Decade after decade, it seems like real estate keeps coming through. While any asset class can have a down year – or even several down years in a row, as the real estate investment community saw between 2008 and 2010 – real estate remains a proven long term wealth generator year after year, decade after decade, and generation after generation.

That’s what makes real estate an ideal investment for your retirement portfolio – and even in a special kind of IRA, called a self-directed IRA.

Some people still believe the myth that IRAs don’t allow you to own real estate. This is because Wall Street companies that only sell stocks, bonds, funds, annuities and other kinds of paper assets. They aren’t compensated to sell real estate, and so they don’t pitch it, other than to sell real estate investment trusts, or REITs, which are still securities, rather than direct real estate assets themselves.

But it is very easy for you to own real estate assets of all kinds within a self-directed IRA – even direct ownership of rental properties.  Read More→

The Residential Market in Atlanta is HOT! This is evidenced by the rapid quantity of homes that are flying off the market in a matter of days, providing they are in proper condition and priced correctly. A Seller’s Market occurs when the number of properties available for sale divided by average monthly sales to calculate how long it would take to sell the current inventory if no other properties were listed – when that number equals 6 months or less, a Seller’s Market exists. Our metro Atlanta market became a Seller’s Market during 2012 resulting in several changes benefitting sellers, as illustrated here using the peak of the Buyer’s Market compared to where we were in 4Q 2016.  Read More→

“Blah, blah, blah!”

That’s what we hear when most people talk. And sometimes that’s what other people hear when WE talk, too.

Have you ever noticed that most people think of what they’re going to say, rather than listen to the person who is talking? But when it comes to negotiating, that can be a HUGE mistake! Here’s why…

Let’s say you’re talking to a seller about their house, and when you ask them to describe their situation, they just seem to go on & on about how wonderful the house is, the gossip about the neighbor, how their health is failing, etc.

A lot of people will be thinking how boring or irrelevant that is, and just want to get to the numbers, or instead – talk about themselves. Am I right??

But if you do that, you might just miss out on a very important detail you need when it’s time to negotiate a decent deal with them.  Read More→