I love tools. We should all love tools. Especially tools that make our work day easier. Digital Laser Rangefinders are one such tool I cannot live without. Whether I am out with a client looking through a house or checking out a house on my own that I want to buy, I always carry one of these rangefinders with me.   You can easily verify square footage in a room or throughout the whole property. [...]

Sale-Leaseback transactions are on the rise in real estate deals. So what are they. They are the simultaneous purchase of a property and a lease back to the seller. The lease portion of the transaction is generally long term. The seller-lessee in the transaction is converted from an owner to a tenant.   So what are the advantages to doing sale-leaseback transactions? Well that can be complicated, but in general it unlocks cash that you [...]

There may be value in those cities if you can compare the foreclosure markets to the rental markets. In the Sacramento area of Roseville, you can get foreclosed homes for cheap and the rental market is pretty strong. Check out the article I have linked to to see if you may find some deals in markets you may be interested in.   Check out the top foreclosure cities here. http://www.businessinsider.com/metros-with-high-foreclosures-2011-8# Tags: investor alert, lance hulsey, Reinvestology

Show of hands, how many of you out there are still confused by the APR vs Mortgage Interest Rate? Come on, truthfully? Well here is a refresher in case you forgot.   THE APR: The Annual Percentage Rate is a formula that combines the mortgage loans interest costs with a whole host of other fees associated with the loan over the life of the loan. The total of the interest rates and the fees for [...]

Boy the stories I hear. Many real estate investors do whatever it takes to move fast from the close of their real estate investment, through the flip process and on to listing the property and a quick close. Get in, get out and maximize profits. Sounds good, doesn’t it. If it were only that easy.   True story, I am working with a buyer who is buying a house from experienced real estate flippers. In [...]

If you are a real estate investor, you may want to pay attention to this statistic. Why invest where people are leaving? Using data from Moody’s Economy.com, Forbes identified the top-10 states where more residents are leaving than arriving. The factors that encourage outbound migration from these states are mostly economic — high employment and high cost of living — although both Louisiana and Mississippi have been affected by natural disasters. The 10 states that [...]

Top 5 Issues Affecting Commercial Recovery Here are the top five issues facing commercial real estate in 2011, according to consultant Deloitte LLP.

From CAR and the New York Times: Strategic defaulting – where the homeowner has the ability to pay the mortgage, but chooses to stop making payments – among affluent homeowners with second homes and investment properties is increasing. MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY FOR CONSUMERS Homeowners who strategically default are likely to find their credit will be negatively impacted and they should expect to be prevented from getting another mortgage loan for 7 to 10 [...]

Just the other day I was talking with a friend of mine who has an SBA loan on a commercial building he owns. He was telling me that he has had a lot of trouble getting the SBA to refinance his loan on the building. A quick summary of the particulars for his situation. The building is valued at $1.2 million and he owes $800,000 on the property. He has a 15% equity position in [...]

Sometimes the simplest things will trip up an experienced real estate investor. Call it a brain freeze. I often forget calculations that I use all of the time when trying to calculate my idea of building values based on local market rates or possible income streams. There are some simple facts I need to understand when making these calculations. Here is an example of something I often forget. When calculating the income approach or the [...]