Author: Daniel Chris Mc Grey
Source: ezinearticles.com

Many are encouraged to get into real estate investing today. In fact, some have even left their regular day jobs so they could go full time with real estate. Yes, real estate investing is one of the best ways to earn a living today. Despite the global crises that our economy faces, the industry continues to prove to be very profitable. In this article, an experienced investor shares with us all the good things about real estate investing. If you are planning of real estate investing a full time job, below are some of the few things that you can look forward to:

You can run errands during the day when all the kids have gone to school and no one is left home to attend to.
You do not need to leave work just because you want to make appointments with your dentists or doctors.
You can shower any time you want to. You can start making money in front of your computer even in your pajamas.
You can take a vacation anytime you want to. Gone are the days when you had to file for a leave. As long as you have your laptop and mobile phone with you, you can run your business wherever you are.
Your perception about money becomes “warped.” You can spend lavishly on dinner or on a vacation without thinking twice.
You get to handle your own schedule. You can do what you want to do whenever you want to.
You have time for a lot of things which you can’t do when you’re on a regular day job. You can take your dog on a walk in the woods anytime you want to.
You can take a nap everyday!
You can get an assistant and let her run your business for you. As long as you keep everything properly and clearly delegated, you do not have to worry about getting your business messed up even if you go on vacation.
You are your own boss. You do not have to worry about conforming to office politics which you do not like in the first place. Because you are your own boss, you get to make 100% of your decisions.
A single deal can make you pay a new car.

Real estate investing can be very profitable and anybody is entitled to experience the benefits and the perks mentioned above.

For more tips on real estate investing, go to http://www.REIWired.com.

Author: Rhiannon Williamson
Source: articleage.com

Australia has led the worldwide real estate boom and enjoyed record price increases over the past three years, but as 2006 gets underway many fear that the recent success of the Australian real estate market is not sustainable.

While the Australian housing market may well face a short period of economic adjustment, there are still ways to profit from the real estate sector in Australia. Real estate investors examining the market just need to look a little further afield than Sydney!

Perth in Western Australia is one city where real estate prices remain affordable and where demand for quality accommodation to buy and rent is increasing which is creating an exciting micro property investment market opportunity ripe for exploration in 2006.

The reason for Perthย’s sudden popularity from a real estate perspective springs from the fact that the city is enjoying a period of economic advancement led by a vast improvement in employment prospects. Local residents in Perth are benefiting from better paying employment and an abundance of opportunity, and the city is attracting a steady flow of inward migration as job seekers move to the city to take up offers of employment.

Historically Perthย’s real estate prices have lagged well behind those of Sydney and Melbourne for example, and the average home finance sought to purchase in Perth is around 30,000 Australian dollars less than the average mortgage taken out elsewhere in Australia. The lower priced accommodation is attracting more interest from investors from across Australia as well who are all seeking a housing market with legs left to run. Furthermore the real estate sector in and around Perth is enjoying interest from international real estate investors who can see the long term prospects available.

As demand for accommodation in Perth increases as the city welcomes new residents, so the prices being charged for rental housing are on the up as well. Anyone who purchases real estate to let out in Perth right now can cash in on this boom in rental rate rises and retain their property while the predicted period of property price growth develops.

Across the rest of Australia many first time home buyers have been temporarily priced out of the housing market as property prices have exceeded affordable levels. While the market readjusts over the short term there are fears that a rental accommodation crisis is looming in some of Australiaย’s most popular cities such as Brisbane and Sydney. This concern is of course leading to sharp increases in rental rates being charged by landlords who are well aware of how valuable a commodity they own.

While this is an unfortunate situation for those caught in the rental trap it is a perfect situation for an investor seeking immediate returns on real estate investments in Australia. Anyone who makes a real estate investment purchase in Australia with the intention to let out that property will not only make a strong income currently but they will continue to enjoy property price growth over the longer term as the market readjusts and begins to grow again in Australia in the medium term.

And finally, if youย’re interested in the real estate market down under and are not an Australian citizen, overseas buyers are free to own real estate in Australia that has been granted permission for sale to foreign purchasers; and you can rest assured that the purchase process will be straightforward because it is so well regulated in Australia.

Author: Fred Eginsbr
Source: articleage.combr
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Its a new year, you have made that New Year resolution that you will be financially free,you want to be a real estate investor. You have bought the books and have been to the seminars,you are ready to go out and build your real estate empire. You come across your first deal, you double check the numbers to make sure that this is a good investment. For some strange reason, fear has creeped in on you. You doubt whether this is a good deal or not. Paralysis of analysis has set in on you and killed the deal. You are still broke, and daydreaming of becoming a real estate investor. This is not the way to become financially free. To become a successful real estate investor, you must be able to make quick decisions on the spot. Time is money, dont look to be a expert before you begin.
Paralysis of Analysis steals dreams. To be successful at real estate investing start with a good education and understanding of how real estate is handled in your area. Build your investment team before you begin, that can be a real estate attorney, accountant, mortgage broker, bird-dog, real estate agent/broker. Get a good feel of what is selling in your area. If you want to make this into a business you will need a business license to operate. Dont buy property in your name. You can run ads in the newspaper, but you will soon notice that there are a dozen or so real estate investors doing the same thing. You may find that making signs and posting them throughout the neighborhood works really well compared to spending a lot of money on running ads in the newspaper, but caution in some neighborhoods, you will get a call from the county to take the sign down.
Overall, this is a great business to be in and its fun. But its hard work and is not a get rich quick scheme. I have a friend named Theresa who worked at a mill in North Carolina for 15 years. The company, she was with went out of business. Before they closed down she had purchased a house that needed a lot of repairs. It needed a new roof, electrical work, windows and a plumbing job. Most investors were scared off by the amount of work that it needed. She had purchased the house for $15,000.00 did $25,350.00 in repairs, and sold it for $76,100.00.
She made a profit of $35,750.00. She had a lot of courage and belief in herself that it can be done thats if you put your mind to it. One of the biggest myths out there is having a good paying job will bring you financial security, dont believe the hype. Some people will tell you that you need a lot of money to start out as a real estate investor. You can start out with no money of your own by locating investment property for other real estate investors, and collect a finder fee if they buy the property. Dont let the new year catch you day dreaming or making more excuses for not becoming financially free. Get started now!
Get sarted today as a real estate investor go to http://www.reinvestorbiz.com to learn how to make money in real estate investing.br
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Author: James Kobzeffbr
Source: ezinearticles.combr
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In this article well consider why serious real estate investors–those who want to make the best return possible on their real estate investments–use real estate investment software to evaluate investment opportunities.

Its fast. Good investment property analysis software makes it possible to analyze cash flows, rates of return, and profitability of rental properties in minutes. This enables investors to collect the data needed for decision-making quickly.
Its precise. Good investment evaluation software makes accurate calculations for a wide-range of returns and measures deemed crucial to sound real estate analysis. The last thing analysts should have to worry about is faulty math.
The reports are informative. Good real estate investment software creates professional-quality reports investors can confidently pass on to colleagues, partners, and lenders.
It knows what data is required. Good rental property software includes forms specially designed to gather the appropriate facts and figures about a property. This is particularly helpful to investors with little or no real estate analysis experience because they just fill in the forms and print.
It keeps the sellers data honest. Investors who have the ability to run the numbers themselves prevent anyone from making an unrealistic presentation of the property and perhaps slipping one by.
Its inexpensive. Good realestate investment software does not have to cost an arm and a leg. Anyone can create top-notch real estate analysis presentations forever for just a few hundred dollars.

Okay, now lets consider the alternative.

You can create your own spreadsheet. Excel makes it possible for anyone to mimic investing software solutions. But it takes time (lots of time) to develop the reports and calculations provided in good real estate investment software. You should ask yourself whether you are inept enough about real estate investing and Excel before you get started. Plus, remember that your goal is make a profit on investment properties and not to shave a few bucks off your analysis presentations.
You can rely on rules of thumb. Its easy to calculate a propertys cap rate or gross rent multiplier. But what about cash-on-cash return, cash flow after tax, internal rate of return, and mortgage amortization? Bear in mind that you are planning to make a huge property investment, so you should rely on something more meaningful than on simple calculations you can do in your head.
You can accept the sellers data. But its never a good idea to accept property data point blank because it leaves too much room for others to embellish reality. You should always be prepared to verify the numbers you are presented about any investment opportunity to be sure that they comply with your real estate investing plan.

Once youre ready to invest in good real estate investment software youve got to know what to look for. So here are a few suggestions.

Foremost, be sure that the software is user-friendly–that you know what to do from the moment you open it. If not, be sure you have a number you can call for tech support.
Preview the reports. Are they easy to read? Do they contain all the crucial returns you will need (or desire) to make an intelligent investment decision? Are they professional quality?
Consider what rates of return you desire. For example, are you interested only in suitable returns calculated without consideration for the elements of tax shelter, or would you prefer full consideration of tax shelter? If so, then look for real estate investment software that includes calculations for things such as depreciation, mortgage interest, amortization of loan points, and cash flow after tax.
Would you like both analysis and marketing presentations? If so, then look for a software solution that will create an Executive Summary or Marketing Package in addition to an APOD, Proforma Income Statement, and Rent Roll.

You get the idea.

The important thing is to realize that real estate investing is a business and real estate investment software is a tool that will help you to grow that business wisely. And in the same way that serious investors have come to rely on good real estate investment software to help them make smart investment property decisions, so should you.

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pstrongAbout the Author/strong/ppJames Kobzeff is the developer of ProAPOD – leading a target=_new href=http://www.proapod.com rel=nofollowreal estate investment software/a since 2000. Want to start working with rental property today? Discover how to create cash flow, rate of return, and profitability analysis presentations in minutes! Learn how at a target=_new href=http://www.proapod.com rel=nofollowhttp://www.proapod.com/a/pbr
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Author: Rhiannon Williamson
Source: articleage.com

The popularity and success of the real estate market in Dubai is well documented; but in sharp contrast Bahrain – which is one of the Middle Eastern property markets with the greatest potential – is little known and often overlooked.

Bahrain has a small but well establish luxury real estate market; and recent changes to legislation allowing for foreign freehold ownership of property within certain real estate developments in Bahrain has created a surge of investor and consumer interest in the kingdom.

The kingdom of Bahrain has long been home to a large expatriate community, with expats mainly heralding from the UK, Europe and the US. Expatriates living in Bahrain generally enjoy an incredibly high standard of living, substantial tax free income and an inimitably luxury lifestyle – and the type of accommodation they seek has become the iconic style of real estate now for sale to foreign purchasers. Indeed, the real estate developments where foreign freehold ownership of title is allowed in Bahrain epitomize quality and opulence.

In recent years Bahrain has been working hard to diversify its economy away from oil by focusing on five main business areas; namely business & financial services, tourism, information technology, healthcare & education and telecommunications. As a result many more multinational companies have established bases and headquarters in the kingdom which have created more employment opportunities and in turn attracted more international executives and their families to Bahrain.

This influx of foreign residents to the kingdom of Bahrain has resulted in a thriving rental real estate sector which has further helped to underpin an already incredibly successful economy. Recently Bahraini officials began to realize the potential of the real estate sector if they allowed for foreign freehold ownership, and this led to legislative and constitutional changes and the officials have been rewarded for their foresight by the creation of an incredibly popular and successful property market.

It?’s a fact that many of the expats living in Bahrain are now taking full advantage of their right to own freehold title to real estate. It is also a fact that there is still an increasing requirement for quality accommodation to let out in Bahrain and this is pushing rental rates sky high. Both of these facts mean that real estate investors have a property market ripe for exploration in Bahrain with immediate income achievable from the rental sector and the release and realization of capital appreciation easy to achieve with a market hungry for completed resale property.

Therefore real estate investors looking for a market with more room for expansion than Dubai has, a market as equally popular with expatriates as Dubai is and a market offering property as magnificent as Dubai does need look no further than Bahrain.

Author: Stephen L. Nelson, CPA
Source: articleage.com

Perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised that new real estate investors fall into the same tax traps again and again. Real estate burdens investors?especially new investors?with some tricky tax accounting.

But just because some other newbie makes these mistakes, that doesn’t mean you need to. You just need to know where the traps are so you avoid them. And here are the biggest real estate tax traps you don’t want to fall into:

Tax Trap 1: Passive Loss Limitation

On paper at least, real estate often loses money. Even if the rent pays the mortgage and the operating expenses, the books still show a loss because you get to write off a portion of the purchase price through depreciation each year.

If a rental house that cost $275,000 breaks even on cash flow, for example, you might also get a $10,000 annual depreciation deduction. If your marginal tax rate is 28%, that depreciation should save you $2800 annually.

Sounds sweet, right? Well, it is?or should be. Except that the U.S. Congress labeled real estate investment a passive activity and said that, except in a couple of special circumstances, you can’t write off passive activity deductions unless overall you show positive passive income.

This passive loss limitation rule means that many real estate investors don’t get to use tax

saving deductions from real estate?or least not annually.

Two loopholes, courtesy of Congress, do exist that let you write off deductions from real estate even if overall you show a loss from real estate investing. If you’re an active real estate investor with adjusted gross income below $100,000, you can write off up to $25,000 of passive losses annually. (If your income is between $100,000 and $150,000, you get to write off a percentage of the $25,000. Ask your tax advisor for the details.)

Here’s the second loophole: If you’re a real estate professional, Congress says the passive loss limitation rule doesn’t apply to you when it comes to real estate. A real estate professional, by the way, is not someone who’s licensed as an agent or broker. The law instead creates a time-based test: A real estate professional is someone who spends at least 750 hours a year and more than 50% of their time working as a real estate agent, broker, property manager or developer.

Tax Trap 2: Capitalization of Improvements

The next mistake that new real estate investors make? Thinking they can write off the amounts they spend to improve the property. Sometimes you can. Often you can’t.

Here’s why: Any expenditure that increases the life of the property or improves its utility needs to be depreciated over the next 27.5 years (if the property is residential) or over 39 years (if the property is nonresidential).

You can’t, therefore, write off the money spent improving or renovating a house?except through depreciation.

I’ve seen new real estate investors in tears about this wrinkle. Some investor draws, say, $20,000 from his IRA or 401(k) to fix up some rental. He figures he’ll be able to write off the $20,000 as a tax deduction in the year improvements are made.

No way. Instead, he’ll have to write off the $20,000 at the rate of a few hundred bucks a year over the next three or four decades.

The trick with renovation?if you want to call it that?is to keep the property well maintained as you go. Repainting, new carpeting, general repairs?these items should all be all deductions in the year of expenditure (er, subject to the passive loss limitation rule discussed as the first tax trap.)

Tax Trap 3: Missing the Section 121 Exclusion

Here’s the final tear-jerker. And I see it several times a year. Someone decides that rather than sell their principal residence when they “move up” to a larger new home, they’re going to turn the original home into a rental.

This is a disastrous decision most of the time because of Section 121 of the Internal Revenue Code . Section 121 says that if you’ve owned a home and lived in a home for at least two of the last years, you won’t pay any tax on the first $250,000 of gain on the sale ($500,000 of gain in the case of someone who’s married and filing a joint return).

By converting a principal residence to a rental property, you turn tax-free gain into taxable gain if you don’t sell the property in the first three years.

Two quick notes about goofing up the Section 121 exclusion. If you don’t have appreciation in your old principal residence, you’re not losing any Section 121 benefit by converting to a rental.

Second, if you do have a lot of appreciation in your old principal residence and want to use that equity to acquire a rental property, consider this: Sell the old principal residence when you move out so the gain is excluded from taxable income. Then use the tax-free proceeds to purchase another rental?perhaps even the house next door.

Author: Joel Teo
Source: articleage.com

Have you heard of those people who are landlords of a few properties and remain that way all their lives? Now contrast this to savvy real estate investors that use the power of leverage to vastly increase their cash flow. This article strives to highlight one game plan advocated by many real estate gurus to financial wealth.
Firstly, you would want to find a Property that generates a positive cash flow after instalment payments. Thus, successful real estate investors will spend many hours hunting for the property that generates a good cash flow from the rental proceeds after deducting the monthly instalments due to the mortgage. Remember to take into account the trend of rentals as if you purchase a property when the rentals are on the high side, your calculations may fail you when there is a drop in the rentals and you will be forced to sell your real estate investment.
Secondly, once your property has been partly paid up, refinance and free up money to get more property and establish more cash flow. This is critical so that you get multiple streams of cash flowing into your bank account by virtue of the difference between the rental and the interest instalment payments. However, always remember to keep a sizeable cash reserve in case there is a downturn in the economy and you may find it difficult to get tenants to cover your interest instalment payments for your real estate investment.
Thirdly, once the amount of property that you own increases, exchange your several properties for larger commercial property. Many hotel owners started out in this way and along the way made more and more acquisitions and let hotel management companies run the hotels. Once you reach this stage, your real estate investments would have reached a good size and you would have made your money.
Step Four: Repeat the above process
In conclusion, making money with real estate investing requires a good well through out strategy and game plan. Spending time dwelling on the big picture when you are in the middle of a real estate deal will help you get a sense of perspective so that you do not get lost in the deal to forget the reason why you are involved in it in the first place.
Note this is only one method that you can use to make money with real estate investing other profitable strategies include doing up and flipping and no money down strategies. The key is to find one that makes the most sense to you and one that you think that you can use and apply on a consistent basis. Take massive action today and succeed in real estate investing.
Joel Teo takes a keen interest in real estate investment as part of a larger investment portfolio. For more tips on real estate investing check out our
real estate investment success series at our
real estate investing resource