In real estate investment, there are always things we can do better. As owners, our property managers are one of our greatest assets. They ensure that your real estate investments run smoothly in the day-to-day nitty gritty.

There’s a gleam in the big city that attracts investors. In a lot of ways, they’re attractive. Living in New York City is a dream for some people, as is settling down in big gleaming West Coast metropolises like Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Memphis, while it is a big city, is nothing compared to Dallas and Houston in terms or the size of the city.  Memphis is small city real estate and investors sometimes don't recognize it as a gem!

These big cities get most of the attention from investors and truth be told, you can go anywhere in the world and mention these cities and people know exactly where you are talking about.  Ask them about small and medium cities and the chances of people knowing about them get slim.  Real estate investing is about more than the name and size of the city.

The new year offers new opportunity. We tell ourselves that this is our year. To find our dream jobs, to achieve our goals, to make big changes, find love and see our dreams come true. In many cases, these remain wishes rather than realizations. Why?

When I first wrote this article over two years ago,I wanted to document what I felt were the three best business websites, apps and decisions we had made that all effected the incredible rise of our company.  We had almost 10,000 views of that original article and many requests for an update.

To be very direct, the same three companies that helped us vault to the top of our niche in real estate investing are the same three that help keep us there today. There are no “magic bullets” or any “next, new programs” that we have to tell the world about. Business is business and often the same basic ideas, decisions and systems – utilized correctly- are the ones that continue to help companies grow.

As we head into 2015, there’s no shortage of people making real estate market predictions for the new year. As always, predictions, speculations and forecasts have to be taken with a grain of salt. We can’t rely on them entirely when it comes to decision making. Still, it’s good for those of us investing in real estate to look at where we’re going as much as where we’ve been. Professionals do study trends and their forecasts do come from a place of expertise.

We all have regrets in life. Some of us have real estate investment regrets. If you’re stuck with a rental property that’s weighing you down, you may find yourself wondering if you should just cut your losses and move on. Maybe you want to stick it out and hope for things to get better down the line. There are several options to weigh if you’ve found yourself at a crossroads with a property you own.

At the same time, understanding the big picture is just as important and learning that fluctuations in the way a property performs and the way a property fits into your portfolio are important too.  A down year is not always a reason to let a property go.  It takes careful and thoughtful evaluation before deciding to let got of a long-term investment property.  

Real estate investors like it when people rent. Obvious, right? After all, investing in real estate is a business and we have to treat it like a business. In a business, the goal is to make money. That, however, is an oversimplified version of the role of the real estate investors. We’re a business that deals with people — people whose lives matter and play important roles in the health of our economy and the real estate market.

This is a philosophy that plays into our role as a property manager.  So whether you are a landlord or you use property management companies to provide service to you, the success of a renter, your tenant, is vital to your success as a real estate investor.  Here at Premier Property Management, we hold four different sets of persons as vitally important to our company.  First, our team.  Second our clients.  Third our vendors.  Fourth our tenants.  These four groups are equally important and the tenant is the one who is so often overlooked.

We haven’t met a person yet who likes paying a mortgage. Both homeowners and investors who don’t pay for properties via all-cash offers have to deal with mortgages. No one likes them. In the years since the market crash, mortgage rates bottomed out to an all-time low, making it an ideal time for investors to snatch up properties and bring some life back into the real estate market. They did, giving the market the boost it needed to get back on its feet.

Looking forward to 2015, however, real estate experts expect rates to rise to 5% next year and 6% in the next two years, putting rates at the highest point they’ve been since the market crash. While that’s hardly the highest they could be, the real estate market is still in the middle of recovery, which could mean another slowdown if lenders don’t play it smart.

If you’re new to real estate investment, you’ll find out pretty quickly that the learning curve can be steep. One of the most important parts of real estate investment is to educate yourself on the legal aspects of the business. The last thing you want to happen is to find out you’ve made a legal mistake...after you’ve already made one.