Real Estate Investing Articles
I write about how to achieve financial freedom through real estate investing. The central question I explore through my work is: “How can I help busy professionals use real estate to become financially independent and live life on their terms?”
In other words, I want to find ideas, strategies and tactics and explain them in a way that makes them easy to understand and execute. My writing focuses on topics like mindset shifts for real estate investors, how to build and scale your real estate portfolio, strategies to create retirement income through real estate, financial planning using real estate as the principal asset, investing tactics and how to leave a lasting legacy while achieving financial freedom.
Most of all, I write about how to put these ideas into a comprehensive plan of action that takes you from where you are to where you want to be.
How to maximize returns in your stock market and 401(K) investments
When I posted a video on how to decide if you should pay off debt or invest earlier this week, a friend (and past client) commented with the following question: What’s the best way to maximize the returns on investment for your stock market and 401(K) investments? The answer may surprise you. First let’s consider the following facts: Over a 10 year investment timeframe 85% of mutual funds underperform the
Are you a real estate investor that suffers from Cash Flow Tunnel Vision?
Cash flow tunnel vision is a common and dangerous blind spot among real estate investors who “worship at the altar of the cashflow” (as my good friend Jeff Brown would say). It’s a tendency to ONLY pay attention at the cash flow produced by the property on an annual basis. For instance, an investor will run the Year 1 numbers on a rental property to calculate the cashflow for the
Should you pay off debt or invest in real estate?
How do you decide between paying off debt vs investing in it real estate or the market? A client asked me this exact question last week and I want to share with you the thought process I used to arrive at a good decision. The client has received an end of the year bonus at his job plus they had some additional money in savings. The sum was large enough
Property-centric vs Tenant-centric real estate investing
Ever heard the expression: “When you invest in real estate you make money when you buy”? The idea is that the quality of your investment depends on how good a deal you get up front and it’s what I call Property-centric real estate investing. This method may work well for you if you aspire to make real life estate investing your full time career. But it won’t serve you as
What advice would I give my 18-25 year old self, knowing what I know today
One of the most frequently asked questions I get from readers of InvestingArchitect.com is some variation of: Knowing what you know today, what advice would you give your 18-25 year old self? I’ve thought about this question a LOT. The critical concept I didn’t know at that age that I know today is that Money is not the only resource/currency that matters. In fact, 18-25 year olds have a MAJOR
How to make high leverage decisions and bring exponential growth in your life
Real estate investors are very fond of Leverage: the ability to control a higher asset value by investing only a fraction of it in capital and multiplying returns by a factor of 4 or 5 in the process. There’s another kind of leverage that can have exponential effects on your life. It’s called Decision Leverage. Here’s how it works: you make a high leverage decision once and it impacts your
3 Smart Strategies to beat Analysis Paralysis for new real estate investors
If you have thought about getting started in real estate investing but haven’t taken action yet, you are in good and plentiful company. Most everyone knows that real estate investing can help you achieve all your major financial goals often with less risk and volatility than other alternative options (i.e. stock market). You probably already know that if you succeed in building a solid real estate portfolio you can create
How to budget if you want to reach financial independence
Today I want to tell you about one of the biggest myths in real estate investing. It is the disempowering belief that people who succeed in building substantial portfolios and reaching financial independence early do so because they hit a financial “home run”. Usually, it involves some type of windfall event like an inheritance, large bonus, help from rich parents or lottery winnings. The reality I have experienced firsthand is