Sharon's Real Estate Investing Support Blog

Please visit my new Live Blog where you can post comments and interact with each other on various topics.

On this page, you will find Sharon's Mini Real Estate Investing Support Blog, which is a journal about all aspects of Real Estate Investing. It...

* Lets you know whenever any new Web pages appear on Real Estate Investing Support, telling you about a new strategy or technique

* Keeps you up-to-date with other postings or news about Real-Estate-Investing-Support

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Conventional Financing

Conventional financing is used for one to four units and is the most common type of financing available

Research & Analysis

Learn how to conduct proper Research on the market you're buying in, and Analysis on the properties you find. Also formulas for calculating "True" ROI.

Which Real Estate Area Should I Invest In?

Deciding which real estate area to invest in is one of the hardest decisions to make, yet the most important if you are to be successful at real estate investing.

Sharon’s Real Estate Investing Support

How does someone just starting out find real estate investing support that's easy to understand? Maybe someone who's been in their shoes.

Finding Property - Using Your Purchasing Parameters to Locate Viable Areas

Finding Property has never been easier with the Internet. Learn how to Use Your Purchasing Paramenters to Locate Viable Areas.

Short Sales or REO's - When the Bank Becomes the Seller

Short Sales or REO's - When the Bank Becomes the Seller, Opportunities are Created for the Savvy Investor

Foreclosure - Helping People Can Bring Reward

Foreclosure - Helping People Can Bring Reward

Flipping Houses - Buy it, Fix it, Sell it

Flipping Houses - Buy it, Fix it up, then Sell it for a profit. Done correctly, you can make a lot of Fast Cash.

Criteria for Investigating Potential Purchasing Areas

An Overview of the Criteria you should investigate whenever you are considering investing in any area.

Cash Flow - Residual Income for Life!

Cash Flow - Residual Income for Life!

Property Managers - How to Avoid Being a Do-It-Yourself Landlord

Property Managers are the members of your team that save you from fixing toilets and collecting rents so you can spend your valuable time buying more property

How to Calculate Cash Flow

I'll teach you a very simple formula that you can use to calculate true cash flow on properties.

Freddie Has a Sister...

Associated Press announced today that former Countrywide Financial President, Stanford Kurland, and several key colleagues, will be running a new mortgage company to acquire and restructure distressed mortgages.

Private National Mortgage Acceptances Co., LLC, also known as PennyMac (how cute), intends to help borrowers restructure loans so they can avoid foreclosure and maintain payments.

Backed by prominent investment management firms BlackRock Inc. and Highfields Capital Management, PennyMac will give new meaning to playing "both sides of the fence." Since Countrywide has lost $1.6 billion in the last six months of 2007 as the nation's largest mortgage lender, having former executives coming to the rescue (read cash in) may leave a bad taste in some people's mouths. But this is America, and if there's a way to profit, someone will find it.

PennyMac will raise capital from private mortgage investors, acquire loans from financial institutions seeking to reduce their mortgage exposures, and seek to create value for both borrowers and investors through loan servicing.

Only time will tell how this will affect us real estate investors - definitely something to keep an eye on.

Is It the Right Time to Invest?

The property market has done a downturn. Prices are crashing down around your ankles. So does this mean that you should get out of property investment?

No, this is actually a golden opportunity to increase your property portfolio. When you are buying property it does not really matter whether the market is up or down unless you are considering selling in the short term. If you are holding long term then you have to accept the market fluctuations with an inevitable upward trajectory over the years.

If you can buy at the lower end of the cycle that is the best time to buy, but very often it is hard to tell precisely where the market is at.

If the market is experiencing a severe downturn, it is a great time to be buying because there will be a large number of bargains. Just check the foreclosure lists (like the ones at this website FREE Foreclosure Listings!) and mortgagee auctions. You can pick and choose and buy at rock bottom prices.

A word of caution, however, do not get too negatively geared because this is how most investors get themselves into trouble in the first place. Go for positive gearing. In other words, make sure your rental income equals or exceeds your outgoing expenses, including mortgage repayments. There is nothing so good as sleeping easy at night knowing that your property has positive cash flow. (Negative gearing is ok if you have a really good income and a tax problem.)

If the property market is rising rapidly you can be confident that the value of your investment is increasing. That is where your profit is and you should be able to sell relatively easily if necessary. However, that was when the market was buoyant but now the reality is that the market has dropped and you need to be able to hold long term without any worries. It may take a few years before we hit healthy real estate selling conditions again, let alone a property boom.

Meanwhile , concentrate on positive gearing and steadily increasing returns. This is a long term game and always has been. Look at property investing from a business perspective and do the math before you buy. You need a decent return on investment and you need the rental return to cover or nearly cover the mortgage expenditure.

Having said all that, there is no getting away from the fact that with good research and due diligence the down and depressed market presents serious investors with the best opportunities to build a portfolio of profitable properties for long term gains.

Four Income Streams Contribute to Your Overall ROI

Understanding the Four Income Streams that contribute to your overall ROI will help you maximize your profits

About Me

Want to know who is behind this website? Learn About Me here.

"Say Yes to Wealth" Book Review

"Say Yes to Wealth", by Bob McManus, is a soup to nuts book for people interested in making foreclosures their primary Buying Method. Read the Book Review here.

How to Be a Real Estate Loser

This article, written by a Denver real estate agent, really got me chuckling this morning, so thought I'd share it with my readers. Smart real estate investors will understand what their competition is doing. Apparently, from the tone of this article, many people are deciding not to buy right now, hoping the market somehow gets better than this! But we won't fall into that trap... Read the article here and enjoy!

Commercial Loans - It's All About the Property

Commercial Loans - It's All About the Property, Not You

Bargain Properties - Locating & Evaluating Them

Bargain Properties - Learn how to Locate & Evaluate Whether You Have Found a Bargain Property.

Do You Need a Real Estate License to be a Successful Investor?

This was an article I just got published, and I'm pretty excited about it. Why? Because it's my first one ever!

A couple of my newsletter subscribers took the time to ask the question on my Give Me Feedback page, so I thought I'd answer them. But the answer was long - so I decided what the heck! I'll write an article.

Anyway, you can find at www.111Articles.com, among other places.

Enjoy! Until next time, Success in All You Do....

Looking for Partners - I Have Deals, Need Capital

I have real estate investment deals, but need capital from partners to purchase. If you want cash flow but don't have the time to find deals and manage properties, then read more here.

Closing Table - Cross Your "T's" & Dot Your "I's"

Closing Table - Cross Your "T's" & Dot Your "I's" so you don't leave money on the table

Buying Methods - Pick the One that Matches Your Creative Strategies

Most investors have Buying Methods that match their Creative Strategies for real estate investing.

Appreciation - Buy & Hold Can Provide Big Profits!

Appreciation - Buy & Hold Can Provide Big Profits!