As we head into Spring, it’s time to take make room on the bookshelf from new reading! You may have some of these on your shelves already, but there’s no doubt some new releases you’ll want to check out, too.
For this list, we’re specifically covering books on retirement planning since many real estate investors look to use their investments as a way to save up for the future.
We’ve talked a lot about millennials on the Memphis Invest blog. That generation, roughly spanning college graduates to thirty-somethings, are the up-and-coming generation that gets a lot of flack in the world of real estate. Post-recession, they took a lot of blame for lack of recovery: namely because they weren’t buying homes.
We’ve talked about how a combination of student debt and wage stagnation has kept them from saving for down payments and how shifting lifestyles has kept them renting. No matter how we as real estate professionals feel about millennials, it doesn’t change the fact that this generation is important—particularly when it comes to real estate.
2016 has already been a busy year in real estate. Each year is more exciting than the next, and we have to say: we can’t wait to see where it takes us.
Because there’s so much information out there, we’ve compiled a list of this quarter’s must-read articles from top sources and blogs out there!
These are best tidbits of real estate news in 2016: what’s going on, what’s to come, and what you can expect, especially in the markets that Memphis Invest deals in most.
Working in real estate can get stressful. Whether you’re dealing with the aftermath of a bad tenant or working out the kinks of a frustrating deal, the ins-and-outs of investing, no matter how passive, can take their toll. When you feel stressed out, you can so easily lose sight of your goals and what drew you to investing in the first place! It can impair your ability to make good decisions and cause you to do things based on impulses and emotions rather than logic and sound rationale.
For the your best health and the health of your investments, stress management is important!
If you’re a real estate investor who’s found yourself feeling worn down by the grind, these tips might help you step back, get reinvigorated, and back in the saddle:
Investing in real estate is a long-term commitment—at least, to achieve the kind of success we read about so often on books and blogs. Sure, some investors hit it big or have a lot of resources to leverage from the very beginning. But for most of us, it’s years of hard work on a solid buy-and-hold strategy that guides our investments.
Over time, our passive income adds up to something big—something that fuels retirements, futures, and lifelong passions.
The real estate market landscape has been changing dramatically in the near-decade since the biggest recession in recent history. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wasn’t affected by the crash of the housing market in those years.
Even if they weren’t directly affected, they knew someone who was. They had foreclosure signs in their neighborhoods, they knew who was underwater on their mortgages. They had neighbors and friends and family who were affected.
While the nation licked their collection wounds, home buying confidence was obviously not stellar. People were afraid, and understandably so.
For years after the peak of the recession, foreclosures were still far too common, continuing to discourage homebuyers from taking the leap, thus further slowing recovery.
Investing in real estate is a straightforward venture...in theory. Buy a property, rent out the property, make money off of the rent. Simple, right? Unfortunately, theory isn’t reality. We have to deal with things like market climates, taxes, insurance, property management, tenant screenings, turnover, and all sorts of unforeseen complications.
One of the most daunting things for anyone of any age, real estate investor or not? Taxes.
For us, there are some unique tax advantages that we can use to leverage real value. We aren’t talking about creative tweaking that bends the rules to create write-offs. We’re talking basic principles in real estate investment that can minimize how much you pay in taxes each year, thus maximizing your passive income.
Some of these are relevant for your annual taxes, while other will be relevant year-round and for your investment strategies and decisions!
Big news for Dallas. While Houston has been in the spotlight for the past few years, it’s Dallas-Ft. Worth that’s on everyone’s radar for 2016!
DFW landed on Zillow’s Top Ten Hottest Housing Markets for 2016 list, and came in third: only behind Denver and Seattle. Dallas isn’t just highly regarded by Zillow: Dallas ranked fourth hottest market by Realtor.com in December, up from it’s fifth place spot the previous month.
What’s made Dallas so hot? What are experts saying about 2016? Let’s take a look!
No matter what method of financing you as a real estate investor pursue, your credit score is always paramount to both opportunity and success in the business. Your credit score goes hand-in-hand with your reputation: except this time, it’s all money. So much can hinge on just that number.
Real estate investors, who often deal with financing with banks, private lenders, and partnerships, need to do everything they can to keep their credit score well above average. You want a glowing record so that you never have to worry about not being approved on financing for your next investment property.
So real estate investors—here are a few tips to put in your tool kit.
No one can deny that Houston’s been hit hard by the oil crisis. Harder, in fact, than the disastrous crash of the late 80’s. That crash saw oil prices drop from $35 per barrel ($101 in today’s terms, adjusted for inflation) to under $10 ($22 in today’s dollar).
According to NASDAQ, oil sat at around $30 a barrel as of February 2016. In June 2014, a barrel cost nearly $114—a significantly greater drop than the crisis that brought Houston to a standstill 30 years ago.
Naturally, people are worried. The energy sector has been hit hard, and we don’t want to downplay the crisis, particularly for those experiencing layoffs or having to close their doors. But for our purposes, we look at how the oil industry is hitting the Houston real estate market.
While it can be really easy to listen to doomsaying, there are a few things we have to remember to keep things in perspective.
