Investing in Real Estate – Helping Clients Build their Portfolios
Investing in real estate is one of the most popular ways to make money. Despite predictions of market downturns, real estate continues to grow better than many other investments. Real estate can be a key part of an overall investment portfolio and retirement planning strategy for smart investors.
However, building a real estate investment portfolio is not for everyone. In most cases, building a real estate investment portfolio is not for people who are looking for a quick gain. While investing in real estate can be financially rewarding, there are also downsides.
Real estate investing, at its simplest, is where money is made from rents, not real estate value appreciation. There’s always an expectation that property will go up in value, but that doesn’t always happen. The market may bottom out, or owners may have to sell suddenly, losing money on carefully considered investments. Plus, investing in the residential market, such as with a rental property, may mean investors need to be prepared for midnight phone calls from tenants.
This is where you come in as a trusted real estate professional. Working with your clients, you can do the necessary investigative work to help build their real estate investment portfolio.
Investors, developers and property owners remain positive, if cautious, about the outlook for Canada’s real estate market in the year ahead. The rest of Canada faces unique regional challenges, while the lack of supply in Toronto and Vancouver continues to drive high demand. There isn’t a single market where savvy investors can’t find opportunities to invest if they leverage the right technology and do the required research and legwork.
Many investors have a sizeable portion of their overall net worth tied to a hard asset such as owning their own home, or paying off a mortgage. The key thing to remember is that no one asset type should take up more than 50% of any investment portfolio, but what takes up that 50% differs from investor to investor.
Before investing in real estate, clients need to be prepared to undertake extensive background research on the property, the market and potential tenants, as well as to check for any issues relating to the property. Information that you, their real estate sales professional, can provide easily and quickly with the right tools at your fingertips.
Most people want to invest their money so they have something for their retirement to help supplement whatever retirement plan they may have. Do you invest in RRSPs or real estate? Check this out: http://www.moneysense.ca/save/retirement/retirement-planning-real-estate-rrsps/
In fact, some say storage facilities are the new hot investment trend: http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/canadas-new-real-estate-war/
How are you helping clients looking at investing in real estate in today’s real estate market? Join the conversation @GeoWarehouse.