Here’s a simple method to learn your real estate investment market, which is VITALLY IMPORTANT before you can tell if a property/price is worthy of being called a “deal” or not…
This ‘LAZY’ method of market research reveals some amazing facts about the real estate investing market in your area and it works for any area there is…
Take a local newspaper (you can get a lot of them online, for free, nowadays) and simply count the number of ‘For Sale’ and ‘For Rent’ ads, and keep track of them for later reference.
Usually, the Sunday and Wednesday papers are the ‘Busiest Real Estate Investing Days’, so for now, just look at these.
Track the number of ads for a few weeks and watch what’s happening in your market (wait, now we’re getting to the part about how you turn all this research into a great real estate investment).
Keeping more detailed records (what price for a 3/2/2 in the southwestern part of town is being offered for sale and rent, etc.) will give you tremendous insight, but for now, just getting started with your real estate. . invest, stick with the basic ‘total ads’ research.
After a few weeks, you’ll begin to see ‘trends’ in the real estate investment potential of your area; maybe the number of For Sale is increasing and the number of For Rent is decreasing…
In such a market, what are you doing looking for ‘changes’ as real estate investments anyway?
This trend clearly shows that there are fewer people buying and a high demand for rentals (maybe it’s a good time for you to look for some deals for your long-term real estate investments).
You see, the newspaper (and the active market) has shown you what to look for (or not), and this is certainly a good indication that there are few buyers (either for themselves or as investment property).
Maybe it’s due to some local condition (like a major employer closing or something), or it could be more national (like interest rates going up rapidly, etc.), i.e. it could be something you can control, but most probably aren’t.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make money investing in real estate in that market!
You can certainly make money in a real estate investment market where there are few ‘For Rent’ properties and many ‘For Sale’ properties (even if you have bad credit and no money…)
This is a perfect time to Lease to Purchase/Options! Yes, it’s a good time to just make CA$H on your real estate investing business.
And, if (and WHEN) the real estate investing market changes again, you’ll already be aware because you’ll have this simple method in mind: just look at the total number of ads in the newspaper, something anyone can do (but very few do). they will…) and you’ll know what the next real estate investment ‘trend’ will be, maybe ‘flip’ again, or maybe something else…
Just one of the main reasons you need more than one ‘tool’ in your real estate investment toolbox…
Here’s to your successful (and LAZY) real estate investments…