cap rates

It's been a long time coming, but I finally have begun rolling out the new neighborhood profile pages on this website. Each profile will display all the blog stories posted on that area, preset MLS searches for real estate, important contacts and links on the neighborhood, neighborhood history and a look at housing trends and statistics....

Since the market began to slip in the mid-2000's, it has become harder and harder to get favorable appraisals. Especially on investment oriented properties, such as multi-families and rental homes, with so much of the local market dominated by foreclosures and cash investors.  When there are no comparables to be found, most appraisers are going to look at things from an income approach. They are going...

When determining whether or not a property is worth purchasing, one of the traditional reference points is the cap rate. For real estate, a cap rate is the ratio between the yearly net operating income of a building to the cost of that building. The higher that number is, the better the deal. When determining your net operating income, you'll need to tally all the income from rents and other sources over...

One of the most important things every investor needs to do before purchasing a property is a profitability analysis. At first glance, many deals seem great, but upon further review turn out to be anything but ideal. You just can't tell for sure until you do the numbers. That's where this spreadsheet might come in handy. If you have Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice), this financial spreadsheet is a good...

Other than which building to buy, the most important question to ask yourself when investing in real estate is "How am I going to pay for this?" If you're loaded with cash and have a ton of equity built up in your house and other investments, this is a pretty easy question to answer. But for most of us, things aren't quite so simple....