Don’t fight your market. Listen.
When you have real estate and you plan to rent it out make sure you have an idea of the kind of tastes your target market has. The easiest way to determine this is by looking around the neighbourhood at other houses for sale. Go check out the property and get a feeling for the kind of tenant you are going to attract and what they might like.
Obviously if you intend on selling the real estate you better know what the market wants or your property will stay un-sold for long.
Research. Don’t believe everything you are told.
It is very easy in today’s world to do a bit of research before buying real estate. You can go online and have information about the current owner, the general prices in the area and what is close to the property you intend to buy. Most importantly you will know if you are being taken for a ride. A good source for real estate prices would be sites where people list their property for sale like http://www.yes2property.com/classifieds (i know this is part of Yes2Property, but you get the idea 
).
If you have to partner up, choose your partner carefully.
If you are a new real estate investor you are probably going to have to partner up with someone to get it to the real estate market. Now it can have it’s benefits but also it pit falls. When you have to choose a partner make sure of the following:
- You trust them. If you can not trust your partner how are you going to make investments that could run in to the millions.
- Be the money or the management, don’t be both. Group decisions can cause havoc on real estate investment. A plan should be formulated before hand and then you step away and each partner does what he is responsible for.
Negotiate and ask the straight forward question.
Go ahead, ask the seller exactly what he/she wants out of the deal, you might be surprised. If you find that the seller’s expectations are too high you can move on and save time.
Invest safely and wisely.
When you invest you DO NOT GAMBLE. Yes there are risks but they are calculated risks. The best way to invest wisely is to not invest based on continued price increases but instead on value. The investment needs to make sense in good and bad markets, then you have value. If the price keeps increasing it is a bonus.
Cash flow is king.
Real estate investing is about the numbers. Cash flow keeps the business going. You need to make sure that ALL your expenses are covered and that you have positive cash flow. If you don’t, you better have a BIG piggy bank to pay up.
I think the main rule in real estate investing, and any other type of wealth creation tool, is the following: Plan it, monitor it and grow it. O yes and use your common sense.
