Real estate investing

Everyone has heard of the following axioms when it comes to investing and making money. But few people have actually taken the advice to heart and followed through in order to achieve their goals.

* Different investment fads may come and go, but only one form of investment always goes up in value over the long term. That form of investment is real estate.

* Berkshire-Hathaway has proved that buy-and-hold techniques in the stock market can work. However, holding onto shares over a long period of time leaves an investor exposed to risk. Company management will change over time -- shrewd managers and leaders may leave a company only to be replaced by those less diligent, or less able, or even less honest. Technology is in constant change -- a company whose shares you're holding on to may suddenly find itself with obsolete technology with no way to catch up. Remember what happened to Polaroid and their instant cameras?

* More people are being born every day. More people are immigrating from overseas. People need places to live. Unless we get hit with a worldwide economic depression, most people will have the money needed to rent or buy a place to live. Therefore, demand will always be increasing. Prices always go up when demand increases.

* There is a limit on the amount of land available to be developed. As one real estate investor once said "Nobody is making new land". Environmental challenges will force governments to increase the amount of "green space" there is. Eventually, there will be a scarcity of undeveloped land on which to build. Scarcity causes prices to go up too.

Investing in real estate doesn't have to be difficult. Owning your own home is a great way to start. Get your finances in shape and buy a home instead of renting. The value of your house will almost certainly go up as the years pass. When it's time to sell, you'll end up with more money than you paid for the house.

There are a number of different ways that would-be real estate investors can get into "the business". If you already own your own home, and your finances are good, you can find the real estate niche that you're most comfortable with, and start investing. Finding fixer-uppers, buying foreclosures, or buying from "motivated" sellers are ways of investing in real estate at a bargain price. Flip the property or rent it out to others -- the choice is yours.

Investing in any form has a degree of risk. So does real estate investing. Some areas are seeing house prices fall, and the number of houses in foreclosure has gone up. This is just a temporary situation. As we've already seen, in the long term, real estate MUST go up in value.

Learn everything you can before you try and "do your first deal". Plan carefully, get advice from professionals and experts, and you should end up becoming a successful real estate investor. Good luck!

Article Source: http://www.real-estate-article-directory.com

Freelance writer Fran Woodner writes on real estate investing, and home business ideas.
This article is available as a unique content article with free reprint rights.

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