101 Real Estate Investing Resources: A Professional Investor's Rolodex

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

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. CashFlowInstitute.com: Mark Walters offers a series of free videos about numerous real estate investing techniques.  Well worth a look.

8. 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

9. Real-Estate-Fortune.com: Dave Lindahl is best known for his tremendous success in apartment house investing.

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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.

14. 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

15. ForeclosureUniversity.com: This professional looking site offers a free audio recording about Short Sales and a very affordable Foreclosure Home Study Course.

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. ProbatePowerProfits.com is a new site from experienced investor Stacy Kellams.  It has quickly become the benchmark for probate investing training.

Property Management

20. LandlordSystem.com by Anesia Springborn offers a free rental agreement and a 7-day course about systematizing your buy and hold property business.

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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.

25. REIconferences.com: Charrissa Cawley is another expert at virtual investing and has some great resources to share.

Business Incorporation, Accounting and Legals

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. LegalZoom.com is a popular resource for getting legal forms and services at the right price.

29. 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.

30. TaxLoopholes.com: Diane Kennedy’s ground-breaking site offers some great information about how you can pay less tax…legally.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. The National Association of Realtors offers some handy statistics and research data from this page on their site.

38. HendricksPartners.com: Hendricks & Partners also has some free market reports available in the Research Center on their website.

39. First American CoreLogic has a bunch of research tools and data available including property records, values and market trends.

40. 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

41. 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.

42. Rentometer.com have a nice little tool for conducting rental comps to check how much you can expect to be charging in rent.

43. RentSlicer.com: This web 2.0 mashup of Craigslist and Google Maps also allows you to conduct rental comps by extracting data from Craigslist.

44. 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.

45. 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.

46. 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.

47. Eppraisal.com: Another popular resource for obtaining estimates on the value of specific real estate.

48. 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.

49. Trulia.com

50. HomeGain.com

51. MLSonline.com

52. Realtor.com

And for commercial real estate investors the following site is a must.

53. 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.

54. 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.

55. ForeclosureData.com also has a massive database with about 1.2 million properties currently listed.  This also includes pre-foreclosures, bankruptcy, and FSBO properties.

56. RealtyTrac.com is another foreclosure database that offers a 7-day free trial.  They also offer email alerts and a foreclosure market report.

The following are a few of the better sources for government foreclosures:

57. HomeSales.gov lists properties owned by various government departments.  They also offer guidance on the buying process for each type of property.

58. The US Department of Agriculture makes it’s foreclosure properties available from this site.

59. 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.

60. 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.

61. FirstPreston.com

62. LendersREO.com

63. Integrated Asset Services

64. PremiereREO.com

65. HomeSteps.com is a website of lender Freddie Mac which they have set up for the purpose of selling their REO properties.

66. Fannie Mae have made all their REO properties available from their main website.

67. BuyBankHomes.com is owned by Fidelity National Asset Management Solutions, Inc., the largest third-party outsourcer of REO properties in the US.

68. Bank of America REO listings

69. Chase REO listings

70. US Bank REO listings

71. Countrywide REO listings

72. IndyMac Bank REO listings

73. 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.

74. FSBO.com

75. ForSaleByOwner.com

76. HomesByOwner.com

Home Inspection

77. ASHI.org: The American Society of Home Inspectors is a good starting point to ensure you use qualified inspectors.

78. HomeTeamInspection.com: a good reputable company for locating a home inspector.  They also have some other handy resources on their website.

79. 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

80. NAIFA.com (National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers) is a non-profit body that will help you locate quality real estate appraisers.

81. 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

82. 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.

83. REIcreator.com offers buying and selling websites for investors as well as software for managing your real estate investing business.

84. 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.

85. FutureOfRealEstateMarketing.com

86. GeekEstateBlog.com

Home Staging

87. 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

88. 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.

89. 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.

90. GoSection8.com allows you to list your properties for Section 8 tenants to find.

Short Sales

91. 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.

92. Contractors.com

93. NeedContractor.com

Property Management

94. NARPM.org (National Association of Residential Property Managers) is a good place to start when looking for a property manager.

95. CompleteLandlord.com: Forms, letters, agreements, software and other resources for being a successful landlord.

96. Landlord411.com: More resources for landlords including tenant screening.

97. ClearNow.com: A leader in electronic rent collection, ClearNow, saves you a lot of time and hassle with collecting and depositing checks.

98. 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

99. 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.

100. 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.

101. 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.