Any real estate investors in here?

[rj.phila]

Hi guys, I like these forums for the general tone, and helpful, practical manner that is an undercurrent of discussion here, and so I figured i'd ask if there are any people who invest in real estate here. i've joined a few RE forums to try to bounce some ideas off of folk, and havent gotten the volume or "global perspective to investing" from them-most of them are quite heavily leveraged and/or speculators. so thought it might be worthwhile to start a thread over here to see if any of you have RE investments as part of your portfolio? i'd love to bounce a more specific question or two if so, and maybe answer some too...

[bjl584]

I looked into it and read a few books on the subject. I never pulled the trigger though. The name of the game in real estate is to keep leveraged and to generate cashflow. With lending standards being what they are today, the days of 0 down deals are gone. Everyone wants 20% down making it hard to buy into properties without fronting a lot of your money. It can be done if you are highly liquid, but I never wanted to front that much cash for an investment property.

Think of investment properties like an annuity. You make an initial cash investment and then they throw off X amount per month in payments (rents.)

The best deals were to make a 0 initial investment and still benefit from netting X in rental income every month.

It can still be done, but I'm not Savy enough. So, I have stayed away.

[Slug]

I've been watching the market for my first investment property since around October and still have't found what I'm looking for.

There aren't many real estate investors on here, but you might want to search the forums for the topic. There's been at least 2 in the past few months. Also there's this one on Bogle.