In today’s age of modern technology, where instantaneous communication and an increasing number tricks and gadgets try to squeeze the most work out of us as possible, it’s good to remember to step back and remember balance.

For some, work is life, while others desperately wish to get away, even for a minute.

Part of the job of any real estate investor is to pay attention to the state of the real estate market. More than reading news and keeping up with our professional connections, we need to look into the mind of the consumer. The consumer on all sides of a real estate transaction.  Demographics are important, particularly in a world where real estate investors are looking to draw in tenants and may need to draw in an end buyer.

Not only do we need to observe what makes our tenants tick, but how the face of the modern-day home buyer has changed.

One off the number one reasons people are drawn to renting is the idea of a maintenance-free lifestyle. Yes, not having to deal with broken appliances and property upkeep is an alluring notion for many. For real estate investors, though, when buying investment property, dealing with property maintenance can be a big pain. While particularly big repairs always hurt the wallet, the fact is that any maintenance task takes time and effort to properly address.

The sooner you catch a problem, the sooner you can fix it. So what’s a landlord or property manager to do when tenants keep things to themselves?

This is the first of a few articles I am writing dealing with the topic of tenants.  It is my hope that I can help investors get a better understanding of exactly who the tenant is that is renting their properties.  I figured the easiest place to start was defining exactly what tenants are looking for today.

At the same time, many of the investors that work with Memphis Invest and Premier Property Management are reviewing statements from 2014 and deciding what to add for 2015.  With three cities and varying price points available for portfolios, there is a lot to choose from, but more importantly...there is a lot for renters to choose from.  Here are the top factors for tenants that you need to consider.

Are you considering entering into a partnership?  Partnerships are very common, but how common and more importantly how easy are they to pull off in real estate investing?  Partnerships are those funny things that can be good and bad and both can happen in the same day!  

How long has it been since you’ve picked up a good book? All of us could stand to do more reading, whether it’s looking at articles on the Internet or getting our hands on a real ink-and-paper publication. Books are a great source of inspiration and motivation — to see things differently, do things better, and even make ourselves better.

It takes a lot of time, hard work and dedication to build up a solid passive investment portfolio. None of us find success just starting out — patience and consistent efforts are key here. Once we get our portfolios in a good place, it doesn’t mean we can take out hands off of the wheel. Not entirely, as 100% hands-off investing is a myth.

Modern technology is regarded by many real estate investors as both blessing and curse. One one hand, we see claims of how distracted we become with our vast numbers of technological gizmos and gadgets. While it’s true that unregulated use of our smartphones can lead to sinking far too much time into Facebook and creating undue (and sometimes dangerous) distractions, there’s no doubt that responsible use of our digital devices can go a long way in increasing productivity.

I have been writing many articles lately with advice for real estate investors.  Those articles, when read in sequence, provide a road map for current and future investors to navigate the sometimes difficult decisions that come with owning investment property.  However, one decision that should not be difficult is the decision to hold steady with your long-term investment properties and allow them to work the way real estate is intended to work.

Knowing that so many of our readers are not just real estate investors.  Many are entrepreneurs and small business owners s well and we thought this was a great article to publish this week.  2015 is starting with a bang and as unbelievable as it sounds....January is already half way gone!  So this article is all about big decisions and big improvements and how to make both!