matter of finding the right property. You will want to pick an area where vacancy rates are low and choose a place that people will want to rent.

One of the he biggest difference between rental properties and other investments is the amount of time and work you have to devote to maintaining your investment.

When you buy a stock, it simply sits in your brokerage account and, hopefully, increases in value. If you invest in a rental property, there are many responsibilities that come along with being a landlord. When the furnace stops working in the middle of the night, it’s you who gets the phone call. If you don’t mind handyman work, this may not bother you; otherwise, a professional property manager would be glad to take the problem off your hands, for a price, of course.

Real Estate Investment Groups
Real estate investment groups are sort of like small mutual funds for rental properties. If you want to own a rental property, but don’t want the hassle of being a landlord, a real estate investment group may be the solution for you.

A company will buy or build a set of apartment blocks or condos and then allow investors to buy them through the company, thus joining the group. A single investor can own one or multiple units of self-contained living space, but the company operating the investment group collectively manages all the units, taking care of maintenance, advertising vacant units and interviewing tenants. In exchange for this management, the company takes a percentage of the monthly rent.

There are several versions of investment groups, but in the standard version, the lease is in the investor’s name and all of the units pool a portion of the rent to guard against occasional vacancies, meaning that you will receive enough to pay the mortgage even if your unit is empty. The quality of an investment group depends entirely on the company offering it. In theory, it is a safe way to get into real estate investment, but groups are vulnerable to the same fees that haunt the mutual fund industry. Once again, research is the key.

Real Estate Trading
This is the wild side of real estate investment. Like the day traders who are leagues away from a buy-and-hold investor, the real estate traders are an entirely different breed from the buy-and-rent landlords. Real estate traders buy properties with the intention of holding them for a short period of time, often no more than three to four months, whereupon they hope to sell them for a profit. This technique is also called flipping properties and is based on buying properties that are either significantly undervalued or are in a very hot market.

Property flippers will not put any money into a house for improvements; the investment has to have the intrinsic value to turn a profit without alteration or they won’t consider it. Flipping in this manner is a short-term cash investment.

If a property flipper gets caught in a situation where he or she can’t unload a property, it can be devastating because these investors generally don’t keep enough ready cash to pay the mortgage on a property for the long term. This can lead to continued losses for a real estate trader who is unable to offload the property in a bad market.

A second class of property flipper also exists. These investors make their money by buying reasonably priced properties and adding value by renovating them. This can be a longer-term investment depending on the extent of the improvements. The limiting feature of this investment is that it is time intensive and often only allows investors to take on one property at a time.

REITs
Real estate has been around since our cave-dwelling ancestors started chasing strangers out of their space, so it’s not surprising that Wall Street has found a way to turn real estate into a publicly-traded instrument.

A real estate investment trust (REIT) is created when a corporation (or trust) uses investors’ money to purchase and operate income properties. REITs are bought and sold on the major exchanges, just like any other stock. A corporation must pay out 90% of its taxable profits in the form of dividends, to keep its status as an REIT. By doing this, REITs avoid paying corporate income tax, whereas a regular company would be taxed its profits and then have to decide whether or not to distribute its after-tax profits as dividends.

Much like regular dividend-paying stocks, REITs are a solid investment for stock market investors that want regular income. In comparison to the aforementioned types of real estate investment, REITs allow investors into non-residential investments such as malls or office buildings and are highly liquid. In other words, you won’t need a realtor to help you cash out your investment.

Leverage
With the exception of REITs, investing in real estate gives an investor one tool that is not available to stock market investors: leverage. If you want to buy a stock, you have to pay the full value of the stock at the time you place the buy order. Even if you are buying on margin, the amount you can borrow is still much less than with real estate.

Most “conventional” mortgages require 25% down, however, depending on where you live, there are many types of mortgages that require as little as 5%. This means that you can control the whole property and the equity it holds by only paying a fraction of the total value. Of course, your mortgage will eventually pay the total value of the house at the time you purchased it, but you control it the minute the papers are signed.

This is what emboldens real estate flippers and landlords alike. They can take out a second mortgage on their homes and put down payments on two or three other properties. Whether they rent these out so that tenants pay the mortgage or they wait for an opportunity to sell for a profit, they control these assets, despite having only paid for a small part of the total value.

In Summary
This article has looked at several types of real estate investment. However, within these examples there are countless variations of real estate investments. As with any investment, there is much potential with real estate, but this does not mean that it is an assured gain. Make careful choices and weigh out the costs and benefits of your actions before diving in.

Real Estate Crowdfunding for Retirement

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Real estate is an important part of any well-diversified portfolio. Not only is it a good way to protect yourself against volatility in the stock market, it can also provide retirement income.

One of the best things about investing in real estate is that you have so many different ways to do it. House-flipping is one option if you want to pocket big profits all at once. Becoming a landlord is another way to go if you’d rather be on the receiving end of monthly rental payments.

Real estate crowdfunding, is an alternative that’s gaining popularity. It’s estimated that the real estate crowdfunding industry topped $2.5 billion in 2015 and is still growing. If you are wondering if this is a good time get in on the game and start fortifying your retirement goals, here’s a overview of real estate crowdfunding.

Real estate becomes more accessible. Private real estate deals have historically been reserved for high net-worth investors who possess the right connections to gain access. Real estate crowdfunding opens up many of these opportunities to the average investor.

This is a great opportunity for investors who are struggling to find an entry point into the real estate market. Crowdfunding enables investors of all ages, risk profiles and wealth levels to acquire real estate for the first time. With as little as a $5,000 investment or in some cases even less, investors can buy a stake in a property. From residential projects to shopping malls to office buildings, there are numerous options.

Crowdfunding is removing barriers to investing in real estate that previously shut a large number of investors out of the game. The SEC’s approval of Title III of the JOBs Act in October 2015 widens the possibilities even further by allow non-accredited investors to take part in crowdfunded real estate deals.

The opportunity for diversification expands. With direct ownership, your options are more limited when you don’t have the ability to purchase multiple properties. Real estate crowdfunding eliminates that obstacle.

Instead of being locked in to a single property type, investors have more flexibility where they put their money. They also have a choice between investing in equity in return for a share in a particular property, or debt investments, which are tied to the property’s mortgage.

If you buy a property to flip or rent, you’ll most likely feel more comfortable investing in your own backyard. When you are investing through crowdfunding, you can invest throughout the country and more easily diversify across property types, investment types and geographies.

It’s a less stressful way to invest in real estate. Owning a rental property or tackling a flip project is great for investors who prefer an active role but it’s not necessarily a good fit for someone who wants to relax in retirement.

With house-flipping, investors have to factor in all the costs involved, from buying the property to physical construction, as well as the interest paid to lenders if you’re financing the project. Besides that, there are the tax implications that go along with realizing short-term financial gains. Bottom line, it takes a long time to master the art of rehabbing. Investors have to be able to anticipate problems and have a counterattack ready.

Owning a rental house is no less of a challenge. There are the difficulties that go along with finding tenants and making sure you’re adhering to the legal guidelines for renting. Then there’s the day-to-day demands associated with managing a property, which can be time-consuming.

The passive nature of real estate crowdfunding as being more suited to retirees who have less of an interest in direct involvement.

Real Estate Investing is a Great Way to add Retirement Income
For some investors, real estate is a viable option for generating money and diversifying your investments.

Understand the risks. While real estate crowdfunding may be more preferable to direct ownership for some retirees, there are some potential drawbacks.

Liquidity is one issue that may be of more concern to retirees. Depending on how a deal is structured, you may be looking at a holding period of anywhere from 18 months to seven years before you’re able to recoup your investment.

In that scenario, owning a rental property or flipping homes could begin to look more attractive because there’s a more immediate payoff. Factoring in the holding period is important if you have a pressing need for sustainable cash flow outside your existing investments.

With crowdfunding deals that are structured as debt or loans, investors receive returns for loaning the owner/ developer money.