Investing in real estate can be a great way to save for retirement and earn monthly cash flow. However, it’s critical that you do a thorough investment analysis first. before you purchase any prospective investment property. In today’s podcast, Bill outlines the key analysis elements every investor needs to know to assess a property’s potential profitability.
Reference: https://www.biggerpockets.com/rental-property-calculator
Investing in real estate can be a great way to save for retirement or earn monthly cash flow, but it’s critical that you do a thorough investment analysis first before you purchase any prospective investment property. Knowing a property’s potential or lack thereof can help you decide if it’s the right choice.
Investing in real estate means more than just finding an attractive property, buying it, and finding renters. In a perfect world, that may work, but in reality, many other factors determine if your investment will work out the way you planned or be a complete flop.
Before you invest in real estate, consider learning how to do investment analysis first.
To conduct a property investment analysis, you’ll need information about the property itself, including its income and expenses.
Here is the Basic Property Information You’ll Need to Know
You should know:
If the property was already an investment property, get as much information about the potential income as possible.
Rental properties cost money to operate. You are the landlord, so you are responsible for the cost of everything. Find out as much as you can about the costs, including:
You must also know the cost to purchase and finance the property if applicable. How much is the seller asking? How close is it to the appraised value?
How much will financing cost if you need to borrow the funds? Does the property need renovations/repairs/upgrades, or can you rent it as-is?
Are you employing a “value-add” strategy where you improve, rehab, and/or update the property to increase the value?
You need a lot of information to evaluate a property, but where do you find all the data you need?
Are there city, county or state records available?
If you’re more of a DIYer, you can find the property information in a few places:
A seller can tell you around how much income a property earned or how much it cost, but until you have concrete data, don’t decide to purchase or pass on a property. Sellers may inflate numbers to make the property look more attractive or make mistakes, making it look less attractive without realizing it.
Having numbers, you can use to make decisions is critical.
If a seller says it generates $6,000 per month, compare the rents to a bank statement that verifies monthly funds going in and out. You can check both income and expenses this way.
Once you have the numbers, it’s time to do some number crunching to determine a property’s true potential. Here are the calculations you should consider.
In addition to crunching the numbers, you should think about real estate investments logically too. Ask yourself the following questions:
It can feel overwhelming to analyze real estate. There are a lot of numbers and not many places to find the numbers. If you rely on sellers, you may be looking at skewed figures and go into investment thinking you’ll make more than you will.
But if you do the work yourself, it can take up all of your time, and you still may not have the correct answers. The key is to get the right level of support.
Their professionals do all the due diligence for you, including inspecting and appraising the property. They cover every bit of information you could need to decide if a property is right for you. They even include analyses, graphs, and pictures, so you know for certain where you stand.
Don’t buy a house without analyzing its potential. While no one can predict the future, you can use historical and current data to hypothesize how a property will perform moving forward.
Knowing as much detail as possible about a property, the area, and its potential will help you make suitable investments. While some factors are personal and/or unknown, there are enough factors available to help you determine where and how you should invest your money.
References:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/introduction-real-estate-investment-analysis-154903172.html
Podcasts:
373: Rental Property Analysis Simplified with Frank Gallinelli
036: Analyzing Rental Properties – Part 1
040: Analyzing Rental Properties – Part 2
042: Analyzing Rental Properties – Part 3
024: What is Cap Rate and Why is it Important?
154: What is a Good Cash-on-Cash Return?
198: What is a Good ROI for Your Rental Property?
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