real estate investing: Investor Series: Estimating Rents - 12/07/08 12:37 PM
 
A lot of clients ask me how to figure out what market rents are in a neighborhood. This is a critical input into the calculations an investor needs to make in order to determine what their return on investment will be on a rental property. So you don't want to screw this up!  Unfortunately, this is one of the many figures new investors get wrong.  
 
One place people go to get rents is Rent-o-Meter. Rent-o-Meter is billed as an online resource to get accurate market rents. In my experience it is anything but!  However, I have a fairly simple … (0 comments)

real estate investing: Investor Series: Things to look for when you look at roofs - 12/07/08 12:35 PM
Have you ever driven through Aurora North looking for a rental property and taken a close look at the roofs?   Here's what you'll see: a bunch of 1950's ranches in varying states of repair or disrepair, lawns that are often grassless, old handcrank windows and roofs in almost perfect condition!  This surprised me at first and perplexed me for a long time.  Why, in a neighborhood devastated by foreclosures with properties with massive deferred maintenance are the roofs in such condition?  Really!  Stand in the middle of a typical street and looking at 10 roofs simultaneously, you'll be amazed. Well, it turns … (0 comments)

real estate investing: Investor Series: Things to keep in mind when seeing a foreclosed home - 12/07/08 12:34 PM
As investors we face a number of very real and very scary challenges. Making sense of this market is no mean feat and one has to be very careful with his or her investment. However, we usually think about danger as financial. Unfortunately, on rare occasion it can be even worse than that. The majority of the homes investors are buying these days are vacant and once in a while people break in and live in these properties illegally.  The last thing you want to do is walk in on someone camped out in a house, perhaps conducting illegal an activity.   
This is … (0 comments)

real estate investing: Investor Series: Understanding Egress Windows - 12/07/08 12:33 PM
A lot of investors ask what an egress window is and when one is needed. Technically, it's a window for a room below grade that a municipality has deemed large enough to be safe for exit in case of emergency.   While there are some variations, the window needs to be large enough that a firefighter with an oxygen bottle on their back could get in, then carry out an injured person in a fire.  Most often, it's associated with a basement bedroom window, making it a legal bedroom. Basement bedrooms without egress windows are illegal.  Installing an egress window makes them … (0 comments)

real estate investing: Topics for Investors: Basement Kitchens - 12/07/08 12:32 PM
You walk into a property you're looking to buy and rent and you walk down into the basement and voila! you find a full second kitchen.   Great!  You start calculating how much rent you could get if you could rent the downstairs separate from the upstairs and the cash flow is out of this world!  But wait, there are a number of very real problems with this scenario.  
First of all, it's illegal unless the property is zoned for more than one tenant and the property has been converted to non-residential use. But there are even more practical reasons why having … (0 comments)

real estate investing: Improving conditions in Denver's market - 12/07/08 12:31 PM

There are some signs of strengthening in our Denver market.  The metro area's inventory of available resale housing decreased 20% to 23,120 units in October from October 2007.  Some of this reduced inventory is attributed to homeowners taking their properties off the market in frustration because their property is not selling, but lower inventory implies a strengthening market.  Remember, the Denver area had housing inventory of 31,989 units in July 2006. Home sales rose 14% to 4,265 in September compared to the same month last year.  This is due almost entirely to the lower-end of the market (under $180K) selling … (0 comments)

 

Rex Jarnagin

Lafayette, CO

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Your Castle Real Estate

Office: 303(962) 427-2450

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