By Scott Roemermann
This week we’ve put together a fairly comprehensive list of
resources for you to check out. You can start using many of these immediately
as they are free of charge. As for the others, you should weigh up whether you
need them for the stage you are at with your business.
We have first-hand experience with
many of these sites but not all of them so any feedback or reviews are welcome
in the comments section below.
Training
With so many products on the market
today I could probably have done a list of 101 training resources.
However, in creating this list I was reminded that there are quite a few
“pretenders” out there in the real estate investing world and have tried to
keep this list concise with only reputable resources, some of which are free.
General
- RichDad.com: Rich Dad Poor Dad is the book
that woke me up to the fact that I needed to take greater responsibility
for my financial future. A short time later I purchased my first
investment property. Robert Kiyosaki still delivers fantastic
information and is the obvious choice to kick start this list.
- RealEstateInvestor.com: This is a community
of real estate investors that has been building a lot of momentum recently.
With an education center, networking and member blogs, there is plenty of
great free information here.
- REIAllstars.net is a new membership site
that is building a portfolio of video training materials to help new
investors fast track the learning process.
- CREonline.com is the elder statesman of the
real estate investing community online. It has been around since
1995 and as such has a rich offering of great articles.
- REIclub.com hasn’t been around quite as long
but is the other big site in terms of the volume of articles and free
content that they offer at this time.
- BiggerPockets.com is a community site which
is constantly evolving. It currently has a popular blog, forums,
articles, an analysis tool and many other useful resources.
- CashFlowInstitute.com: Mark Walters offers a
series of free videos about numerous real estate investing
techniques. Well worth a look.
- RealEstateInvestors.tv offers hundreds of
real estate investment educational videos for less than $40 per
month. They also have a 7-day free trial.
Apartments
- Real-Estate-Fortune.com: Dave Lindahl is
best known for his tremendous success in apartment house investing.
- ApartWealthMachine.com: Lance Edwards also
has some great information about investing in multi-family housing and
offers a free CD on the topic from this site.
Commercial
- CommercialAcademy.com: Scott Scheel is the
go-to guy for commercial real estate investment training and also has a
free CD available from his site.
Flipping Homes
- FlippingHomes.com: Steve Cook has a strong
reputation as an industry leader in the wholesaling game and is developing
his website into a great web 2.0 site with plenty of articles, a forum, a
fun and useful blog and some great free videos as well.
Financing
- PrivateLendingMadeEasy.com: Alan Cowgill is
the indisputable expert when it comes to acquiring private money for your
real estate investing. He also has plenty of freebies to get you
started.
- CashFlowExperts.biz: Tom Kish reveals his
system for using unsecured lines of credit to invest in real estate
instead of cash. With this system you should never have to say no to
a good deal again.
Foreclosure / Short Sales
- ForeclosureUniversity.com: This professional
looking site offers a free audio recording about Short Sales and a very
affordable Foreclosure Home Study Course.
- EasyHUD.com: Use the HUD Generator tool to
create your HUD-1 form in less than 5 minutes and unlock the door to
incredible discounts.
Government Grants
- NewAmericanLandRush.com: Jillian Coleman
Wheeler has put together some useful resources for anyone interested in
getting government grants to aid their real estate investing business.
Lease Options
- Lease2Purchase.com provides solid
information about a very important real estate investing technique.
The use of lease options can be very powerful and it is something that all
investors should at lease be aware of.
Probate
- ProbatePowerProfits.com is a new site from
experienced investor Stacy Kellams. It has quickly become the
benchmark for probate investing training.
Property Management
- LandlordSystem.com by Anesia Springborn
offers a free rental agreement and a 7-day course about systematizing your
buy and hold property business.
- MrLandlord.com: This may not be the
prettiest site around but Jeffrey Taylor has been delivering cutting edge
information about being a super successful landlord for many years.
There is some great info here.
Self Storage Investing
- SelfStorageInvesting.com: Scott Meyers has
created a very nice resource about self storage investing that is well
worth a look. He provides some strong arguments as to why you might
consider this commercial investment alternative and backs it up with solid
“how-to” information.
Tax Lien Investing
- TaxLienLady.com: Tax lien investing is one
area where you need to be confident you are getting solid advice and with
quite a few sharks “out there” I am very happy to introduce you to Joanne
Musa, the Tax Lien Lady. Joanne has some great resources available
at her site including podcasts, videos, articles and even some software
related to tax lien investing.
Virtual Wholesaling
- VirtualWholesaling.com: Cris Chico has
mastered the art of running his real estate investing business from home
using the internet and other tools that allow him to invest
remotely. Check out his site for some free and paid materials.
- REIconferences.com: Charrissa Cawley is
another expert at virtual investing and has some great resources to share.
Business
Incorporation, Accounting and Legals
- TheInformedInvestor.com: Darius Barazandeh
has an incredible breadth of information and tools available at his site
but I particularly like the fact that as a licensed attorney he can offer
sound advice on setting up your real estate investing business the right
way.
- LegalWiz.com: William Bronchick also has a
great range of free and paid information and draws on his legal background
to offer real estate investors great advice for their businesses.
- LegalZoom.com is a popular resource for
getting legal forms and services at the right price.
- PrePaidLegal.com: This site offers customers
the chance to purchase legal services on a pre-paid basis giving them
access to quality law firms without having to worry about how much money
each minute on the phone is costing them.
- TaxLoopholes.com: Diane Kennedy’s
ground-breaking site offers some great information about how you can pay
less tax…legally.
- RealEstateTaxLaw.com: John Hyre is a
qualified accountant and real estate investor and he has some sound advice
for real estate investors especially with respect to their bookkeeping.
- DepreciateEm.com: This is a great little
online application that helps you with asset separation for depreciation
in 3 easy steps. It will generate a report for you and the
appropriate form for the IRS.
- Federal Fair Housing Laws: The Department of
Housing and Urban Development offers this section on their website about
fair housing laws which could be handy for landlords to be aware of.
- Quickbooks is pretty much the standard for
small business accounting software and if you don’t have a copy you may
want to look into it and make sure you keep your books in order from the
start.
Housing
Data And Research
- MarketTimingMaster.com: Ken Wade has
developed an incredible system that takes some technical trading
principles and applies them to real estate markets across the
country. This approach is the closest thing I’ve seen to a crystal
ball in terms of which markets to invest in and can DRAMATICALLY improve
your long-term results. Needless to say, I am impressed with this
site.
- Yahoo Real Estate offers some very nice
tools but my favorite section is probably the Neighborhood Info which includes
details of schools in the area and demographic data that is of interest to
investors.
- The National Association of Realtors offers
some handy statistics and research data from this page on their site.
- HendricksPartners.com: Hendricks &
Partners also has some free market reports available in the Research
Center on their website.
- First American CoreLogic has a bunch of
research tools and data available including property records, values and
market trends.
- DQNews.com is somewhat like a blog and is a good way to
keep up-to-date with market trends. DataQuick are also well regarded
for their paid research services at dataquick.com
- Rich Dad’s Real Estate Evaluator: While I
prefer that people create their own analysis spreadsheets so they can
truly understand the numbers I will recommend any tool that encourages
investors to do a more thorough financial evaluation of a deal.
- Rentometer.com have a nice little tool for
conducting rental comps to check how much you can expect to be charging in
rent.
- RentSlicer.com: This web 2.0 mashup of
Craigslist and Google Maps also allows you to conduct rental comps by extracting
data from Craigslist.
- HUDuser.org is the website of HUD’s Office
of Policy Development and Research and it is here that HUD provides the
data relating to Fair Market Rents that they establish for the
Section 8 program each year. You can use this data as a benchmark
especially if you rent to Section 8 tenants.
Comps
These
sites can be very handy for getting some rough data for initial analyses of
deals but do not replace a proper appraisal of a property with such data
especially when you need to know the after repair value.
- Zillow.com: Zillow has come along and revolutionized the
way we get comparables. It is a powerful resource for getting
“Zestimates” on the value of a home and for conducting your comps.
- CyberHomes.com: The CyberHomes database
covers more than 100 million records and more than 85% of the US
population making it a very thorough resource for conducting your comps.
- Eppraisal.com: Another popular resource for
obtaining estimates on the value of specific real estate.
- RealQuest.com: This site by First American
CoreLogic has the multiple functions of property information, values and
search. Their Investor product allows you to search for
pre-foreclosures, auctions and bank-owned properties.
Property
Search
These four sites are all well enough
known that they need no introduction.
- Trulia.com
- HomeGain.com
- MLSonline.com
- Realtor.com
And for commercial real estate investors
the following site is a must.
- LoopNet.com
Foreclosures and REOs
In
the wake of the sub-prime crisis, now really is a great time to be acquiring
some cheap property. Just make sure you do your due diligence first,
including market research!
Anyway,
here’s a great list of sites to source some heavily discounted
properties. We start with some foreclosure databases that have numerous
sources.
- Foreclosure.com is the big dog in the
foreclosure space and now includes listings from Premiere Asset Services
(who handle Wells Fargo’s REOs). They also acquired
seizedrealestate.com recently. Their database includes foreclosures,
pre-foreclosures, bankruptcy properties, tax lien properties, and FSBOs.
- ForeclosureData.com also has a massive
database with about 1.2 million properties currently listed. This
also includes pre-foreclosures, bankruptcy, and FSBO properties.
- RealtyTrac.com is another foreclosure
database that offers a 7-day free trial. They also offer email
alerts and a foreclosure market report.
- HomeSales.gov lists properties owned by
various government departments. They also offer guidance on the
buying process for each type of property.
- The US Department of Agriculture makes it’s
foreclosure properties available from this site.
- HUD.gov: HUD foreclosures (Department of Housing and
Urban Development) are listed on their website but you must then contact
the local real estate agent to submit a bid on the property.
- Ocwen.com:
VA foreclosures (Department of Veterans’
Affairs) are managed by Ocwen Loan Servicing.
And
the remaining items in this section are great sources for REO properties or
bank foreclosures. Some of these sites are Asset Managers that the banks
use to dispose of their properties but many banks list the properties directly
on their own website as you can see below. It’s always worth trying your
smaller local banks’ websites too because you may find a great source with less
competition.
- FirstPreston.com
- LendersREO.com
- Integrated Asset Services
- PremiereREO.com
- HomeSteps.com is a website of lender Freddie
Mac which they have set up for the purpose of selling their REO
properties.
- Fannie Mae have made all their REO
properties available from their main website.
- BuyBankHomes.com is owned by Fidelity
National Asset Management Solutions, Inc., the largest third-party
outsourcer of REO properties in the US.
- Bank of America REO listings
- Chase REO listings
- US Bank REO listings
- Countrywide REO listings
- IndyMac Bank REO listings
- M&T Bank REO listings
For Sale By Owner
The
following for-sale-by-owner sites can be a great source of discount properties
and you can also use them to market your own properties.
- FSBO.com
- ForSaleByOwner.com
- HomesByOwner.com
Home
Inspection
- ASHI.org:
The American Society of Home Inspectors is a good starting point to ensure
you use qualified inspectors.
- HomeTeamInspection.com: a good reputable
company for locating a home inspector. They also have some other
handy resources on their website.
- HomeGuage.com offers online inspection
software that allows you to sign in and view your inspection reports so
long as you choose a home inspector via this website. This is a
fantastic service that offers consistent, quality reporting and as such is
highly recommended.
Appraisal
- NAIFA.com
(National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers) is a non-profit body
that will help you locate quality real estate appraisers.
- AppraisalInstitute.org: Similarly, Appraisal
Institute was set up to ensure high standards among professional real
estate appraisers and can help you locate the right appraiser.
Marketing
- Motivated Seller Magnet offers a very good
course for locating motivated sellers. While this may not be a huge
problem for investors right now it’s important to be prepared for all
stages of the market cycle.
- REIcreator.com offers buying and selling
websites for investors as well as software for managing your real estate
investing business.
- RealEstateSupplySuperStore.com: You can buy
all the signs, flyers, lockboxes and other aids you’ll need for
successfully marketing your properties at this site.
Technology
Most
of the websites that examine the latest technologies for real estate revolve
around the marketing side of things and as such are targeted at realtors rather
than real estate investors. However, marketing is just as relevant to
investors and these two sites are worth following the most for investors.
- FutureOfRealEstateMarketing.com
- GeekEstateBlog.com
Home Staging
- SimpleAppeal.com: Increasingly investors are
getting more creative and aggressive with the marketing of their own
properties and we are seeing home staging playing a bigger role in that
process. Karen at Simple Appeal has some great advice on this
increasingly important skill.
Outsource Your Marketing
- SalesTeamLive.com handles all the work
required to drive a stream of motivated potential clients to your
business, using their Done-For-You Marketing Campaigns.
- 4RealEstateSuccess.com offers a bunch of
tools to support your marketing efforts including prospecting websites,
live answering service and marketing materials.
Section 8
Section
8 is a government subsidized rental program by the Department of Housing and
Urban Development. While you may get slightly lower rent with such
tenants there is a huge amount of demand and you don’t have the same hassles
chasing your rent checks since they are coming from the government. Back
in the research section there is a link to HUD’s Fair Market rents to get an
indication of your projected income.
- GoSection8.com allows you to list your
properties for Section 8 tenants to find.
Short
Sales
- TheShortSaleService.com: They’ll handle the
short sale for you. Stop pushing paper around and spend your time
more productively in your business.
Contractors
Use these sites to locate
contractors if you need to do any repairs or rehab work.
- Contractors.com
- NeedContractor.com
Property
Management
- NARPM.org
(National Association of Residential Property Managers) is a good place to
start when looking for a property manager.
- CompleteLandlord.com: Forms, letters, agreements,
software and other resources for being a successful landlord.
- Landlord411.com: More resources for
landlords including tenant screening.
- ClearNow.com: A leader in electronic rent
collection, ClearNow, saves you a lot of time and hassle with collecting
and depositing checks.
- Rentomatic.com also automates your rent
collection but looks like it might have a few extra features such as
maintenance tracking and advertising of vacancies.
Tenant Screening
- NTNonline.com: The National Tenant Network
has been offering quality screening services for more than 25 years.
1031
Exchange
A 1031 exchange allows you to defer
the payment of capital gains taxes that would otherwise be due on the sale of a
property if you exchange it for another appropriate property. It’s a tool
that should be in every real estate investors toolbox.
- 1031.org:
The Federation of Exchange Accommodators is the professional trade
association for qualified intermediaries under IRC §1031 and you can use
this site to locate members of the FEA to act as your Exchange
Accommodator.
- 1031x.com
is one such member organization and is available to help you with your
1031 exchanges.
I'm sure that at least some of these
resources will prove to be very useful for you. Don't forget to share
your experiences in the comments section below so we have feedback and current
information on these providers.
To Your Success,
Scott Roemermann.
