When I was 22 years of age, and Jo (my now wife) was 21 we bought our first investment property. By the time I was 25, and Jo was 24, we owned 8 investment properties. Our parents were very proud and some of our friends were quite impressed. And if I may say so myself, so was I…….

Since then many of our friends and associates have asked us for tips and help with there own real estate investing, and I’m going to tell you what I tell them. There is nothing that I know about property that I haven’t learn t from somewhere else. Thats why I’m going to share with you 7 property investing tips that will stack the odds in your favor when you buy your next investment. I discovered these tips and many more in a book called “What I Didn’t Learn at School but Wish I Had” I hope you find them useful.

• Select properties within the $250,000 to $500,000 price range. Properties priced below $250,000 will either be too small, not have the desired quality finishings or not be in the best possible area.

If the property is priced over $500,000 in most cases it will cease to be affordable to the vast majority of tenants. Most tenants will not be able to afford rental payments in excess of $550 per week.

It will also be difficult to obtain a 90% LVR (loan to value ratio) finance from most institutions.

• Select properties in suburbs with proven capital growth over the past 5 years.

• Select properties in suburbs that have high rental demand.

First phone, then visit the ‘top’ agents in the area and check their rental lists to assess the rental demand; e.g. check how many properties are listed on their For Lease list.

Talk to the agents rental manager in regard to rental growth in the area.

• Select properties that are close to water; e.g beaches, oceans, rivers.

• Select properties that have land content.

The general rule is that land appreciates in value and buildings depreciate.

In certain circumstance, specific high-rise apartments might be worth more than houses in the same area, because they provide their occupants with fabulous water, city or mountain views.

• Select a property where the price of the property offers at least a 4% gross rental return based on the ‘long term’ rental guarantee the real estate agent is prepared to provide.

Ask the agent to provide you with a rental price that they are absolutely sure is achievable in the worst-case scenario.

If the promised and agreed rental is not achieved by the rental agent after two weeks of trying to lease the property, the agent will receive no marketing money and will have to make up the difference between the rental guarantee and the actual rental price of the property.

• Select properties that have 3 bedrooms to increase rental income.

You must only purchase properties that contain 3 bedrooms or a minimum of 2 bed rooms.

One of you goals should always be to increase the rental price of your property every year as much as possible.

Achieving the highest possible rental return is far easier with a 3 bedroom property; 4 bedrooms is an overkill, as you are unlikely to get tenants requiring 4 bedrooms inconsistently renting the same property at the same time.

One of the only reasons to overlook the criteria above is if the property is sold at an extremely low price.

The only legitimate reason this could happen is as result of dealing with a desperate vendor.

Well I honestly hope you found that useful. If you would like to learn more about real estate and discover many more property investing tips, feel free to order your own, instantly down loadable, free copy of “What I Didn’t Learn at School but Wish I Had” right here on this site, by clicking the link below.

Kind Regards

Lance Jenkins

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FROM 0 TO 130

PROPERTIES

IN 3.5 YEARS

Mine and Joanne’s first investment property was a positive cashflow investment. We found positive cashflow property to be great when we were starting out and didn’t have a lot of money. The funny thing is we didn’t even know at the time that when the rent from a property covers the mortgage and other expenses, that’s called a positively geared investment and you have discovered something really worth checking out.

We discovered Steven McKnight’s book called “From 0 to 130 Properties in 3.5 Years” stating on the back of the book that Steven is “Australia’s foremost positive cashflow investing expert”

The book tells of how Steven McKnight and his business partner David Bradley, used positive cashflow real estate to achieve their goal of financial freedom.

After reading Steven McKnight’s book we went on to use many of the techniques and strategies that he outlines, to buy a number of other positive cashflow properties that today provide a large portion of our total income.

Steve writes from his own experiences and explains, from what he personally discovered, what to do and what not to do in property investing. His use of graphs, charts and diagrams throughout the book make it very simple to grasp the ideas and concepts that he covers and I honestly believe that both the beginner and the experienced investor will easily get more than their moneys worth out of this book.

For those of you interested in property and asking “what’s a good book on real estate?” I can tell you, this is one of our favorites and I definitely recommend it.

You can also discover more property investing strategies right here on this website.

Order your self a free DVD or a free E-Book by clicking the links below.

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