Best on the Web: How to Locate, Research & Fund Your Next Real Estate Deal!

If you’re tired of bouncing around aimlessly trying to put together a real estate deal that will put cash in your pocket and move you closer to your ever-elusive goal of financial independence you need to put the power of the Internet to work for you so you can more quickly reach all of your goals.

When utilized correctly the Internet can dramatically shorten your learning curve and can be a valuable source of information in finding, researching and funding potential your real estate deals.  The problem you face, however, is that if you’re not careful you can get tangled up in the web and this can slow down this process.  Here are some little known resources to help move you – and your dreams- forward.

 Finding Deals – It’s hard to reach your dreams if you don’t know where to find available properties.  Any investment requires you to buy low and sell high – and real estate is no exception to this rule.  If you’re on the lookout for wholesale property you can find them at http://www.propertyattic.com/.  By the same token, if you’re interested in capitalizing on the profit potential available as a result of the sub-prime mortgage mess, you may want to consider investing in REOs.  Lenders are foreclosing on property at a record pace these days, which is only creating ore opportunity for real estate investors.  As a result lending institutions are willing to consider lower offers on many of the properties, allowing us as investors to pick them up for less than sixty five cents on the dollar in many cases.  There are numerous great resources available out there for picking up these types of deals and you can find them here: www.reiconferences.com/resources.htm

Researching Deals & Markets – Whether you’re kicking around the idea of moving into a new market or you’ve found a property and you need more information to help you decide whether or not to move forward, you need as much high-quality information as you can get your hands on.  You’ve heard the mantra “Information is Power”.  Now, information you can use is at your fingertips and just a mouse click away.  Two resources I use and recommend are Hendricks and Partners Sales & Research (www.hpapts.com/index.cfm) and http://www.dataquick.com/ for real estate information and research.  These resources can give you demographic information in a particular area that you can’t easily find elsewhere.  Information such as key industries, average income, and job prospects, etc.  Another cool site where you can compare research information for two different zipcodes is http://www.zipskinny.com/. The more information you can access, the better off you are, especially in the current market.  Let me give you an example.  If you’re considering a property purchase in Paducah, KY, it can be extremely useful to know if a major manufacturer is going to be locating a major production or manufacturing facility in the area – and where exactly it will be built.  Why?  Because if you know this ahead of time, you learn in advance what areas are likely to be rising real estate markets from a sales – and a rental – perspective. 

Funding Deals – No deal is complete without funding.  You may pride yourself on being able to convince sellers to finance property for you, but keep in mind that all sellers won’t be able or willing to assume the role of the lender.  At the same time, conventional bank financing isn’t always an option either.  When you find a property, you’ll frequently find that you need to be able to act quickly in order to pull off the “perfect” property acquisition.  A lot of lenders are gun-shy about lending money, especially if your credit isn’t perfect.  Two new peer to peer lending resources, http://www.prosper.com/ and http://www.lendingclub.com/ have unique, cutting edge programs available regardless of your personal credit situation.  Instead of dealing with a lender directly you deal with individual who bid on the right to provide a portion of the funding you’re seeking.  So if you need to borrow $25,000 for a rehab project, you could very well find that 25-30 individual investors are willing to provide a small portion of your funding request at a blended interest rate that can rival – or beat – what you might expect to pay with an institutional lender.  If you need a good hard money lender, few lenders will go to bat for you like the fine folks at http://www.rehabfunding.com/.  Not only can you roll acquisition and rehab costs into the same loan, but you can sometimes even include closing and associated costs as well and not make a payment for up to four months, in some cases.

The web is loaded with resources if you know where to look.  However, if you want or need to save time by having all of the best resources available in one convenient location, there’s only one web address you need.  Navigate over to http://www.reiconferences.com/ and tap into the best of the best.  You’ll be glad you did!