Raise your hand if you like being in court. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? In all seriousness, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who enjoys court unless they work in law. And even then, they might not. One of the most stressful, taxing positions to find yourself in is when you’re being sued.

For real estate investors, legal pitfalls are many and varied. While a lot of lawsuits come against landlords or managers first, it certainly doesn’t mean the owner will be unaffected or not sued themselves.

Avoiding lawsuits isn’t as easy as we’d like it to be. Real estate arguably has the highest liability risk, so doing things right is key to protecting yourself and your investment.

Too many horror stories about investing begin with buying what appear to be very good deals on paper only to find out the property and team cannot even come close to performing the way an investor expects.  It is the difference between paper profits and real-world profits.  When investors find what they perceive as great deals before having a good understanding of the market and a team in place, they can often find themselves having more headaches than the investment is worth.

There are a lot of resources out there for real estate investors.We all have favorite books, blogs and podcasts. There’s so much out there, in fact, that is can be difficult to weed out the good from the bad: particularly when it comes to something like e-books.

One of the coolest gadgets to come out in the past few years is the Kindle and other e-readers. They provide on-the-go reading and books at a price that’s often considerably cheaper than that of print editions. On the downside, it’s fairly easy to get published Kindle e-readers. Their direct publishing system allows anyone to be published, increasing the author pool but decreasing, in many cases, the overall quality of options.

When you search “real estate investment” in the Kindle store, over 1,600 choices come up. That’s a lot! If you’re on the hunt for good Kindle books on investing in real estate, this list is a good place to start. Whether by public consensus of stellar reputation, these are just a few gems you can get right now:

We have a lot of fun here at Memphis Invest in the middle of working very hard to be the best at what we do.  The company has grown to 63 team members in three cities with multiple office buildings.  With so many team members across so many offices, we are always looking for ways to get better and get the team involved.

That is where this little book comes into the picture.

Many real estate investors like to keep a close eye on their investment properties. They believe local is best and they’ve got to be able to be there on the ground in order to truly be successful at real estate investing.  There is nothing wrong with that approach.  In fact, depending on the neighborhood and type of property you are interested in purchasing, it may be best to stick close to home and invest locally.  However, investing in your own backyard is definitely NOT the only way to invest in single-family rental properties.

There’s a great myth that the only markets worth investing in is the one you’re in. While yes, there are absolutely benefits to investing in real estate on a local level—after all, you know the demographics, the management companies, the other investors, and even that little je ne sais quoi that you can only get from being a local yourself.

People say remote markets are dangerous. You won’t succeed. You need to be an insider. It’s true that you should know the market you’re choosing to invest in, and as much as possible. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find success through investing in real estate remotely. In fact, you can have a LOT of success! It just takes the right approach.

We will tell you outright that we believe the best way to invest in a remote market, whether it’s in the state over or across the country, is through turnkey real estate.

When you ask someone about hot, happening real estate markets, there are a few places that come to mind right off the bat: New York City. San Diego. Los Angeles. East coast and west coast. Real estate investors imagine having their hands in such prestigious real estate markets with beach side properties and high-end apartment lofts in the middle of the country’s biggest, most bustling cities.

For the investors that get there and love it: great! But there are hidden gems among the many lauded real estate markets: they’re not just promising, they’re already booming. Opportunities for investors of all types abound, from turnkey investments and single-family homes to commercial real estate and high-demand apartments in the middle of a metropolitan downtown.

So instead of looking east and west, we’re setting our sights somewhere in the middle: Houston real estate, Dallas real estate and Memphis real estate. A close look at the market conditions, trends and contributing factors to the health of their local housing markets reveals these three to be not only great candidates for real estate investing, but models of post-recession recovery.

On August 21, Inc. Magazine released their annual list of the 5000 Fastest Growing Companies In America....

And the Clothier family was honored to have Four Companies on this years' list.

Here are the 4 companies that were featured:

• Premier Realty Group (#587) - Memphis
• REI Marketing (#2604) - California
• Memphis Invest (#2622) - Memphis
• Premier Property Management Group (#2900) - Memphis, Dallas, Houston

The four companies are all featured on the Inc 500/5000 full list of companies.  For Memphis Invest, this was the fourth year in a row to be included on the list.  What an incredible achievement!

For those that may not recognize the second company listed, REI Marketing, that is the company founded and operated by Kent Clothier, Jr. out of Southern California.  REI Marketing developed and offers services including several educational programs and materials such as the vanity phone number brad 1-800-SELL-NOW,  FindCashBuyersNow.com and FindPrivateLendersNow.com.  Kent and his team have done an incredible job of serving the real estate investor community with quality products and services and they deserve this outstanding recognition!

It’s never too early to start imparting wise money-ways to the next generation. Teaching children about money can be a challenge. When it comes to investing it can be even harder since we have been trained for years that our investments are private and fear of loss keeps us from sharing with those around us.  Especially our children!

My kids love being a part of our real estate investing.  They want to visit the houses and see the work done.  They have no idea the behind the scenes, but there will be plenty of time for that later.  As for now, I want to teach them to be positive and brave and to respect money and investments.

There are plenty of philosophies on how best to educate and responsibly teach kids about finance. Some earn money through chores. Some have a weekly or monthly allowance. Some pay a small fine for trespasses, from slipping with a swear to putting bugs in their older sister’s bed.

Even as real estate investors, teaching our children how to handle money responsibly isn’t easy. Money and finances can be complicated — but that doesn’t mean we can’t use our wisdom from investing in real estate to impart good principles for the future of their money management.

While these tips primarily target younger children, remember that you can always impart your financial wisdom, whether you’re talking to 12-year-olds and teenagers or your grown children.

Established real estate investors who’ve been involved in raising private capital generally don’t have trouble finding private money lenders. After all, they’ve made a name for themselves and have (hopefully) proven themselves a worthy investment partner.

For newer investors or those who haven’t delved into the world of private money lending, however, raising capital can be a big challenge. Who do you ask? How do you ask? What will give you the best chance at getting funded for your real estate investment aspirations?

As with anything in real estate investment, smart planning and foresight are essential. Real estate investors need to know the best way to make their case to private money lenders if they want to be successful.

For real estate investors, money management is a big deal. After all, when you’re trying to save up for anything: your next big purchase, a vacation, retirement...it’s important to know where your money is going and if it’s being used most effectively. There are a lot of financial apps out there, but not all of them are worth their salt.

We’re looking at money management apps that are known for their high satisfaction rates, innovative approaches or useful features that shake up the way we plan our finances. And by the way: they’re FREE.