Risk Index: The Probability of Continued Housing Price Declines

April 22, 2008

Last week, PMI Group, of private mortgage insurance fame, released its “risk index” rankings for U.S. major metropolitan areas for the 4th quarter of 2007. PMI’s risk index measures the likelihood that housing prices will be lower in two years than they are now. As the map above shows, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and well, pretty [...]

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Calculating Depreciation for Residential Real Estate Investments

April 15, 2008

If you didn’t catch the first part of the TwoWiseAcres quick and dirty guide to taxes for the real estate investor, you might want to check it out. In the first part, I walked through reporting income and expenses for rental properties on Schedule E. In this part, I’m going to cover the basics of [...]

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Reporting Taxable Income and Expenses for Real Estate Investments

April 13, 2008

It’s tax time once again. And if you’re a real estate investor and you’re anything like me, it is about this time every year when you contemplate switching your investment portfolio to something like a savings account. Granted, savings accounts return about 1.5% per year, but at least you don’t have to fill out another [...]

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How Subprime Mortgages Have Sky-Rocketed Foreclosures–A Picturegraph

April 6, 2008

Here’s in interesting chart from the NYT showing the impact subprime mortgages have had on foreclosure rates. In the mid-west where Mike and I buy properties, there have been lots of foreclosures, but their connection to subprime mortgages is less than clear. In fact, some of our best foreclosure deals were made before the subprime [...]

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HDR Photos–A Stunning Way to Market Real Estate

April 1, 2008

I was first introduced to high dynamic range (HDR) photography about a month ago as I was searching for some photos to include in my personal finance blog. I came across some HDR photos on flickr, and at first wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at. Lately, HDR photos are about all I use [...]

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Foreclosures Produce Deals, but No Steals

March 25, 2008

According to a Wall Street Journal article published today, a wave of foreclosures is starting to drive down prices as banks put more properties on the market. In some areas, foreclosure-related sales account for 40% of all sales. Well a few weeks ago Mike and I did our own sort of investigative reporting–we went house [...]

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House in a Box–Fact or Fiction

March 18, 2008

Have I got a deal for you. It’s called “House in a Box” and it is exactly what you hope it’s not–a house in a box. They can be shipped right to your location for “easy” assembly and installation. Talk about a great investment. Where else can you buy a 1,150 square foot home for [...]

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How to Remodel a Kitchen for Under $4,000 (Part III–Contractors, costs, pictures and a mea culpa)

March 10, 2008

This is the third and final article in our series on how to remodel a kitchen for under $4,000. In the first article, we described the factors we consider in deciding whether we undertake a major kitchen overhaul. In the second article we described how we design the remodel and select the materials. In this [...]

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How to manage prospective tenants efficiently, effectively and without killing them

March 6, 2008

One of the many things that amazed me about the management side of real estate investing was the "No Show."  The No Show is the prospective tenant who calls to say they drove by the house, love it, and would like to sign a lease right away.  You make arrangements to show them the house, [...]

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How to Completely Remodel a Kitchen for Under $4,000 (Part 2)

February 22, 2008

In the previous article in this series, I looked at factors to consider when deciding whether and to what extent a real estate investor should remodel a kitchen. With our property, No Basement, Mike and I decided to completely renovate the kitchen using a budget of just $4,000. In this article, I’ll be writing about [...]

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