The terms “credit crisis” and “housing bust” will be forever stamped upon our generation. Many ordinary and not-so-ordinary people are suffering, and there’s a growing public discontent for the way things have been done. Some are calling for the dissolution of Capitalism in America, declaring that we finally have proof of the failings of free enterprise! The truth is quite to the contrary. This financial meltdown was largely caused and absolutely perpetuited by a series of government incursions into the economy!

The culprits can be categorized into three groups: local regulators, federal policymakers, and the stewards of our monetary policy. The first are one of the chief instigators of wildly varying local housing markets. There’s a reason San Francisco and Los Angeles real estate increased at multiples of the rates from tamer, but actually higher growth, markets such as Houston or North Carolina. Local, city, and state regulators determine the constraints of new developement through land use regulations. These restrict new supply from freely entering the market to offset increasing demand.

Federal policy is also largely responsible for this last boom. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) dictated to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase their portfolio of subprime mortgages. This was plain and simple social policy in action. The goal was to increase rates of homeownership amongst low-income demographics. We are finding out now the hard way that many of these people could not afford their homes after teaser rates expired and housing prices stopped growing at double digit rates. Thank you HUD for encouraging them into the market! A new and scary player in this regulatory roulette is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), linking climate to land use regulation. America, beware!

Finally, we cannot escape monetary policy. It is the Federal Reserve that controls prices for money through various tools that affect interest rates. After 9/11 Alan Greenspan dropped the federal funds rate to near-zero, which was likely in the negative real interest rate territory. He kept rates in this territory for a sustained period of time, only slowly and very incrementally raising them through the peak of the housing boom. Low rates signal the market to borrow borrow borrow. Negative real rates provide negative incentive to save; the omnipotent, omniscient Federal Reserve board of governors sits on the same pedistal of power that Kremlin Communists used to perch whilst dictating grain prices and pretty much everything else in their defunct economy.

This is only a rough snapshot at how some regulations and government policies affected real estate and drove the market nuts up through 2006. As stated earlier there were certainly many private parties responsible for unethical lending practices, incompetent risk managers at large financial institutions, and just plain old greedy people who tried to take advantage of what proved an unrealistic market. Before we scream for increased government involvement in real estate and financial markets, we should seriously evaluate what caused the problems of the past. It’s clear that government played a significant part, so does it make sense to call on the same institutions to increase their involvement? Or perhaps it makes more sense to reduce their encroachment so that markets can work?

Are you thinking of investing in real estate? There is a lot of money involved in property investment so not only is there money to be made but if you’re not informed then you can lose a lot. Not only do you need access to money but there is hard work and research involved in making money in the real estate business. If you have the drive then you can find buying, renovating and reselling or renting property for a profit enjoyable and rewarding. Here are some tips to acquiring property for resale or renting.

Look for a property in the best location you can afford. The best rental and resale family homes should be close to public schools and shopping centers. There should also be access to freeways and public transportation, especially in urban areas. Contact the local police department or use tools online to find out the crime rate in the neighborhood.

Once you have done your market research and decided on possible properties, you’ll need to know as much as possible about each prospective property. While visiting the property look carefully for anything that will need to be replaced or repaired. Look for repairs that can be hidden and costly such as cracked hardwood floors, plumbing, mildew and electrical problems. Take notes and write these issues down so you can review them later.

Once you have done your own inspection and decided that a property looks like a possible investment, hire a professional inspector. Make sure to find a reputable and reliable inspector even if you have to spend more money. They will tell you what needs to be repaired, what should be repaired, and what work will need to be done in the future.

Don’t get too attached to a property. Remember, your goal is too make money on the home. Keeping that in mind will help put things in perspective and help you not to make any hasty decisions. No matter how nice you find the property, don’t be afraid to walk away from a sale.

Use professionals to help you before you decide to buy a property. An appraiser will help you determine the value of the real estate and how much it will be worth with renovations. You will also need to figure out how much renovations will cost to determine if a profit is possible.

Have your finances in order before making an offer. Financial aid is available and should be used especially if you don’t have enough capital to invest in something that will turn a profit. Be careful though; a long term loan (such as 30 years) may not pay off if you’ll be selling it in the short term. Use an accountant if you’re unsure of the number crunching.

After you’ve completed the buying and selling of your first property in Costa Blanca or anywhere, you will be on your way to making real estate investment a hobby and a business.

Many people think that they can make a fortune by investing in real estate, however if you don’t know what you’re doing then it could be a very expensive lesson. Before you decide to try your hand at investing in property there are some things that you need to learn. This business requires a lot of long hard work, and access to plenty of money. If you do it right then you can make a considerable amount of money.

It’s important to know as much as you can about this subject before you start spending any of your money. When you are deciding which property to buy you should pay special attention to anything which needs renovating or repairing. It’s a good idea to take a notepad and pen with you so that you can remember any potential problems.

Make sure you thoroughly inspect the house by flushing all of the toilets, turning on the lights, checking the floorboards, inspecting the walls and ceilings for cracks. Try to check out every potential problem so that nothing catches you by surprise. Once you have decided on the house that you want to buy you should hire a house inspector to check it out before parting with your cash. This will give you a clear idea of how much money you will need to spend on renovating and repairing your property.

Make sure you also pay attention to the market which you are buying the home in. Is there a school close to it? Is it within easy reach of the freeway? Also check out the local crime rates and find how well houses sell in this area.

When buying homes for an investment you cannot be sentimental, this will weaken your position. You want to buy the house for as low a price possible, if you’ve fallen in love with it and the owner realizes then they may stick out for more money. If you can play a good game of poker, then you will do very well! Just because you love a house, it does not mean that it will be any easier to sell.

If you can’t afford to buy the property personally then you can take out a loan to cover the cost. This will work in exactly the same way as if you are buying a home to live in. However if you do this then you need to be aware of the loan costs. If you take out a loan which lasts for 30 years is it possible to pay it off in full when you sell it and have a large profit? Many loans will have a penalty if you pay the loan off early. You don’t want to lose money, so you need to be careful when borrowing money to fund your home property investment business.

The real estate market has dropped out. Prices are falling around your ears. So does this mean that you should get out of property investing? No this is actually a great opportunity to increase your portfolio. When you are buy real estate it does not really matter where the market is, unless you are considering selling in the short term. If you are holding long term then you have to accept the market fluctuations if you can buy during a low period of a cycle that is the “golden hour” in real estate…but sometimes it is hard to find that hour on your watch.

When the real estate market is experiencing a downturn it is the best time to buy. Just check the foreclosure lists and auctions. You can pick and choose and buy normally below market value. However, keep an eye on your monthly bottom line. In other words make sure your rental income (from your new investment) equals or exceeds your outgoing including mortgage repayments. If you have other income you may be able to stand an extra $100 or more per month to top up the mortgage but try to avoid it. You will sleep far better at night knowing that the mortgage payments are taken care of.

If the property market is rising you can be confident that the value of your investment is increasing. That is where your profit is and you should be able to sell if necessary. However, that was a few years ago when the market was more positive but now the reality is that the market has dropped and you need to be able to hold long term without any worries. It may take a few years before we hit healthy real estate selling conditions again, let alone a property boom.

Focus on positive cash flow and steadily increasing returns. This is a long term game. Property investing is a business. You need a decent return on investment and you need the rental return to cover or nearly cover the new mortgage expense.

Having said all that, there is no getting away from the fact that with good research and due diligence the down and depressed market presents serious investors with the best opportunities to build a portfolio of profitable properties for long term gains.

There are times in your life when you have to make decisions that others may question in order to change your future.

That is the case with investors who want to build a rental portfolio or invest in real estate but their market is so crazy that a 2/1 shack is 200k or the taxes are so high that they cannot get a positive cash flow. So what do you do?

Search for properties in another area or even another state, which are affordable and give you positive cash flow.

There are plenty of the areas that the news never talks about because they don’t have 50 percent appreciation in a year. They just steadily grow at a measly 3 to 5 percent, and guess what When the Bubble burst they also didn’t have 50% depreciation in a year. In fact, they just hang out and many people just don’t even notice.

What are the keys to finding a stable area that won’t blow up or down? Here are 7 steps to finding out your area properties to invest in.

1. Look for areas that have a strong rental market. Meaning an area where a good majority of houses are owned by investors who are renting property. This will tell you that the taxes are low and the rent rates are high enough to attract investors who want cash flow.

2. Look for the areas that other out of state investors are buying in. Google is one way that comes to mind. Craigslist.com is also a very good source. In fact, I think it is one of the best sources to find good deals.

3. Once you find the area, talk to people there about the markets overall appreciation. Find a market that is just boring, one where no one really ever understood all of the hype about the real estate bubble because it wasn’t happening there.

4. Once you find the area that other out of state buyers are buying in then the work begins. You are not there, so someone will have to do your legwork. What is the best way to find the local deals? Find the local wholesaler!

5. You will be just like a spy gathering intelligence. Go to the guy who is connected, who is the big dog dealer around, and try to get him on your side. That is what you do to find the best deals in the area.

6. Find the hard moneylenders in the area. Guess whom they will be friendly with? That’s right, the local wholesaler. Find the moneylenders, and you will find the best deal finders. They will be the ones constantly finding great deals and bringing buyers who need to borrow the money. Easy - just like a spy!

7. Talk to the wholesaler in your area. It’s less work and much easier than working with realtors. Be sure you check and ask around, make sure he or she is the big dog, so to speak, running the volume-based business. They mark the deals up just a few thousand and move them so they can keep buying more properties. Besides, the local wholesaler is the one who gets all the best deals anyway. The one who is going to have all the relationships with the realtors anyway and get the 1st call on the deals.

In general, for the work the local wholesalers do - looking at hundreds of houses and making hundreds of offers to get their deals - they are more than worth the measly mark up they make. Let them find you the best property mangers and contractors, let them find you quality properties faster, let them help you achieve your investing goals.

Then it is time to get to work and do some deals, build your cash flow, and take charge of your future. Be Bold and Courageous, you won’t regret it!

To be successful in the rental properties business I have a few tips for you. First, you need to do some research and find out where rental homes are needed.

You need to get educated. Find out what areas are in need of housing. Areas that need housing are ones that have a lot of businesses in that city or town. Make sure it is a booming area, not an area that many manufacturing companies are closing and people are losing their jobs. Otherwise, you will find families wanting to move out of that area and looking elsewhere, where the employment is. Make sure you are looking in a safe area for people to raise their family. No one wants to move into an area where risks are involved. The next step is to make sure that the area is getting a high deal on rent. You don’t want to be paying for a house that is only going to generate low rent. That does not make sense when you are trying to make money. The area has to have inexpensive houses to buy with higher rent.

To accomplish the above, the best you can do is to find someone who can direct you in the right market. Find a person who can teach you and put you on the items you need to focus on, somebody who is successful in the business and knows what he or she is doing. Do not depend too much on television or online ads - you will read a lot of different information on rental housing and wholesaling real estate. Some information is good to know and some is fluff. It is best to be taught by a mentor who can show you each step you need to take and in the correct manner.

A lot of money can be made in rental houses. Once you have done the above-mentioned steps, purchase the house. Then you will need a contractor to check the house to make sure everything is tenant ready. Replace and fix things as inexpensively as you can. You also want to establish a good relationship with people and keep a good business reputation. If you are renting out homes that are unsafe or not kept up that will bring your reputation down immediately. Keeping a good reputation has numerous advantages. One example is if a renter has to move out he or she may even find a new renter for the house.

By buying your first rental property based on knowledge and research, you will be making extra income, which will allow you to purchase more rental properties. The idea is to keep repeating the step. In the beginning the work is hard, but if you stay determined the steps get easier and easier. You will find yourself very successful in dealing with rental houses very quickly.

Drop me in a new town and tell me to buy a good real estate deal in less than 3 hours. Here is what I would do.

Unlike all the big experts who will tell you to do a bunch of marketing and make lots of offers on houses, if I wanted to find a deal fast the first thing I would do is find the local real estate wholesaler.

Not just any wholesaler, because there will probably be more than a few if you are investing in a large market. What I would look for is the Big dog wholesaler. The one who is moving more properties than anyone else. Look for the wholesalers who are buying and selling 5 to 10 properties per month. They will be true real estate wholesalers.

A true real estate wholesaler marks up a deal a few thousand dollars and moves on to the next deal. Unlike many courses and real estate gurus who talk of making 10, 20 or even 50k on a deal. They are not true wholesalers. They are flippers.

Flippers make home runs. They find a property and mark it up a bunch and make a killing one deal. These will be the guys that do one or two deals a month.

The true wholesalers will not make much money on each deal, that is why investors will be buying from them over and over again because they know they are getting the best deals.

In short, devoting a lot of time and money trying to learn how to find real estate deals in my opinion is a waste of time. I am one of the big dog wholesalers in my area and, after thinking about how I do business, I realized that before I became a wholesaler I wasted a bunch of time and money learning how to find deals. It does pay off if you want to be a wholesaler but if you are just trying to flip a deal or build a rental portfolio it really does not make sense trying to find better deals than me because you will not be able to do it.

Use the local wholesaler if you want to find great deals super fast. He or she will be like a buyer on your staff who is doing all the legwork for you. By using such expertise you will save time and money, and it is more than worth the mark up you will pay.

Where do you go to buy something at lower a price? Wal-Mart, Target, all of the similar stores are large wholesalers. They buy in bulk and then pass the savings on to the consumer. In your real estate investing the local wholesaler does the same for you.

In my area one will find several investors who make a bunch of money, but if you ask them what their secret is to finding their houses they will tell you that they don’t know how.

What these investors will tell you is they are not doing it themselves, they let the local wholesaler find the deals for them. There are several investors around who buy from me, an established wholesaler, many times and over again. I feel sometimes like I am missing out when I hear about how much money they are making on the houses that I sold them.

These lucky investors figured out that it wasn’t my cup of tea to sell properties to home owners. So they figured out that I had no desire to make a home run on a deal. I just wanted to make a few thousand on it and do that a bunch of times every month.

Most of those investors knew that I had to move properties fast so I could make a living. Unlike them, buying and selling houses is my full time job. They already have jobs, so they would not find the time to look for the deals that I brought to them.

In short, if you want to make a bunch of money in real estate yet you don’t have the time to find the deals, buy from the guy who is selling 5-10 properties a month and doing volume business. If you don’t, you will soon find out that the most you will save is a few thousand bucks, and the time it will take you to do so will not be worth it.

For the most part, people’s perspectives on money fall into one of two categories. First, you have those who are so concerned about money that the put an inordinate amount of time and money into their work, sacrificing important facets of their lives to further their career. At the other extreme, you’ve got the people that claim not to care about money whatsoever– disenchanted with the workaday world, these people tell themselves that they are perfectly fine without money in the bank.

One person who most certainly does have money is Robert Kiyosaki, and in one of his books, “Cash Flow Quadrant,” Anyone who says money isn’t important obviously has not been without it long,”

One would do well to heed Kiyosaki’s words on these matters, because although he is now rich, he does know what it feels like to be flat broke– as a matter of fact, he spent several weeks in 1985 living in his car. After that, Kiyosaki and his wife moved into the basement of a friend, where they lived for about a year. During this time, they took small jobs here and there but didn’t look for steady careers, as security wasn’t what they were really after– they wanted to be rich.

Today, Robert Kiyosaki and his wife are millionaires.

Money is definitely a crucial thing, but it’s not important simply for its own sake. This is what many people fail to consider when rushing into high-paying jobs; although these careers will make you money, are they really worth the stress, and the pain being separated from your loved ones for extended periods of time. Yes, money is important, but only to the extent that it lets you live the life you really want to live.

Remember that no career in the world will give you the things that truly make life worth living, such as a fulfilling home life and time with your family. All money can do is grant you the resources to pursue what makes you happy.

Everyone sees the Catch 22, worrying that if they spend the time working to make enough money to do the things they want to do, they won’t have time to do those things. That is true. Working is not the answer. Making your money work, preferably in a solid investment like real estate, is the answer.

Robert Kiyosaki had to reach this conclusion himself, years ago; in one of his books, he wrote, “Money is important, but I did not want to spend my life working for it.” As luck would have it, Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad” knew plenty about this dilemma and its true solution.

He knew the secret to taking care of a family without having to devote one’s entire life to one’s work, and that secret is real estate investing.

It’s a simple principle; as an employee, you’re working for money, but an investor, money works for you. All you have to do to start out is take some of the money you’ve made as an employer and move it into real estate. This is all it takes to start paving the way to a bright financial future, in which your wealth is constantly growing without you having to lift a finger, leaving you free to live life and spend time with loved ones.

That is how you can have your cake and eat it too; because the money you make no longer represents hours of your life spent away in pursuit of a living, you can take those hours and reinvest them in spending actual time with your family, in pursuing hobbies, hanging out with friends. In short, you can reinvest them in your life.

Buying a home, especially if it’s your first one, is often quite scary. There are so many things you don’t know and terms you’ve never heard before. People often fear what they don’t understand. In fact, studies have shown that this fear literally prevents some people from taking the first steps to buying a home.

For most of us, buying a house is the largest purchase we will ever make. and of course the first time is by far the hardest. So make sure to take advantage of ALL the home buying information you can.

Be sure to prepare yourself before buying. Here are six steps to follow before buying:

1) For most people, home ownership is an integral part of the American dream and the advantages (tax benefits, sense of home, financial investment) far out weigh any drawbacks.Think about what it will be like to be a homeowner.

2) Know your credit. This is the first thing a lender is going to look at. Your FICO score will probably range from 400 on the low end to 850 on the high end…the higher the better. Contact one of the three major credit-reporting agencies to obtain your credit report and make sure it is accurate. If it isn’t, you’ll need to contact the credit agencies to find out how to resolve any issues. You can also work with a credit repair agency, but beware, as there are a lot of scam artists out there, especially online. I would not use anyone unless they were referred to you by someone you trust.

3) Finances. the dreaded down payment is a huge road block for most first time home buyers. However, there are many diffrent types of loan programs out there for little, and in some cases of strong credit, no money down. Your lender/mortgage broker should be able to help you find for the program you best qualify for.

4) When meeting with a good mortgage broker or banker, ask them to pre-approve you, not pre-qualify you. Pre-approval is an actual underwriting of your file (whether manually or auto-underwritten) and will let you know how much you can actually spend on a house and up to what rate you would be able to go to. This means, of course, that you will have to provide your income documentation, credit, and various other items required by the lender to actually underwrite your file. When you are ready to make an offer on a home, you’ll have more bargaining power over someone who is just pre-qualified, which just means someone has looked over your info and thinks you would qualify for financing.

5) While meeting with your mortgage broker or banker, have them look into any down payment assistance programs that may be available. There are many programs out there run by counties and cities and other agencies. The trick is to know about them, first, and then to see if you qualify for them.

6) Look into first-time home buyer classes. Many lenders, nonprofits, and Realtors offer home buyer education classes. They are usually 2 to 4 hours long and will walk you through the process of applying for a loan, working with a Realtor, making an offer, going to escrow (closing), and various other responsibilities associated with owning your own home. And realize that whoever is putting on the class is will also try and sell you on their services, which is fine, but you are under no obligation to use them.

These six steps will help you on your path to owning a home. Just remember to ask LOTS of questions. Talk to friends and family who are home owners and see who they trust. Buying a home doesnt have to be scary as long as you understand what your getting into.