8 Lucrative Points Of Entry To Get Into Real Estate
The single best way to become a millionaire is by investing in real estate. Since you’re reading this post right now, we’re willing to bet that you already knew that. What you probably don’t know is how an average person like you can get in on all of the money-making fun.
There is no single best way to get into real estate. There are, however, a number of excellent real estate entry points, all of which carry pros and cons that aspiring wealth builders need to weigh.
In order to help you understand what your options are, our team has laid out 8 outstanding real estate plays that you can throw yourself at in order to start enjoying returns.
1. Long-Term Renting
One of the most common decisions that people looking for the best way to get into real estate make is to become renters. As a renter, you’d buy a property that you think tenants might like to rent (or lease) from you for a specified period of time.
In theory, the amount of rent that you’d collect would cover all of your property’s mortgage, insurance, tax and maintenance costs. In a perfect world, you’d also net a small profit.
Being a landlord, especially to a multi-unit property, can be a full-time job. Make sure that you’re prepared for the work or can afford a property management company to assist you.
2. Vacation Rentals
On-demand renting is a real estate industry niche that Airbnb put on the map over the last 10 years or so. Today, Airbnb generates billions of dollars on a quarterly basis. The vast majority of that money goes to property owners who lend their homes, apartments, and rooms to vacationers.
Getting set up with Airbnb is as easy as having a spare room to rent out, taking a few pictures and listing it. If you want to make big money, you should look into buying dedicated rental properties and hire teams of people that can clean your rental between bookings.
3. Fix and Flips
If you’ve ever watched HGTV, you probably know what fixing and flipping houses is. When you fix and flip, you buy a distressed property at a discounted price, fix it up and sell it at a considerable profit.
We don’t really recommend fix and flips as the best way to get into real estate top pick because it represents a huge risk to inexperienced people that underestimate the cost of repairs.
If you’re a skilled contractor or have access to a team of knowledgeable home builders, there is a lot of money to be made with this real estate strategy.
4. Wholesaling Properties
Wholesalers are masters at finding good deals on homes. Once they find and negotiate an excellent home price, they get that deal contracted and sell it to another buyer at a slight upcharge (or “finder’s fee”).
As a wholesaler, you’ll want to put a contingency in your paperwork that says that you’ll only go through with a deal if you can find a buyer. If you don’t, you may get stuck purchasing a home that you can’t sell.
Becoming a property wholesaler can make you rich and doesn’t require a penny of your own money!
5. Crowdfund Commercial Buildings
Most of the skyscrapers that you see in big cities aren’t owned by the company(s) that they house. They’re owned by real estate developers that lease space to businesses.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could collect rent from all of the biggest companies in America that operate out of large commercial properties? As it turns out, you can!
There are a number of crowdfunding websites like “Fundrise” or “CrowdStreet” that let average people pool together their funds to buy large commercial buildings. They then rent the property and all investors get a cut of the profits.
6. Lend Hard Money
When people want to buy into real estate ventures like fix and flips, do you think that they use their own money to fund their deal? In most cases, they don’t.
They use what is called “hard money lenders”.
Hard money lenders are regular people like you that issue loans to real estate investors. These loans carry short terms (meaning they have to be paid back quickly) and have high-interest rates to help mitigate the risks involved with real estate deals.
7. Buy Notes
Banks offer mortgages to home buyers because mortgages carry steep interest payments that banks live off of. If you’d like to get a taste of what it’s like to collect lucrative interest payments, you could go to a bank or another lender and ask to buy their loans off of them.
This is called “buying notes”.
When you buy a note, rather than paying their old bank their monthly mortgage, home and/or commercial property owners will pay you their mortgage plus applicable interest and fees that are outlined in the note that you purchased.
8. Become a Real Estate Agent
If you’re a good marketer and have a great personality, try making your mark on real estate as an agent!
Becoming an agent is easier than ever today because marketing to buyers and finding potential clients can be done 100% online. You can also download real estate contracts and a number of other helpful tools over the internet which can help you get your business off the ground.
There Is No Single Best Way to Get Into Real Estate
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, there is no magical best way to get into real estate. The way that you choose to break into the market should depend on your unique factors like time, cash availability and interests.
Best of luck dominating your real estate ambitions!
Note: This article originally appeared at MoneyMiniBlog.
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