This article will take a look at a new and innovative method for real estate investment financing you really should know about. I don’t care if you have never done a single deal, or you’ve done a thousand, take a couple of minutes and read this report, which will introduce you to the idea of private money financing and private lenders. This method can enable you to find and secure deals many experienced investors will be forced to leave behind, and you’ll be able to finance almost any type of property deal. Below, I’ve outlined a few basic steps to get you ready to take advantage of this powerful and flexible financing method.

The first thing you’ll need to do is understand yourself by sitting down and writing a business plan. I’m not talking about a thirty page tome, but a brief, concise, and to-the-point outline of what kind of investor you are (or will be) and how you plan to make money. Think of potential questions an investor may ask, and try your best to answer those questions in your plan. Talk especially about what kinds of properties you will invest in, whether or not you will hold them for rent, and how you plan to make your money.

Don’t rush through this step. All the time you take here will be paid back later with results. This plan is going to become the basis for two later steps - your elevator speech and your seminar presentation - which I will write about in a later article. Make sure you cover specifics, but don’t be overly long. Think about your future lender as you write your plan, and write to that person. Include specific details about real estate transactions you may have already done, if any. If not, estimate, but don’t exaggerate.

The next step is to create your potential private lenders list by writing down the name of each and every person you know. You’ll make no judgments about worth or lending ability, just follow one simple rule- if you know them, their name goes on your list, whether you have known them for one day or thirty years. If a name pops into your head, write it down, and get help remembering who you know from friends and family. Work towards the most complete, extensive list possible.

A little extra time spent on this step will be well spent. After you have worked on your list of possible private money lenders, put the list aside for a while, even overnight. Come back to it the next day, and you’ll be amazed at how many more names you will have come up with. Don’t rush. Keep the list with you for a few days, and add names to it whenever they pop into your head.

When you feel you have a list with the names of everyone you know, add their contact information. Your goal here is to have at least one way to contact everybody on your list. You’re looking for telephone numbers, email addresses and street addresses. Make sure you have complete and up-to-date information, because once you start contacting these folks, you don’t want to get stalled because you can’t find their contact info. Again, no need to hurry. The time you spend in this phase lays the groundwork for your success later on.

The final step in this preparation phase is to write a letter. You’re going to take the business plan you created in step one, and write a letter to your list of contacts that briefly explains the kind of investing you do, how you plan to profit, and why you’re contacting them. Be specific, and tell them you are looking for private money for real estate investing, and you would like them to consider being one of your private lenders. Put your self in their shoes as you write, and give them all the good reasons why they would want to be one of your lenders.

Fear shouldn’t keep you from accomplishing this- and it won’t, because you’re prepared! Don’t rush through just to get it done. Instead, work hard to get the letter just right, no matter how many times you need to re-write it. Your letter will become the foundation of all your efforts to build a group of private lenders. Be sure to include as many lender benefits in your letter as you can think of… strive for five! Once your letter is done, you’ve completed this phase, and you are ready to start looking for private money lenders for your real estate deals.

There’s a great deal of public angst over the “credit crisis” and the housing bust. Of course you hear of the usual culprits (and they certainly were culprits!): predatory lenders, not enough regulatory oversight to protect homebuyers, and greedy financial institutions. But before forming our modern versions of possies and rounding up the perpetrators, let’s dig a little deeper and see how this kind of catastrophe can be prevented in the future.

Government incursion comes in three forms here: municipal and state regulators, federal lawmakers, and the Federal Reserve. The first is most pervasive and the primary reason we’ve seen such extreme variances in local market growth rates. There’s a reason why Santa Barbara housing price growth rates far outstripped that of Houston, despite higher population and standard of living growth rates in the former. The magic behind the mystery comes from far more severe land use restrictions in coastal California than in Texas. Developers are restricted from adding new supply in Santa Barbara, but are free to do so in Houston to match growth in demand.

Two examples show how federal policy affects housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) pushed its social engineering agenda onto the two now-nationalized mortgage institutions, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The agenda: increase homeownership amongst low-income families. The solution: force Fannie and Freddie to increase the amount of subprime mortgages in their portfolios. The result is evident in that many of these subprime borrowers proved unable to afford the homes they were encouraged to buy. There are many federal policy influences to housing, including special tax treatment to encourage homeownership, and now the Environmental Protections Agency’s (EPA) proposals to link climate regulation with land use restrictions.

Most people cannot buy homes without credit, so we must look towards monetary policy to explain the housing boom. In response to 9/11, the subsequent stock market drop, and potential economic slowdown, the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to near-zero. This unquestionably signalled to the market to borrow borrow borrow! Rates were kept insanely low for a prolonged period of time, only slowly adjusting upward through the peak of the boom.

Understanding how regulations, federal fiscal and monetary policy affect housing prices can help you protect yourself in the future and perhaps play the speculative game in your favor. At the very least this illustrates that there is more going on in the background than is typically discussed when people scream for new regulation. Compounding one set of new regulations on top of another causes more confusion than alleviation of our growing number of problems.

Are you thinking of investing in real estate? There is a lot of money involved in property investment so not only is there money to be made but if you’re not informed then you can lose a lot. Not only do you need access to money but there is hard work and research involved in making money in the real estate business. If you have the drive then you can find buying, renovating and reselling or renting property for a profit enjoyable and rewarding. Here are some tips to acquiring property for resale or renting.

Look for a property in the best location you can afford. The best rental and resale family homes should be close to public schools and shopping centers. There should also be access to freeways and public transportation, especially in urban areas. Contact the local police department or use tools online to find out the crime rate in the neighborhood.

Once you have done your market research and decided on possible properties, you’ll need to know as much as possible about each prospective property. While visiting the property look carefully for anything that will need to be replaced or repaired. Look for repairs that can be hidden and costly such as cracked hardwood floors, plumbing, mildew and electrical problems. Take notes and write these issues down so you can review them later.

Once you have done your own inspection and decided that a property looks like a possible investment, hire a professional inspector. Make sure to find a reputable and reliable inspector even if you have to spend more money. They will tell you what needs to be repaired, what should be repaired, and what work will need to be done in the future.

Don’t get too attached to a property. Remember, your goal is too make money on the home. Keeping that in mind will help put things in perspective and help you not to make any hasty decisions. No matter how nice you find the property, don’t be afraid to walk away from a sale.

Use professionals to help you before you decide to buy a property. An appraiser will help you determine the value of the real estate and how much it will be worth with renovations. You will also need to figure out how much renovations will cost to determine if a profit is possible.

Have your finances in order before mking an offer. Financial aid is available and should be used especially if you don’t have enough capital to invest in something that will turn a profit. Be careful though; a long term loan (such as 30 years) may not pay off if you’ll be selling it in the short term. Use an accountant if you’re unsure of the number crunching.

After you’ve completed the buying and selling of your first property you will be on your way to making real estate investment a hobby and a business.

The real estate market has hit bottom. Prices are being dropped on everything. However this is the best time to be a real estate investor. When you are investing in real estate the market doesn?t matter as much as the price you can buy property at. If you are holding long term then you have to accept the market fluctuations. But if you can buy at the lower end of the cycle that is the best time to buy. The trick is knowing when that is.

Now that the market is experiencing a downturn it is a great time to be buying. Just look at the foreclosure lists. You have a massive inventory to choose from and most are at below market value. Go for positive cash flow whenever you can. In other words make sure your rental income equals or exceeds your outgoing including mortgage repayments. If you have other income you may be able to stand an extra $100 or more per month to top off the mortgage but try to avoid it.

Ok we all know that in a strong market, when the prices are going up, our property value also climbs. However now, in a slower and declining market you need to change your focus to hold for a longer period. We are looking at a few years before a more friendly market for investors shows up on the horizon.

Focus on positive cash flow and steadily increasing returns. This is a long term game. Property investing is a business. You need a decent return on investment and you need the rental return to cover or nearly cover the new mortgage expense.

Having said all that, we cannot avoid the fact that with good research and due diligence the depressed market presents investors with the GREAT opportunities to build a portfolio of properties for long term gains.

There are times in your life when you have to make decisions that others may question you on in order to change your future.

That is the case with investors who would want to build a rental portfolio or invest in real estate but their market is so crazy that a 2/1 shack is 200k or the taxes are so high that they cannot get a positive cash flow. So what can you do?

Look for properties in another area, or even another state, which are affordable and give you positive cash flow.

Yes, there are plenty of those areas that the news never talks about because they don’t have 50 percent appreciation in a year. They just steadily grow at a measly 3 to 5 percent, but guess what When the Bubble burst they also didn’t have 50% depreciation in a year. In fact, they just hang out and many people just don’t even notice.

What is the key to finding a stable area that won’t blow up or down? Here are 7 steps to finding out your area properties to invest in.

1. Look for areas that have a strong rental market. Meaning an area where a good majority of houses are owned by investors who are renting property. This will tell you that the taxes are low and the rent rates are high enough to attract investors who want cash flow.

2. Look for the areas that other out of state investors are buying in. Google is one way that comes to mind. Craigslist.com is also a very good source. In fact, I think it is one of the best sources to find good deals.

3. When you find the area, talk to people there about the markets overall appreciation. Find a market that is quite boring, one where no one really ever understood all of the hype about the real estate bubble because it wasn’t happening there.

4. Once you find the area that other out of state buyers are buying in, the work begins. You are not there, so someone will have to do your work for you. And the best way to find the local deals is to find the local wholesaler!

5. Just like a spy gathering intelligence, find somebody who is connected, who is the big dog dealer around, and try to get him on your side. That is what you should do to find the best deals in the area.

6. Find the hard moneylenders in the area. Guess whom they will be friendly with? That’s right, the local wholesaler. Find the moneylenders, and you will find the best deal finders. They will be the ones constantly finding great deals and bringing buyers who need to borrow the money. Easy - just like a spy!

7. Talk to the wholesaler in your area. It’s less work and much easier than working with realtors. Be sure you check and ask around, make sure he or she is the big dog, so to speak, running the volume-based business. They mark the deals up just a few thousand and move them so they can keep buying more properties. Besides, the local wholesaler is the one who gets all the best deals anyway. The one who is going to have all the relationships with the realtors anyway and get the 1st call on the deals.

On the whole, for the work the local wholesalers do - looking at hundreds of houses and making hundreds of offers to get their deals - they are more than worth the measly mark up they make. Let them find the best property mangers and contractors, and they will help you get properties - quality properties - faster, so you can achieve your investing goals.

Then what? Start working, do some deals, build your cash flow, and take charge of your future. Be Bold and Courageous, you won’t regret it!

I have a few tips for you on how to be successful in the rental house business. First, do some research to find out where rental homes are needed.

You need to get well informed. Find out what areas need housing. Such areas are the ones that have a lot of businesses in that city. Make sure it is a booming area, not an area where many manufacturing companies are closing and people are losing their jobs. Where this is the case, you will find families wanting to move out and looking elsewhere, where the employment is. Also make sure it is a safe area for people to raise their family. No one wants to move into an area where risks are involved. The next step is to make sure that the area is getting a high deal on rent. You don’t want to be paying for a house that is going to generate low rent. You are trying to make money, so that would make no sense. The area has to have inexpensive houses to buy with higher rent.

To accomplish the above, the best you can do is to find someone who can direct you in the right market. Find a person who can teach you and put you on the items you need to focus on, somebody who is successful in the business and knows what he or she is doing. Do not depend too much on television or online ads - you will read a lot of different information on rental housing and wholesaling real estate. Some information is good to know and some is fluff. It is best to be taught by a mentor who can show you each step you need to take and in the correct manner.

A lot of money can be made in rental houses. Once you have done the above-mentioned steps, purchase the house. Then you will need a contractor to check the house to make sure everything is tenant ready. Replace and fix things as inexpensively as you can. You also want to establish a good relationship with people and keep a good business reputation. If you are renting out homes that are unsafe or not kept up that will bring your reputation down immediately. Keeping a good reputation has numerous advantages. One example is if a renter has to move out he or she may even find a new renter for the house.

By buying your first rental property based on knowledge and research, you will be making extra income, which will allow you to purchase more rental properties. The idea is to keep repeating the step. In the beginning the work is hard, but if you stay determined the steps get easier and easier. You will find yourself very successful in dealing with rental houses very quickly.

Drop me in a new area and tell me to buy a good real estate deal in about 3 hours. Here is what I would do.

The gurus will tell you to do a bunch of marketing and make a lot of offers on houses. But you want to find a deal fast, so the first thing I would do is find the local real estate wholesaler.

Not just any wholesaler, because there will probably be more than a few if you are trying to invest in a large market. What I would look for is the Big dog wholesaler. The one who is selling more properties than anyone else. Look for the wholesalers who are buying and selling 5-10 properties a month. They will be true real estate wholesalers.

A true real estate wholesaler marks up a deal a few thousand and moves on to the next deal, unlike many courses and real estate gurus who talk of making 10, 20 or even 50k on a deal. True wholesalers don’t do that, flippers do.

Flippers make home runs. They find a property and mark it up a bunch and make a killing one deal. These will be the guys that do only one or two deals a month.

The true wholesalers will only make a little on each deal and therefore will have buyers continually buying from them because they know they are getting the best deals.

I am one of the big dog wholesalers in my area and, after thinking about how I do business, I realized that before I became a wholesaler I spent a lot of time and money learning how to find deals. It does pay off if you want to be a wholesaler. But if you are just trying to flip a deal or build a rental portfolio it really does not make sense. In my opinion, devoting a lot of time and money to find real estate deals in this case would be a waste of time. You simply will not be able to find better deals than me.

Use the local wholesaler if you want to find great deals super fast. It is like having a buyer on your staff that is doing all the legwork for you. By using their expertise you will save time and money that is more than worth the mark up you will pay.

Where do you go when you want to buy something nowadays? Wal-Mart, Target, all of these stores are actually large wholesalers. They buy in bulk and then pass the savings on to the consumer. That is what the local wholesaler does in your real estate investing.

It’s a fact of life that you will have to pay your taxes each year, and it’s equally inevitable that you’ll hear people complain about them. Those who are tired of grumbling about having to pay their own taxes will often grouse about how much money the rich manage to avoid paying. No matter how one looks at it, it seems unfair– those with less bear the greater part of the burden while the wealthy have lawyers working around the clock finding new ways for them to avoid paying their share. With this state of affairs, it’s no wonder that the lower and middle classes resent the rich.

Unfortunately, simply recognizing injustices and complaining about them isn’t sufficient to change the ways of the world. The rich will inevitably have money and therefore power, and they will use this power to stack the deck in their favor, particularly when it comes to using tax breaks to keep their money. They will claim that there simply isn’t enough money for everyone to get what they need, all the while cutting corners and keeping their spoils for themselves. This extends to elected officials as well– how many poor politicians have you heard of?

Because this is the way our society works, you can either sit and feel sorry for yourself or you can take steps better your situation. The truth of the matter is that, if you know the secrets of the rich, you can get these same tax benefits that the rich enjoy.

Robert Kiyosaki, who authored the rich Dad, Poor Dad series, has this advice for those who would like to join the ranks of the wealthy: look at what the wealth are doing, and do that! What did the rich do to make their fortunes, and how do they continue amassing more and more money? The answer’s simple: they invest.

In his book “Cash Flow Quadrant,” Kiyosaki says “One of the reasons I chose to work predominantly in the B and I quadrants are the tax advantages,” The aforementioned “quadrant” is an invention of “Rich Dad,” a diagram consisting on a square divided into quarters, each representing the different ways in which different people relate to money. It’s an unavoidable fact that an individual’s personal philosophy and perspective on the world will affect the way in which he or she behaves with money, and this behavior will,, in turn, decide his or her ultimate financial success or failure.

In Robert Kiyosaki’s opinion, the most money is in the business and investment quadrants, largely because these quadrants allow individuals to take advantage of more tax breaks.

It’s best to take an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” attitude towards the wealthy– there’s no way you’re ever going to beat them, so the next best thing is to become one of them. Know also that the rich aren’t simply lucky; if you follow the examples set by rich people, you can become one of them, and you can get the tax breaks that they are able to get.

The path to riches is actually very simple; all you’ve got to do is start investing, or join the ‘I’ quadrant. If you have a high-paying job, you may be able to do this without leaving the ‘E’ (employee) or ‘S’ (self-employed) quadrants, but Robert Kiyosaki advises that you move into the ‘B’ or business quadrant, devising a system that will make you money regardless of whether you are putting time into it or not.

So, invest– invest in apartments, condos, vacation homes, whatever suits your fancy. This is the true, time-tested road to wealth.

Yes, in my area there are several investors that make a bunch of money and if you asked them what their secret is to finding all their houses they will surprise you by saying they don’t know how to find the deals.

What these investors will tell you is they are not doing it themselves, they let the local wholesaler find good deals for them. There are quite a few investors in my area who buy from me, an established wholesaler, many times and over again. I feel sometimes like I am missing out when I hear about how much money they are making on the homes that I sold them.

These successful investors decided that I didn’t feel comfortable selling properties to home owners, and they figured out that I had no desire to make a huge profit on a deal. I just wanted to make a few thousand and do that many times every month.

Most of the investors realized that in order for me to make a living, I had to move properties fast. Unlike them, my full time job is buying and selling houses. They already have other jobs, so they did not have the time to find the deals that I brought to them.

In short, if you want to make a lot of money in real estate yet you don’t have the time to find the deals, buy from the guy who is selling 5-10 properties a month and doing volume business. If you don’t, you will soon find out that the most you will save is a few thousand bucks, and the time it will take you to do so will not be worth it.

The housing market is ripe with foreclosure investment property, the sad fact is many people are over extended and cannot meet their payments anymore. They are desperate to retain as much of their lifestyle as they can, and realizing that no matter what they juggle, they are going to lose their house. What makes matters even worse is the foreclosure looming on the horizon is going to ruin their credit rating and keep them from getting a new mortgage loan when their financial situation improves.

Is making big money in real estate foreclosure sales brain dead simple? Absolutely not. right. So your next question is, what if I start studying how to buy real estate foreclosures right now and put the time in to learn the material and most important actually put into use the research steps proven to sift through all the available foreclosures to find the property that can make you money.

The most important rule of thumb you have to remember no matter how much potential you see in a property is, a property is only worth as much as someone else is going to pay you for it. When your out investigating potential investment properties do your due diligence and leave your emotions out of the equation. For example you might run across a beautiful piece of property with a wonderful view and plenty of acreage to sub divide into smaller lots, but if it’s in an area that has very little in the way of employment who are you going to sell those lots to.

If you’re interested in real estate as far as a career is concerned, you may want to become a real estate investor. As an investor, you can help to improve properties all around your city while making money and establishing a good name for yourself and your real estate business. Here are some of the things that you’ll want to do to get started in real estate investing.

Real estate investing is becoming an ever-increasing trend all over the country, and if you want to know how to become successful at it, there are several resources you can refer to. Here is some information on how to find homes for sale in your city, as well as real estate for sale that you can purchase as part of your real estate investing business.

A trip to the local Chamber of Commerce can lead to insight on where the city intends to expand or develop businesses. Properly zoned land purchased right outside of a growing city, provided the long term industrial growth looks positive, can be an investment bonanza when later developed or turned into commercial real estate. The real estate investor has to be able to look at the overall picture before deciding where to put his or her money into. When it comes to the monetary investment, it is better to not borrow too much. Financial advisors can advise how much money to put into a property without risking personal financial hardships.

This is especially true when it comes to rental properties. Far too often a person can find themselves upside down when forgetting to factor into account all of the little expenses that can add up for a landlord. Not only are there times when the property will be vacant but there are property taxes and insurance to maintain as well as the upkeep of the property. Finding a good tenant who pays their rent on time can be difficult so there needs to be money set aside to take this into account. For more info on foreclosure investment property click to foreclosurehowtobuy.com

You should also know which renovation and home repair choices will make the value of a home go up or down. Many of the things that a real estate agent will point out to potential buyers when it comes to homes for sale in your city may be the things you’ll want to address as well. For example, making a ‘great room’ in the main area in your home may not be a good idea, since it will create more traffic in the home, which results in more wear and tear. Also, a house’s value will go up over time if a multi-car garage is not connected to the home, since the home will have more living space per square foot. If you want to start learning more about Foreclosure investment property, or want to know more about real estate investing, you can visit sites like www.foreclosurehowtobuy.com for articles written by experts in their fields.