It's time to buy!!

If you've ever thought about investing in real estate, now is the time to buy!! Of course you've heard the old saying, "buy low, sell high". Well that's not just an old saying, it's how money is made in real estate... It's not just a cliche! The savvy investor is buying when everyone else is selling, and selling when everyone else is buying.

Now you have that opportunity. Home prices are lower than they will ever be again, and mortgage interest rates are lower than they will ever be again. That's a combination of conditions that are going to cause a sharp increase in real estate values as the unemployment rate improves and the economy gains traction. This is what CNBC had to say on the subject recently. If you can qualify for a mortgage, and you don't own your own home, now is the time to get into one. If you do own your own home, now is the time to invest in a rental property.


A depressed market is the right time to buy rental property, because you can set your bottom rental price and ensure it exceeds your carrying costs... So in an up market when rents are high, you're earning a positive cash flow, and in a down market, you can lower your rents to remain competitive while remaining above your monthly carrying costs. Many novice investors make the mistake of buying at/near the peak of the market, and then find themselves with a negative cash flow on their investment when the real estate market ebbs. When determining what investment actions you should be taking, you need to be able to not only accurately analyze current market conditions, but also forecast what market conditions will be like in the future.

Right now it's a "no brainer". The market is at the bottom and can only go up from here.

What you should be thinking about right now is how to leverage your monthly income to use to qualify for a loan for a rental property. If this is your first dip into real estate investment, a 2-4 unit property will be a great start. In the California's Central Valley, small multi-family properties can be picked up real cheap right now. Many times you can find a great price on a property that's already 100% occupied by residents paying rent every month.

2739 E. Washington in Fresno is a good example of that. It's two single family homes on one lot, both are rented. Listed at only $325,000, a monthly mortgage payment would be in the neighborhood of $1900 per month. Both units are rented and the property is collecting $2050 in rent. Now that's not a great margin, but it's already 100% occupied by tenants paying rent and we're in the bottom of the market looking at a significant period of increasing rents.

4836 E. University is a property I really like. In this down market, two of those units could rent for $650 and two would probably rent for $600. When fully occupied, you're looking at more than $2400 a month in rent collected, and a mortgage of approx $1200. $1200 of positive cash flow every month for a 4 unit property is a pretty attractive deal to me.

There are lots of examples of deals in Fresno that would allow you to take advantage of current market conditions to purchase a property very cheap, that you'd be able to rent out for the next 5-7 years, earn positive cash flow while you own it, and then sell for a healthy profit.

If you're in a financial position that allows you to obtain financing, why wouldn't you enter the market right now, before everyone else figures this out?