Investing in Real Estate – Still a Smart Bet
When most people hear the term ‘investing’ they’ll automatically conjure up thoughts of Wall Street and stock brokers. But while buying stocks and bonds is certainly the most obvious aspect of investing, there are plenty of other ways that you can invest your money for a big return. Investing in real estate has always been one of the best examples of this, and putting your money into property is still a very viable and smart decision. Sure, the housing market isn’t what it used to be. But that doesn’t mean that you should just ignore the benefits that investing in real estate may provide to you.
Obviously, investing in real estate begins with the purchase of property. You’ll want to do your research here to ensure you buy the right property for your overall goals. Undeveloped tracts of land, for example, may be cheap at the moment. If they’re located in an area poised for development you may be able to resell in a few years for a big profit or build your own apartment complex or gated community, depending on the investment potential that you have available to you. But there are other ways to make cash from investing in real estate.
The obvious choice is to ‘flip’ homes. Plenty of attention has been given to this practice – so much so that it’s even been given its own television shows. Basically, you’ll buy dirt-cheap homes that need repairs. Once you’ve found the right one, fix it up as inexpensively as you can while still giving it a major makeover. Then you simply resell. A big issue right now is, of course, that reselling is more difficult than it used to be. In these instances, fixing up a property and renting it out could let you break even or even make a profit depending on your mortgage payments.
That renting aspect of investing in real estate is worth considering and in many instances you can have a property listed for sale even while renting it out. The rent will pay your monthly payments until you find a buyer, at which point you’ll have to wait until the end of the renter’s lease agreement. Short term leases make this much easier. Whether you’re buying commercial land and sitting on it until its value rises or just buying some homes to rent out for extra money, investing in real estate is still very much worth thinking about, especially with prices still very low.