Why Real Estate

There have probably been more millionaires created in real estate than any other wealth building vehicle out there. Although most people and the media are not condoning investing in real estate right now, there is probably no better time in recent history than now.
I discovered the great benefits of investing years ago. I am a self employed remodeling contractor that used to work for a property owner, that later became my friend and mentor. I noticed the great benefits him and his family were achieving investing in real estate and decided this was to be my destiny. Also by being a contractor I was quite confident anything I purchased I would be able to maintain, and maintain I did. The first house my wife and I purchased was our primary residence. It was a bank foreclosure that was pretty well wrecked. Her father did everything he could to talk us out of it (to no avail) and I think my mother cried when she saw it.
We were young and determined though. My wife and I had fixed it up and were ready to make our first profit in real estate. From there we purchased another home to live in, which had the same effect on our parents. We did make a nice profit on that house also and used that money to get into the world of rentals, which is where this article is going.
I can’t think of any other wealth building tool where you can make such great returns on you’re investments. It is the only investment out there that you are expected to borrow the money for. Try going to the bank and tell them you want to take out a loan to invest in the stock market. In a lot of cases you can get into a property for none or very little of your own money down. Notice I said your own money. Especially today you are required to put money down if you are trying to acquire bank financing, but in a lot of cases it doesn’t have to be your own money. There are also ways to buy with no banks involved which will be a future article.
Anyways on with the show and the great benefits of real estate, we started investing in 1993. It was right after the savings and loan crash of the late 80’s and early 90’s. It was the last time this country was in a recession. Real estate values were way down and there were some great deals out there. They just didn’t seem like deals at the time (just like today). The only reason they don’t seem like deals is because people are scared and they don’t know where this market is going. Just like today, some of the stuff out there was priced at a super discount. Some of the homes I see out there now will have to go up in value.
The real estate market will most likely never appreciate like we saw during one of the greatest yet most catastrophic times in history. I sometimes wish I did not invest with the common sense approach that I would like to teach you to invest with. People were making crazy money by buying anything on the market and selling it months later for huge profits. Homes were appreciating at astronomical rates in no time (at least where I lived). I could have made a lot of money, but I was too scared, thinking this can not go on forever, and I was right. It did however go on a lot longer than I ever imagined.
My wife and I have purchased some great investment property and continue to do so. We purchase good solid properties to hold and rent. Everything we buy is done with a lot of research in the current market and produces positive cash flow. That is the best way to invest in real estate and you will receive great benefits if you do the same. Imagine putting none of your own money into a property and having a tenant pay the mortgage each month, while putting extra money in your pocket. You can see the advantages of buying rental property.
Real estate is a business and a long term wealth building tool. It is not a get rich quick scheme or a lottery ticket to riches. If done correctly it can definitely speed the process to wealth and you should be able to retire much earlier than you would if you rely on your current retirement plan. Although many people do hit the mother load and make astronomical amounts of money overnight in real estate. Most people will not get those results. So what you can do is make some common sense investments and achieve the American dream. If it was really as easy as the guru’s say they would do it and not sell $1000 courses to people.
So to wrap this up and save some of my thoughts for future articles, I will be continuing to write many blogs. They will all be related to real estate and all I know about it. Hopefully you will be able to learn from what I know and write about. I will be publishing a series of articles that teach how you can purchase as little as six properties and you and your family will be set for generations to come. There will be work involved and you will become a landlord. I know everyone out there has heard the horror stories of unclogging toilets at 3 a.m. Well I’ve owned rental property for over 15 years now and have never done anything at my rental property in the middle of the night.
Well that’s it folks. Please subscribe to my blog and learn all I know about real estate, management, and maintenance. I will be publishing more and more articles, as that is my goal, to teach. I want to teach people to invest in America and realize the American dream, even if you buy no more than one house. I will be doing instructional videos on how to manage and maintain properties. All this will be free of charge to you. Just follow my blogs and tell everyone you know about them. You can see some of what we do at http://www.koeproperties.com/ and some of my instructional videos on maintenance on YouTube / alexkoe1