In an effort to serve current users of our real estate investment software and subscribers of this real estate investing blog, you are invited to submit information about your income property and land listings for publication on this site.

Who knows, you might have a listing for an apartment or office complex in South Carolina that a subscriber in Florida has an interest in. Or perhaps some acreage in Oregon that someone in California wants to know more about.

This is a new concept for this real estate investment site, but one that can be of great benefit to the real estate investing community. So you are encouraged to consider taking an active part and submitting your income property and land listings.

How to Submit Your Listings

1. Email me information about one or two of your real property listings along with some information about your local real estate market conditions. My email information is available here if you do not have it.
2. Include your name and contact information. Feel free to include two phone numbers, email, and web address.
3. Please do not include pictures, APODS, or proformas. For now, just a full description of the property will suffice.
4. Please do not submit information that concerns a single-family residential property. Our focus is on real estate investment opportunities.
5. Please do not submit the same information twice. If you get a new listing you would like to publish, please include some “fresh” information about your local real estate market also.

How Listings Get Published

1. The market, property, and contact information you submit will be written into an article we write (and accept credit for) that will feature your investment market. For example, we might title the article “South Carolina Apartment Market Offers Real Estate Investors Great Buys,” and inside the body of the article include your market condition summary, listings, and contact information.
2. We will only feature listings that you have a signed contract to market for sale. Please do not submit information about properties on which you do not have a signed listing.
3. We reserve the right to modify your information as we deem necessary without compromising vital data.

Hopefully, you can see the benefit for this to both of us. It offers you a free venue to advertise your real estate listings and services and perhaps an opportunity to make a deal. It offers this real estate investment blog site the opportunity to serve its readers.

Net present value (NPV) is a real estate investing measure widely used by real estate investors for real estate investment analysis.

It’s doubtful whether any prudent real estate investor has ever made an investment decision based on net present value alone, but NPV does provide one aspect of the analysis process that can be helpful when an investor is considering an investment opportunity.

In essence, NPV lets the investor know whether the investor’s target rate of return will be met, and hence, whether the property should attract that investor’s capital into that investment.

The net present value model is based on a decision rule that states if the discounted present value of future benefits is equal to or greater than the cost of those benefits it is a profitable opportunity. Whereas, if the present value of the future benefits is less than the cost for those benefits, the rate of return will not be achieved and chances are good that the investor should take another look.

Consider a simple illustration.

When you place your money into a savings account (invest your capital) you expect it to earn interest (provide future benefits). The return is dedicated by the bank, but based on those benefits you’re willing to tie up your capital because you accept the rate of return.

Okay, suppose, however, that the bank doesn’t quote a rate and instead projects what you might receive in future benefits. In this case, you would have to decide on an acceptable rate and determine whether those future benefits live up to it.

Likewise, the net present value approach to investment value takes your desired rate of return and tells you if a property’s future cash flows (benefits) achieve that yield or not.

Net present value is modeled this way. It discounts all future cash flows by the desired rate of return to arrive at a present value (today’s value) of those cash flows and deducts it from the investor’s initial equity (capital invested today). The result, either, is a negative dollar amount, zero, or a positive dollar amount.

The interpretation is straightforward. If NPV is a negative dollar amount it means that the present value of future benefits is less than the amount invested; the specified return (IRR) is not met.

If NPV is zero, or a positive dollar amount, it signifies either that the desired rate of return (IRR) is perfectly met, or that it is met with room to spare.

The NPV method of investment analysis is informative as it provides an investor the opportunity to evaluate projects using the same rate of return requirements. It will not provide any information concerning one project over another from a risk standpoint, however.

NPV is just one aspect of real estate investing analysis, and not without its shortcomings. Still, if used correctly, one certainly worth knowing about and computing for the next time a real estate investment captures your interest.

The question, what is real estate investing, must be answered much the way you would peel an onion—one layer at a time.

Let’s start with a definition and then move into a few concepts.

Real estate has been defined as land (or immovable property) along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings.

Investment is the act of using money to purchase property for the sole purpose of holding or leasing for income.

Thus, we have it. Real estate investment involves acquisition (unlike other economic or financial investment, real estate is purchased), holding, and sale of rights in real property with the expectation of using cash outflows for the potential of future cash inflows, and hence, generating a favorable rate of return on that investment.

Simply put, real estate investments are a source of wealth and investing in real estate is the act of purchasing real estate with the goal of making a profit and acquiring wealth.

In contrast to stock investments, which usually require more equity from the investor, it is possible to leverage a real estate investment heavily. In other words, with a real estate investment, you can use other people’s money to magnify your rate of return and control a much larger investment than would be possible otherwise.

Aside from leverage, however, other benefits arise from real estate investment. Yields on real estate investments include annual after-tax cash flows, equity buildup through appreciation of the asset, and cash flow after tax upon sale.

There are also non-monetary returns associated with real estate investing. Pride of ownership, for example, the security that you control ownership, and portfolio diversification.

Of course, real estate investing is not a bed of roses. Real estate investment does require capital, there are risks, and rental property can be management-intensive.

On the other hand, the car you drive required capital, driving it involves risk, and it certainly requires management. The difference is that a car is not a source of wealth.

If you want to become a real estate investor or just getting started in real estate investing, here are three things you should do:

1. Develop a real estate investment goal. What do you want to achieve, and by when do you want to achieve it? What rate of return do you expect to want to receive on moneys you pull out of your home or bank account to purchase an investment property given the risk?
2. Learn what returns you should look for, and how to compute them. You cannot succeed in a musical career unless you can read music. Our real estate investment software program will teach you the formulas.
3. Create a relationship with a real estate professional that knows the local real estate market and understands rental property. It will not advance your investment objectives to spend time with the “agent of the year” unless that person knows about investment property and is adequately prepared to help you correctly procure it.

Finally, investing in real estate is more than experienced “gurus” out there who are repackaging the exact same material as the next guru and reselling it without first being successful in real estate investing themselves.

Successful real estate investing is not about uncovering a “trade secret.”

The “sizzle” in the business of real estate investing is about owning a piece of ground that, if unduly researched and purchased sensibly by impartial numbers, with careful management, will likely be more valuable tomorrow than it is today.

That is, after all, the nature of real estate.