I am not sure that there is a better business than real estate but I am also not sure if there is a tougher one in today’s market. Home values countrywide are incredibly low and continuing to drop in places. Those in really bad shape now are the ones that bought five or so years ago when homes were way overpriced. Those in really, really bad shape are those who also got into a mortgage that seemed like a good idea at the time but made little sense in the long-term.

I live in California, where the prices of homes five years ago was way above the assessed value and people routinely had buyers with fat checkbooks knocking down their door to get into homes. Unfortunately, I had just moved to Los Angeles, and I needed a place to live. Going with the conventional wisdom of buying is better than renting, I bought property.

This mindset put my wife and I into a condo that we could not nearly afford. When we applied for the mortgage we were sure we would be denied but when they said yes, we just figured they were smarter than us. Well, the mortgage was an interest only and so we were not building equity. When my wife got pregnant again, she decided to leave her job and full-time salary with it. We were setting and had set ourselves up for trouble. As things got worse and bills piled up, we found ourselves on decrepit furniture with home space heaters to warm us.

As was bound to happen, the housing market and economy collapsed. Our home devalued quickly but our mortgage payments did not. Now, not only could we not afford the home, we couldn’t sell it at a profit and barely sell it at a loss. We went through a bankruptcy to get rid of our debt and decided that to free ourselves up from all financial burdens, we would sell the home through a short sale if we could.

We are currently doing much better renting a home. I hate that we went through what we did but, had we not, we may not have learned some valuable lessons.

I would buy an income property, something that I could put a renter in that would cover my mortgage. I would buy a slight fixer-upper and spruce it up with some cheap home decor accents and maybe a coat of paint. But, most importantly, I would buy something below my price range, taking the renter into consideration and get a mortgage that earned equity and had a good rate either fixed or with a long arm.

I wouldn’t want to do this again and have to worry about covering mortgage monthly without the income to do it. I would own something with obvious value and not sell until it was a truly decent resale property regardless of the economy.

Real Estate Investing

It is likely that you think of a number of things when you hear the words real estate investing. You likely leap to real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans, and then you may expand to thinking of short sales, bulk reo investing or virtual real estate investing. You likely also are wondering how these things factor into real estate investors’ roles in the current economy.

You will need to know a lot about real estate investing. The best way to get the most out of your real estate investing education is to be familiar with some basic information ahead of time. Whether your target is short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate or improving real estate investor abilities, you need to know some real estate investing basics. You should review these three real estate investing basics to learn things even some experts do not know:

1. You will always end up with a positive yield when you invest in real estate investing education. Every good real estate deal represents thousands of dollars in potential wealth. Knowing how to get that wealth is the key to success. Learning about real estate increases your odds of success when you do a real estate deal. Small investments in education yield big results upon implementation.

2. You have the ability to succeed in real estate investing in any economy. Many people think that you can only succeed in real estate when the economy is booming. In fact a bad economy is not a bad economy for real estate investors. You can often buy properties at deep discounts. You might also find deals that simply would not exist in a booming economy. Real estate investing often is what turns the tide for poor economies. When the economy is not thriving, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate can all thrive. You can save yourself from financial difficulty along with others by knowing how to do these deals.

3. You do not need a lot of money to be a successful real estate investor. You can succeed in real estate investing no matter how much money you have. Many types of deals enable you to use other people’s money to do them. Private lenders will lend you their money if they think you are a good investment. A good investment will know as much as they can about real estate investing. This will enable you to show people who have money for real estate investing but may not know how to use it that you are a good investment.

Real estate investing is a great way to generate wealth. You can create a good income no matter what the state of the economy. You can create your own success using your knowledge of short sales, real estate investing, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate. Knowing the basics of real estate investing will help you succeed as a real estate investor.