Monthly Archives: May 2012

May 12, 2012 · 10:50 am

Benefits of Real Estate Investing

I’ve written countless times about the 4 Benefits of Real Estate Investing. And while 4 sounds easy and cool, there are many more. Some of the more benign benefits of REI are;

Helping to improve/stabilize a neighborhood’s value and livability.
Providing affordable housing to worthy tenants.
Sweat-equity.
Teaching your kids how to work with varying people for a long term financial goal.

Let me explain a little about why I’m writing this. I have a real estate investor client from Vancouver, BC who bought a relatively inexpensive rental property here in the Kansas City area. The neighborhood isn’t that good, but not that bad either. Anyway, we bought the dump and then replaced all the outside siding, fixed the rotted fascia boards and gave it a fresh coat of paint. In addition we cleaned up the yard and rehabbed the inside.

So I’m over there the other day getting ready to rent the property and a lady comes out from across the street and insists on giving me a hug.

“Thank you for making our neighborhood look better!”

That makes you feel kinda good, you know? And we already have a few applications on the property to go through.

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May 9, 2012 · 7:56 pm

Commercial Real Estate Listings

You know, I’m continually amazed at how backwards our commercial real estate agent brethren are. Oh, don’t get me wrong. In some ways they are more advanced. Generally, they are far more professional and actually educated about real estate. At least their part of real estate. But in others, it’s just so stupid.

Take a central place to shop for properties, for example. Residential real estate agents all over the country have access to a local MLS that tells them, almost literally, everything! Commercial? It’s like the listings are a mystery to be discovered. A real challenge to spend your $2,000,000.

Oh, sure, there is LoopNet and CoStar and Xceligent. And then there are the countless hundreds of poorly SEO’d commercial real estate websites to search through. But not a single clearinghouse for any given metropolitan area. Isn’t there somebody, anybody, with the juice to get this done?

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May 8, 2012 · 7:19 am

Multiple Offers…Multiple Interest

The Kansas City real estate market is strangely hot right now. In several price pockets. In the lower priced investment units, between $20,000 – $60,000, we are getting in to multiple offer situations every week. I’m told by my brother realtors here in Olathe that “regular” real estate is flying off the shelves in several price points, including the bell curve homes ($160,000 – $225,000 here in JoCo) and $325,000 – $400,000 in Blue Valley specifically.

I suspect much of this is the annual “Spring bounce” that we all love. Let’s see how the Dog Days of Summer go as the next big election draws nearer.