Heading into a new year is always a great time to take stock of where you are and start preparing for any changes or adjustments you need to make.  It's also a great time to educate yourself and real estate investors are not immune to continuing education!

Many of the recent articles you read on the housing market seem to convey almost polar opposite messages.  Markets are up, other markets are down and no two pollsters, spinsters or prognosticators seem to agree on exactly what is happening.  Real Estate Investors have to get past all the white noise of the national housing market and get down to the fundamentals of particular markets that provide quality, stable investment opportunities.

As I was reading a report last week on the status of real estate investing in different markets around the United States, one number kept jumping out at me - the percentage of real estate investors paying cash was huge!  In some markets around the country, real estate investors paying cash made up more than 75% of the transactions.  Since real estate is a hyper-local industry, with each individual market able to vary wildly from the next, keeping an eye on the trends of investors before making assumptions is a huge task.

I spent some time in Colorado in the early 2000's and was pretty active in the real estate market at the time.  One of the comments that we regularly heard was that "there is no more land being manufactured".  Being land locked by the mountains, real estate was at a premium and investing was considered to be a sound long term investment.  

Buying rental properties can be a tricky proposition and being a new investor makes it even tougher. After acquiring over 4,500 properties, serving 1,700 clients and managing $600 million in assets, we know a thing or two about real estate investing. Over the past 10+ years, we've grown from a handful of employees to an 88 member team in 5 markets (Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Dallas and Houston) and we pride ourselves on being the best at what we do! And we got here by following a lot of the tips I'm sharing with you today in this video. We've heard from so many people that have learned the hard way, and we want nothing more than to help others reach their investment goals by avoiding these common mistakes.

This is a re-print from a post I made over a year ago.  I think its always good for Memphis real estate investors to get a refresher on the questions they should ask before buying investment properties.

"Don't Throw out the Bicycle for the Bumps in the Road"!

I love expressions like this.  They speak to the real emotions that real estate investors face everyday and carry that folksy remedy that our parents used as an approach to tough situations.

Today, real estate investors are facing more and more tough situations and some are tougher than others.  The obstacles we face as real estate investors, especially Memphis investors wanting to buy discount properties in Memphis with leverage, seem to come out of nowhere right when we get to the finish line.  We often have that feeling that the road gets a little bumpier just as things appear to be going smoother.  The bumps are getting a little bumpier too!

When I bought my first property and placed my first tenant...I was a complete disaster!  No point in beating around the bush right!  As a Memphis real estate investor, I learned just enough about rental property management in Memphis, TN. to be dangerous and I certainly was.  I was dangerous to my bottom line and dangerous to my future earnings.