Why You Should Invest In Real Estate
You need to understand the need or urgency to become involved in a "real" investment, one that has the opportunity to grow or appreciate with the economy as opposed to "fixed" investments. Fixed investments are those that offer you a fixed return on you invested capital, such as savings accounts, CD’s and money market accounts. It does not matter how much the institution makes on your money, you are paid a fixed rate of return. This first topic is probably the most important one to understand and believe. If you are not convinced you need to invest your retirement funds where that have a chance of supporting you when you retire, there is no point in reading the next eighteen points. If you haven’t requested our FREE report on "why you should invest in real estate" drop us an Email message at mtanzer@att.net , type "investing report" in the subject box and send it to us.

How To Establish Your Investment Objectives
Before you try to get to your final financial destination, you need to know where you are now. You need to prepare a current financial statement on yourself and include as much as you can regarding your future projections (I know, you don’t have a crystal ball). You need to determine how much you will need to live on when you retire, including such expenses in the interim as weddings, new automobiles, etc. Next you need to know how to reach that goal, figuring in inflation.

Where Do You Find Start-up Capital?
We’ll cover the primary sources and how they differ plus suggest quite a few you may not have thought of. Have you considered friends or relatives. We’ll show you how to make them an offer they can’t refuse. We’ll even discuss buying with no money down.

To Manage Or Not To Manage:
Solving the management problem does not have to be a hassle. You can do a much or as little management of your investment real estate as you wish. We’ll explain your alternatives.

Guidelines For Choosing Real Estate Investments:
You could have many different investment options available to you such as single family homes, apartment complexes, hotel and motels, office buildings, shopping centers, warehouses and industrial buildings, vacant land…and more. You may not like the idea of dealing with apartment tenants. Don’t let that stop you. Maybe a small strip shopping center with a convenience store and Laundromat is more to your liking. You can learn the pros and cons of each in our investment course.

What Form Of Real Estate Ownership Should You Consider?
If your investment capital is limited, you may want to consider a partner (one who has some money). The next question is, what kind of a partnership do you form? Most often, a "limited partnership" is best suited for this use. It keeps you in control of the decision making in the operation of the investment. Since partners tend to have disagreements, this form of ownership solves that problem. We also cover other ownership vehicles, such as corporate ownership. The pros and cons of each are discussed.

How Do You Locate The Right Investment?
Assuming you want to do it on your own (without a real estate agent), you need to know where to locate the type and size property that fits you desires and budget. Probably the most important part of this section is to give yourself a choice. The first property you look at may seem great, but do not make the mistake of jumping into it immediately. You need to find others and compare each of them. You’ll want to consider the property location, how close it is you where you live, what to look for when examining a property and what questions to ask when talking to the owner. (We’ll furnish you checklists to help you remember all of this). Then select the best one.

Prepare A Financial Analysis
NEVER purchase, or even enter into an offer to purchase, any investment property without first financially analyzing it. Ignoring this one step, even if you follow everything else we discussed, could result in financial disaster. For this reason, we devote considerable time and space discussing property analysis and furnish you with a computer program that does it for you.

Financing Techniques:
There are a lot of avenues of financing available to you. You need to prepare a financial statement on yourself, one on the property you are considering, take pictures, etc. Armed with a complete lender package, you can research the financial market for the best deal.
Hint: Always start with the owner. If the owner will carry the mortgage, you not only save money in closing costs but qualifying is much easier.
You will learn many sources of investment funds in this section.

Tax Shelters
Contrary to popular belief there is still life after the tax laws changed in 1986. For certain investors, you may still be able to reduce your other taxable income by owning investment real estate. Most real estate investments will produce an excellent return on invested capital and you will be able to keep all or most of it tax-free. You also need to know how to use the "time value of money". When building your financial estate you need two things: Time and Money. The more you have of one the less you need of the other. Make sense? We’ll show you how to use the formulas for creating your estate.

How Do You Negotiate The Purchase?
Once you locate the property you want to buy, you need to have a contract prepared. There are inspections you will want, such as roof, termite, asbestos and radon gas. (You’ve never heard of radon gas? It is an invisible and odorless gas that is found in the ground in certain areas of the country. Federal law now suggests a radon test be made in known areas of radon gas. The cost is minimal but the test is important).
Hint #1: Never make a verbal offer to purchase. Unless it is full price and based on the terms the seller wants, he or she won’t even talk to you.
Hint #2. Never offer full price, unless the property is such a steal that you don’t want to chance losing it.
If you follow rule #2, you must follow rule #1. There is a lot to making an offer to purchase, including negotiating, removing contingencies, setting a time limit for acceptance, etc. We devote one whole chapter in the course to this subject.

What To Do At The Closing And After
Once you reach the point of taking title to your new investment property, you want to know what to expect and how to understand your closing statement. Once you finalize the closing, there are several things you need to do. One of the first is to contact each of your new tenants and, if you didn’t do that during your property inspection, introduce yourself.

Record-Keeping
We’ll lead you through the basics of keeping financial records for you new investment.

What You Need To Know About Leases And Leasing
The financial success of your investment depends on keeping your units, whether they are apartments, offices, stores or warehouses, fully leased at the highest possible rent. We discuss everything from "Who does a lease protect" to lease clauses you MUST have to protect yourself. You’ll learn how to show your units, qualify your potential tenants, and how to avoid the pitfalls that some investors fall into.

When You Should Sell And Why
I know, you have owned your property for a few years, it is probably doing better than you even imagined, and now I’m suggesting you should sell it. Why would you want to do that? Keep in mind, you have become a real estate investor for one primary reason…to create wealth. You may also remember, assuming you read the lead article in this issue, that one of the most important factors in creating wealth in real estate investing is in using leverage. (Sound familiar)? Well, after you have owned your property for several years, it has no doubt appreciated and you, or rather your tenants, have also paid down your mortgage. Once you have twice as much equity in a property as you originally invested, it is time to consider either trading into a larger property or refinancing your present one to obtain tax free cash for another property. (By the way, the "What If?" computer program that comes with our course, quickly analyzed your present property and shows you if it makes sense to refinance it for tax-free cash).

How To Sell Your Property
In a nutshell, you don’t want to sell it! You want to exchange it for a larger property using a 1031, tax deferred exchange. (Don’t worry, we go into great detail on how to do it). We’ll also discuss how to find and qualify a buyer for your property.

Rules Of Thumb
There are probably as many rules of thumb, that investors use to estimate the value of a property, as there are investors. We’ll discuss the most common ones and which ones have any value at all. Most of them do not. The best rule of thumb is to prepare a financial analysis on the property that is of interest to you. You’ll also learn how appraisers work and the three methods of appraisal they use.

Leasing Your Office Space From Someone Else?
It’s costing you a bundle of money. If you currently lease office space, you should consider leasing it from yourself! If you own a small office building, store or industrial building, you not only can control your own rent but can gain some fantastic financial tax breaks. You’ll learn how in this section.

Pyramiding Your Investments
It all comes down to building your financial estate, using all of the techniques you have learned, into a lifetime of financial security. You will learn the simple formula that can take a single, one time investment in real estate, and pyramid it into a lifetime estate…without adding one more penny of your own money.