So you’re thinking about remodeling your investment property. You want to increase your property value, up that rental price, and, down the line, maybe resell your property for a lot more than the purchase price. Pouring into your investment property can be a great idea, but it can be a monumental task—you need to make sure your property renovations are well worth the effort!

Here’s the question: we know that the best ROI comes from renovating the kitchen and bathroom. Everything else is secondary. But do you know what renovations within those broader categories really make a strong impact?

If you ask someone “what makes a real estate investor successful?” you’ll likely get a lot of different answers.

The truth is, a lot of different traits make the recipe for success. Honesty is important. Integrity—that’s a good one. Tenacity, nice. There’s old-fashioned intelligence. A natural knack with money.

But what common thread weaves through every successful real estate investor?

Surely there’s one thing that brings it all home. One thing that ties it all together...

Tenant retention: it can be a big bug bear for some investors.

Have you found yourself with high turnover and not knowing the cause? Maybe you keep doing everything right, but you just can’t seem to get good tenants to stick around for longer than a year or two.

Granted, sometimes there’s just nothing you can do. The sway of life pulls people away to new opportunities and it just doesn’t have to do with your property.

But, on the flip side, there is a lot you can do.

Do you look around and get frustrated when it seems like everyone else is doing so much better financially than you are? Does it seems like you’re struggling to scrimp and save and make it to next month while your friends and fellow investors are killing the game every time?

Maybe you feel like you’re falling behind. Despite your best efforts, you just don’t feel good enough. Maybe you feel like you finances never catch up with your goals. The expenses keep adding up and the profits never have the traction to give you a solid footing.

It’s frustrating. It’s disheartening.

But you have to ask yourself: are your money habits secretly killing your chances at financial freedom?

Congratulations!

You bought your first rental property. That’s the first big step towards building towards financial freedom. Hopefully, it was not just one property that you purchased, but a portfolio of multiple properties to help get you started in the right direction early.  Especially if you a passive investor.  More on that later.

You may be thrilled.  You may be excited.  You may even be a little apprehensive. There’s still a lot of work to be done. Buying a property is only the beginning of investing in real estate.

Even as a passive real estate investor, you have quite the road ahead of you! No matter if you’re investing locally or in a distant market, here are the next steps you for the best foot forward:

You’ve read all the books. Joined the forums. You’ve learned, you've leaned in, you've done your homework, devoured anything and everything real estate investment in your path. There’s just one little catch: you haven’t actually invested in any real estate yet.

When you hear the word “risk” as a real estate investor, what comes to your mind? You’re probably thinking about big things. The risk of buying a bad property. A lemon. You think about due diligence and ensuring that your property isn’t a dud. But there’s so much more to real estate investment risk than just when you buy your property.

And there’s so much more you, as an investor, can do to reduce your risk as an ongoing effort to make your investments more profitable.

You might not even think that some of these things are reducing risk. Some are ongoing actions

Part of the real estate investment business, of course, involves buying real estate. For new real estate investors, there’s a lot of apprehension about buying properties. There’s a lot of mistakes made, too, and probably more than a few failed deals!

Even for those successes, there was likely opportunity to save more on your deal than you did.

Negotiation tactics are part of really winning at buying real estate. Real estate deals can be tough to navigate—every seller is motivated by

For those of us thinking towards retirement planning, there are a lot of options put in front of us. While historically, many have relied on career retirement plans—do they really cut it anymore?

Those who are serious about having a solid retirement fund will want to look into investment options well before their golden years. Some might just settle for IRAs, stocks, and bonds, while others will look into more ambitious options. And those options can be hit-or-miss!

There are bad investment options out there. You know the ones. Gold. Gemstones. Tax shelters. Collectibles. Even stocks, except for the most experienced and savvy investors. For the average American, you’re going to want an investment that really pays off. Not one that you spend time hoping and praying works out.

We’re probably all tired of predictions. But for real estate investors, they can be incredibly valuable. If we can gauge the direction of the market ahead of time, we can make better, more informed decisions...ahead of the curve!

Memphis Invest, as you know, is thrilled to be in three incredible real estate markets—Memphis, Houston, and Dallas. Houston has been one of the hottest markets in the country for the past few years. But will it stay that way in 2017? What’s the forecast look like—and what can real estate investors expect?

We’ll tell you! Here’s what the outlook is for Houston real estate in the year ahead.