BiggerPockets Daily

When looking for an investor-friendly real estate agent, you should ask different questions than if you were buying a primary residence.

Purchasing investment properties requires different factors, decisions, and calculations that regular real estate agents don’t use. A real estate license isn’t enough to qualify agents to help you with real estate investment purchases.

So before you hire an agent to work with you in your real estate investment business, you should know what to ask the agent before starting out.

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It’s common practice to request a pay stub from prospective tenants for income verification. While this sounds like a simple, straightforward process to verify income, there’s trouble lurking in the form of a fake pay stub. Indeed, some try to create pay stubs online to create fake proof of income. 

Knowing how to spot fake pay stubs can save you from a lot of hassle in the future. Here are seven signs you should look for to check stubs. 

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There are three things on investors’ and agents’ minds right now: high interest rates, elevated home prices, and low inventory.

With mortgage rates approaching 8% and the median price for a home in the United States over $410,000 (up around 46% from $280,000 in 2020) as of June, fewer people are buying and selling real estate. This trend doesn’t seem to be ending soon, leaving agents and investors wondering when they’ll get relief from this turbulent market. 

But what if you don’t need to wait for the market to change to find great leads and continue scaling your business?

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Most real estate investors understand the need to protect their assets with insurance. If you’re considering renting out property, however, you may not know the difference between homeowners insurance and rental property insurance (also known as landlord insurance).  

In this article, we’ll break down what rental property insurance is, why it’s important, and how you can choose the best policy for your business.

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You can leverage your real estate investments by borrowing money to afford a higher purchase price. Knowing how to calculate a mortgage payment is important to make significant business decisions when adding to your real estate portfolio.

Your mortgage payment involves many costs, not just the amount you borrow to invest in a home. Some variables you may control, but others are fixed monthly expenses you must include in your mortgage payment, such as monthly interest, taxes, and insurance.

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Have you always had your eye on getting into the real estate industry? Maybe you aren’t keen on working as a real estate agent but know you want to be involved in the industry somehow.

You may be a great fit for real estate investment trusts if you have a good mix of real estate and finance expertise. But you might ask yourself, “Is real estate investment trusts a good career path?”

They can be for the right people. The key is understanding the personalities and skills that work best for working in the real estate investment trust industry and the pros and cons.

All jobs have good and bad sides that you should understand before starting a new position, including those in the real estate industry.

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Net operating income (NOI) is a fundamental real estate valuation method for real estate investors. NOI helps you calculate an investment property’s potential real estate revenue. The NOI formula is straightforward and easy to calculate, whether you need to predict potential rental income on an investment property, evaluate the purchase of a property, or consider raising rents to boost cash flow.

You deduct the operating expenses from the gross operating income (GOI) to calculate a property’s potential rental income. In other words, a property’s NOI is the difference between how much the property costs to operate and the amount of revenue it generates.

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You spend way too much time on Instagram (and TikTok and Pinterest and…), and guess what—your potential short-term rental guests do too. Why miss an opportunity to get in front of them when they’re dreaming about their next getaway? Why miss an opportunity to remarket to your past guests by reminding them how awesome your place was? 

Don’t leave your fate up to the Airbnb algorithm alone. Take matters into your own hands and start building out and developing your own organic audience. While you do need to devote some time to channel upkeep, you shouldn’t need more than a few hours a week once you get going. Track how many people view your bio, and click through your booking link to make sure you’re getting ROI on your efforts. 

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Although filling out IRS tax forms each year isn’t any fun, it is a necessary part of real estate investing. Thankfully, the tax forms for rental properties aren’t complicated. If you are investing as a member of a partnership or as an S corporation, you will need to report your earnings on Form 8825.

Making sure you fill out Form 8825 correctly is vitally important. Accurate financial reporting is required and could help you determine if you qualify for certain tax deductions.

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Wondering how to find good real estate deals? Let us count the ways!

We’ve come up with 30 different methods to find real estate deals in today’s competitive real estate market. As a real estate investor, you’re probably familiar with some of these tips, but we promise many are new on your radar! Those great real estate deals are out there, allowing you to build wealth if you know where to look!

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