Some times real estate investing can get a tad bit mundane.  We like to keep our team motivated and happy since that is the atmosphere where they are going to provide the best customer service in the industry!  So, when our teams wanted to have some fun in the month of October, we came up with a contest where all our main offices decorated their lobbies in honor of the Breast Cancer Awareness month.  It is fun for us and keeps us up beat and motivated while also supporting a great cause.  So there is a lot of pink going on in the office corridors!

Only three things happen naturally when investing in real estate. Confusion, under-performance and apathy.  The rest requires leadership!  If part of your real estate investing goals includes moving away from Turnkey investing for part of your portfolio and into an active role, you are going to have to provide leadership to the team you choose! I hope you enjoy this article.

There’s some crazy tech out there. For real estate investors, the ever-increasing pool of technological advances poses opportunities to increase efficiency and save time and money. Whether you’re looking for a nifty gadget or smartphone productivity tools, there’s plenty out there!

One of the great things about all these tech advances is that it does not matter if you are an entrepreneur and looking for business style apps or a small investor needing smaller more individual style apps, there are some great ones out there.  

Here are a few apps that we like and I would LOVE IT if you shared some of your favorites in the comments below!  Let us know what you think of the list.

I love reading books. I read new books, old books, real estate books, business books and even straight-up horror fiction books!  I like reading.  We looked back over our blog and realized it had been several years since we made some suggestions for our readers on great business/real estate related books to read.

Should cool factor matter to real estate investors? You bet it should. “Coolness,” while not typically a quantifiable measurement, certainly is something to pay attention to when looking at real estate. Where are young people flocking to? Which cities are experiencing rapid growth?  

Cool does not pay the bills...or does it?  Cool is an important factor for today's millennials as you will read here in a second.  They are your potential renters and are the ones who will drive the values and demand for your properties into the future.  So does a "Cool" city matter?  I think it matters a lot...

Real estate investors have always looked for the little subtle advantages they can get.  When you are investing in a city away from where you live, you need to look for every advantage you can get.  Those advantages are found in locating the best team possible to do business with.  The best property management available.  Highly qualified people to help you locate the best neighborhoods, streets and properties.  And lastly, the city itself plays a HUGE factor in your decision.  You want to invest in real estate located in cities where people want to be.  Good culture, good potential and good outlook are all important...but so is the cool factor!  Whether we want to consider the coolness of a place as a contributing factor or as a matter of opinion, the fact remains — people will go where the “action” is.

So you’ve decided to become a real estate investor. Congratulations! If we had confetti, we’d certainly celebrate your decision. Joining the business of real estate investment is an exciting prospect that holds endless opportunities to make passive income for any number of reasons, from retirement to Aruba.

As exciting as it can be to join the community of real estate investors, it’s daunting, too. There’s a lot to learn and take in when you’re starting out — but you don’t have to do it alone.

Raising rent. Depending on the market, it may become necessary for real estate investors to make adjustments to their rent prices, both up and down. It’s a tricky, temperamental balancing act that all investors face at one point or another.

Set your rent too low beneath the market and you may find yourself with tenants you’d rather not have...and run into trouble keeping up with the mounting costs of running an investment property. If you set prices too high, you’ll find yourself with high tenant turnover as a lowered demand for your property.

Goal setting is an integral part of successfully investing in real estate. Most people do it in some way or another — but are you doing it effectively?

Effective goal setting will help guide you in navigating the complex world of real estate investment.  Goal setting is very different and a far cry from making a list of things to do.  I hate lists!  They show me all the things that I can't do at one time and then feel bad about when I don't get them done in time!  Do you know what happens then?  We stop setting goals because they became lists and we start become haphazard practicers of any type of goal-setting techniques.

Everyone has something to say about the real estate market. That’s no surprise, considering local real estate markets vary and can’t really be used to gauge or predict the overall national market.  Watch the national news for five days in a row and you are likely to get five different stories on the real estate market with five different "revelations".  

You’ll hear a lot of conflicting information from plenty of people, and many of them are considered credible in their field and others just claim the mantle of credibility.  So how do you know which headlines to trust?  How do you know when the source of information is real or when, say a magazine, is carrying the water for their advertisers.  It can be very confusing to know where good advice can be found in today's real estate space.

Whether you’ve taken on landlord responsibilities yourself as a real estate investor or you’ve hired a property manager, there are things people dislike about property management. 

It’s not all petty griping —there are some good reasons to complain. When you invest in real estate, It's a job that takes enormous patience, sacrifice and interpersonal and organizational skills.  Add the responsibility of managing your properties and it’s not for the faint of heart.