Real Estate Investing is a tough business right now. While the business of buying and holding real estate as a long term investment remains a legitimate and viable strategy for wealth building, profit is no longer guaranteed as it once appeared to be.
With that in mind, the astute real estate investor will consider some specific real estate investment concepts to complement the “tried and true” strategy of long-term buy-and-hold investment houses:
* Virtual Real Estate Investing – the term “virtual real estate investing” has multiple meanings, including the use of the internet to buy and sell property, and the purchase and development of internet websites as a means of generating revenue. With an objective analysis, one can see the conceptual similarity between physical real estate and internet properties including entire websites and even individual pages controlled on larger sites like Facebook, Squidoo and Google Knol. Increasingly, real estate investors are seeing the clear opportunity presented by developing web “properties” into revenue generating assets much like physical rental properties. This trend is on the rise and will continue for the foreseeable future.
* Hard Money Lenders– when real estate investors need cash funding for their deals, they frequently turn to hard money lenders who provide the needed funding in exchange for payment of up-front points and high interest rates. But in many cases, the real winner is the hard money lender who profits from a high-interest loan secured by very low loan-to-value ratios. For this reason, many well-funded investors are turning to hard money lending as an alternative profit strategy. Since the down-side risk for the lender is mitigated by an asset with significantly higher value than the money being loaned, the risk to reward ratio clearly favors the hard money lender.
It’s a different world in the real estate investment business. It would be very, very simple to think that the foreclosure crisis has caused the door of opportunity to be slammed entirely shut. Yet that’s simply not the case. When one observes the state of the real estate market, it is undeniable that fundamentals matter more than ever. For example, the selection of the local real estate market is of greater importance than ever, considering the huge disparity that exists among the thousands of real estate markets across the United States. Additionally, the role of regulatory compliance is greater than ever given the activist nature of the current presidential administration.
Without a doubt, there are very major challenges in today’s real estate investing market. But with some persistence, determination and creativity, there is still plenty of opportunity.