Well, the answer is simply a definite YES!
There are quite a number of Simple, Easy, Fun, Secure, Fast and Cost-Effective ways of investing in real estate for anyone considering this way of investing, with or without any money at all!
There are actually four (4) Main Simple and Fast ways of doing this and these are as follows:
WAY NUMBER 1: NETWORKING AND/OR JOINT VENTURING
You see, if you want to strike it BIG and FAST in the field of real estate investing, you need to STOP working as a Lone Ranger Investor!
In fact, all Successful Real Estate Investors as well as any other types of Investors have learn't to use what I like to call "O.Ps" (Other People's stuff) in their investment strategies i.e Other People's Expertise, Other People's Skills, Other People's Knowledge, Other People's Time, Other People's Talents, Other People's Know-how, and lastly but NOT the least, Other People's Money!!!!!!
So, dear blog reader and potential real estate investor, learn to use and incorporate other people's Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Talents, Time and Legwork of Others to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time, energy and money, it will also give you a Godlike aura of Efficiency and Speed.!
Why then would You want to do it all by Yourself? You're ONLY making it Harder on Yourself! There are some real estate professionals as well as other non - real estate professionals whose expertise You can leverage to help You on finding and eventually investing in good real estate deals rather than You wasting Your valuable and precious time trying to do everything by Yourself. There are people to whom You may delegate some simple tasks to so You can concentrate on major tasks that help You make more money and become more effective!
So, Who Are Some Of These People You Can Delegate Some Of These Responsibilities To?
Well, here is a short list of some of these people and/or professionals You may delegate some of Your responsibilities to so You may free up Your time to concentrate Your energies on income generating activities rather than You becoming an unneeded real estate expert. Read below::
i. Real Estate Agents - These have ACCESS to many real estate deals as well as many properties. They can help You with a wide variety of real properties to choose from and for this privilege pay them a little something for helping You save Your valuable and precious time. For time saved is money earned indeed in one way or another! And like I said before, this FREES You up to FOCUS Your time, effort, and energies on other major tasks that earn You money and where You're good at!
ii. Real Estate Legal Officers - These help You with real property Asset Protection. You don't want to buy a piece of real property only to be told later that the person you bought from wasn't the lawful or legal owner of the said property and that he/she never had the capacity to enter into a valid and legally binding agreement! What You want is that once You buy, it's Yours and Yours for good!
iii. Real Property Appraisers - These help You calculate the approximate real and actual market value of a piece of real property in a particular location of the country! What You don't want is to spend more than is required on a piece of property and then live to regret afterwards for the rest of Your life. You had better get it right from the onset. And if you happen to be one who believes in doing it yourself when it comes to property valuations, then here is a great article I wrote that discusses 2 FREE Strategies on calculating or estimating property values on your own. You may access this very article by clicking ->HERE!
iv. A Real Estate Mentor - Such a person can also help You locate the best and ultra - bargain real estate deals in the locality of Your choice. He/She can also help You with information concerning Joint Ventures, Sources of Reasonable Financing, and just other good deals and vital information pertaining to real estate investing!
v. A Banker - This person can help you with Your Financing Needs to assist You buy the property of Your dreams at the time You really need the funds. Moreover, a banker can also provide You with relevant information pertaining to foreclosures before the general populace has access to this type of vital info. Therefore, learn to cultivate a good relationship with some bankers especially those possessing some lending authority like a Chief Executive Officer or even a Branch Manager of a Financial Institution.
vi. A Title Research Or Escrow Services Company - Such an organization can help provide You with valuable property reports on properties listed for sale so You can know in advance if there are any problems with the particular property's title as well as anything else pertaining to that very piece of property such as unpaid land rates, liens or caveats, etc.
vii. Friends, Relatives and Acquaintances - These types of people can also be of great help. They might know someone who has what you're looking for. And in most cases, you don't even have to pay them for such a service. However, if you're so much in a hurry to succeed and get what you want quickly, there is nothing wrong in you enticing these people with cash rewards or you yourself receiving cash rewards from other people in order for them or you to have a compelling reason to either help them or yourself get what you want very fast. This is what is known as "Network Marketing or Networking". This method or strategy is becoming increasing popular all over the world. And therefore, why not use it if others are using it with greater success in their personal and/or corporate endeavors!! If you wish to learn more about this and how it operates, then click->HERE!
However, if you operate a real estate Corporate Entity, then you may take advantage of what is known as Joint Venture Marketing where you enter into strategic business marketing partnerships or relationships with other business entities operating similar lines of businesses and get to market to each others existing customer base when your particular property listings and/or offers do not meet your existing customer's budget, selection criteria and specifications! This enables you to leverage each others existing customer bases and get to profit out of them thereby helping each others organizations with the much needed cash flows which can then later on be used for re-investment purposes such as in real property development initiatives!!
Therefore, as You've seen and read from the above short list, it's very, very important to include others - whether Individuals or other Corporate Entities - in Your own real estate investing endeavors to avoid wasting your much needed and valuable resource which is ->Time! For Time saved is Money Earned indeed.
Henceforth, STOP working as a Lone Ranger Real Estate Investor and start Working with and Leveraging Other People in Your real estate endeavors and You'll achieve your real estate investment dreams in record time.
Why would You want to make it harder on Yourself? You can ONLY go so far as a Lone Ranger Real Estate Investor.........!
WAY NUMBER 2: REAL ESTATE TRADING
And another second type of real estate trading involves scouting for and buying real estate properties with the intention of holding them for a very short period of time, often not more than three to six months time, whereupon you hope to sell them off for a marginal profit. This technique is called "FLIPPING PROPERTIES" and is based on buying properties that are either significantly undervalued by their owners for one reason or another or happen to be situated in a very red hot market area of a particular region.
Two distinct types of Property Flipping exist. And these are:
i. Pure Property Flipping - Pure Property Flipping is a type of real estate investing where You do NOT put any money whatsoever into a house or indeed any other kind of real property in order to renovate and/or improve it after you've purchased it. The property in question has to have intrinsic value to gain some profit for you as an Investor without you physically renovating or improving it or else you don't consider it. Flipping properties in this manner is only meant to be a short term kind of cash investment.
However, the only negative side of property flipping is that if a property flipper gets entangled in a situation where he or she cannot sell his or her property quickly for one reason or another, then this can be quite catastrophic especially if the monies used to purchase the said subject property were obtained via a mortgage and therefore this becomes difficult to keep up with the mortgage repayments. This can result in serious liquidity problems for the property flipper who is unable to offload his or her property in a bad market.
The only way to avoid this kind of predicarment is to put in place contigency measures! Otherwise, flipping properties is a good way to raise money for further real estate investment endeavors!!
ii. Buy, Fix and Flip: This is the second type of real property flipping investment strategy that involves buying or investing in reasonably priced properties and then adding value to them by renovating and/or improving them and then finally selling them at a slightly higher price. This enables one to generate enough money that can then later on be used to buy or invest in another piece of real property whilst using the seed capital for re-investment purposes.
However, this real estate investment strategy is normally used for medium to long term kind of real estate investments and normally will depend on the extent of the renovations or improvements to be done.
The downside to this type of real estate investment strategy is that it is time intensive and often only permits an investor to take on one piece of real property at a time. But generally speaking, it is also a good way of multiplying one's income which can then later on be used in purchasing other pieces of real property once an investor has made enough!
WAY NUMBER 3: THE DEAL CLINCHER
WHAT EXACTLY DO I MEAN BY THIS?
Well, allow me to illustrate this with a real life investment scenario.
For instance, if you desire to buy or invest in Company Stock or Shares, you'll be required to pay the full value of the Stock at the time you place the buy order. Even when you decide to buy on margin, the amount of money or whatever form of consideration you choose to use, will still be much lower than if you had invested in real property. Why? Because real property has real value which even the distinct financiers or money lenders recognize!
Moreover, most financial lending institutions offering mortgage bonds require that an would be buyer puts down a certain minimum deposit towards the purchase price of a piece of real property before they can even consider processing an investor's application for such an investment venture. However, notwithstanding this requirement, and real estate being what it is because of its inherent and perceived value, there are now other Investment Options pertaining to real property investment which a shrewd real estate investor can apply without putting down any liquid cash whatsoever and still walk away as the new owner of the property with full management controls even when the said property hasn't been paid in full! What this therefore means is that you can control an entire piece of real property and the equity it holds by simply paying what is know as the Option Money or Payment which represents a fraction of the property's total value. And this Option Money or Payment doesn't necessarily have to be in liquid cash! It can be in whatever form or shape of consideration the vendor or seller is comfortable with. But of course, your mortgage bond from your bankers or financiers will eventually help you pay off the remaining balance of the property's sale value BUT you gain control of the property the moment the papers are signed between you and the seller, which is called - Deal Clinching!
If this does not make sense to you at all, then I highly recommend you sign up for a certain E-Course entitled "How To Buy Real Estate Using Little or None of Your Own Money At All And Get To Buy Your Dream Property At The Price You Want". I discuss in detail such ideas and strategies in that very E-Course. So, sign up for it by clicking->HERE or simply use the form on the other side of this very webpage if you wish to know more about how to invest in real estate using Deal Clinching as an investment strategy!
Therefore, this is what makes real estate investing so attractive to so many people because it has so many alternatives tied to it even when a person doesn't have any money at all to invest in real property. One can still use such Options in their investment endeavors and still walk away as a property owner with full management controls even when one hasn't yet finished paying for the subject property in full.
You as a real estate investor can also take out a second or even a third mortgage bond on your own home and use that very mortgage bond as down payment on two or more other properties to increase your real property investment portfolio. Whether you happen to rent out these properties to tenants so that they help you pay out the mortgage bond you borrowed or wait for a chance to resell the property for profit, you control these assets inspite of you having paid only a small amount of money or consideration for them in the begining.
WAY NUMBER 4: INVESTING IN BASIC RENTAL PROPERTIES
This way of investing in real estate is as old as the practice of landownership itself. Normally you as an investor will either buy or build a piece of real property with a view of renting it out to other people for profit. You - the Owner or Landlord - will be responsible for paying back the mortgage bond if at all you got one including the costs associated with maintainance of the property. Essentially, you charge enough rent to enable you cover all of the aforementioned costs and other kindred expenses. You may also decide to charge more in order to help earn a very reasonable monthly profit to make the monthly mortgage bond repayments easy for you. But the most common plan is to be patient and only charge enough rent to cover only the expenses and other costs until the mortgage bond loan is paid in full, at which time the remainder of the rental fees becomes full profit for you the landlord.
Moreover, the property may also appreciate in value over the course of the mortgage bond period leaving you the landlord with a more valuable asset clear of any debts! At this time it becomes yours fully and you can decide what else to do with the property.
However, investing in basic rental properties also comes along with its own challenges and hiccups!
The first challenge is that you need to have plenty money for you to do it. If you don't have plenty money, then you need to have a steady and regular source of income to enable you borrow from the hard money lenders so you can either build, buy and/or invest in real property.
The second challenge is that if you happen to be one of those people whose liquidity position is sound and you're able to afford to borrow and get yourself a mortgage bond loan to enable you either build or buy a piece of rental property, you may end up with a nasty tenant who damages your property, delays in paying rental fees to you or worse still, end up having no tenant at all. This therefore might end up leaving you with a serious negative monthly cash flow position which might make it very difficult for you to service your monthly mortgage bond loan repayments.
The last but not the least challenge is that of locating and/or finding the right property in a good location. Why? Because this might end up taking most of your valuable and precious time and effort trying to find the right property with good terms and conditions. This may therefore work against you in terms of time more especially if you're using borrowed funds to invest in real property. You may reach a point where you have to start repaying your loan and yet you haven't even finished building that investment property if you happen to go the construction way.
Otherwise, notwithstanding the above mentioned demerits of basic income generating rental properties, real estate investing is generally an excellent investment choice compared to other investment options because of its inherent and perceived value!
However, as with every other good investment option out there, real estate has its own fair share of risks as well. So, dear prospective real estate investor, be smart in your real estate investment efforts and please make sure you do your homework before you sign on the dotted lines. There is nothing which is 100% perfect in the investment world!!
As always, go well in your real estate searching, buying and investment endeavors.
NOTE : Looking for Real Estate to Buy, Sell, or Rent, then click on the highlighted words right in this very sentence for details.
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