Forget the swanky corner office with a view to infinity, latest generation iPad or Blackberry, and even the customer list you stole from the boss; all these investments pale in comparison to an investment dedicated to improving the gray matter in your skull. In other words, get yourself a world class knowledge base and use it to leverage your income into the stratosphere.

Jason Hartman talks with Dirk Zeller about helping your clients take advantage of the incredible opportunities in today’s real estate marketplace.  What are Buyers and Seller’s Missing in Today’s Marketplace?  Unprecedented opportunities!  Getting buyers and sellers to see the opportunities of today’s marketplace rather than all the negative media is a challenge facing all agents [...]

To steal a phrase from a famous book which rarely anyone reads any more, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Are there any stalwart Dickens literary buffs out there who remember what follows? How about “…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” And what, pray tell, do wisdom and foolishness have to do with becoming a realtor? As a career choice, selling real estate could absolutely qualify as one of the wisest decisions you make in your life but only if you understa

We’ve nibbled around the edges of the topic in the past but let’s cut right to the chase. Why is long-term, fixed-rate real estate financing the AIPIS modus operandi when it comes to building wealth? Why do we preach it to AIPIS students and suggest you do the same to your real estate customers? The simple truth is that, assuming continued inflationary times, which seems a pretty safe assumption to make, there is not other method of investing that we know of designed to make you wealthy while the rest of the asset markets around the globe are shriveling into desiccated pieces of undervalued paper.

We remember a line uttered by Patrick Swayze in his average movie Next of Kin. “You ain’t seen bad yet, but it’s coming.” Somehow, this shrimpish actor/dancer playing a tough Chicago cop made us believe that “bad” really was on the way. What does this have to do with your mortgage education? Well, you ain’t seen inflation yet, but it’s coming.

There’s a certain part of your realty education that most agents tend to come by the hard way, if at all. Do you have the Superman syndrome? Symptoms include an inability to delegate even the smallest task to anyone else in your organization, thus you spend all your time making copies (thank you SNL) or fixing noisy refrigerators for tenants. This is a poor use of your time! You’re a real estate investor. The majority of your time needs to go towards finding more excellent property deals. There are a few simple answers to dealing with projects that drain away the day’s time.

Actually there’s nothing magical about leverage but it is amazing that we, as real estate professionals, have access to such an excellent investment tool. AIPIS considers real estate the only sane asset arena in which to employ leverage. Yes, the stock and currency markets allow the use of “leverage” in the form of what they call margin but if you had any idea how many trading accounts were blown up every day because of this damnable feature, you’d run screaming from the building.

One of the greatest benefits to completing the requirements for an AIPIS real estate designation is the knowledge gained regarding all aspects of income property investing. Many realtors (maybe you) aren’t aware of the plethora of tax deductions available to the landlord. Generally, any expense associated with maintaining, marketing, or repairing your rental property is a legitimate deduction. Let’s look at some of the possibilities. Remember, realtors, that all this information is good to keep stored away when you’re educating possible clients about reasons real estate is far superior to the stock market as an investment strategy.

If you’ve been paying attention here for a while, you realize that we’re talking tongue in cheek when we say to resist the conservative investment. The problem is that what conventional wisdom defines as conservative is very far from it. Our online realtor classes focus on the actual conservative investment, real estate, which is, strangely, also the most profitable from a historical standpoint. The “experts” like to claim stocks, bonds, money markets, cash, and gold to be the conservative approach, with real estate nothing but a dizzying ride to a crash landing.

Successful realtor agents have moved beyond the sometimes simplistic thinking of the financial self-help crowd and realize that the blanket statement, “Debt is bad.” is a silly thing to say. Some types of debt are definitely bad. Destructive debt accumulated by out-of-control consumerism is an example. On the other hand, constructive debt, the kind incurred whilst using other people’s money to grow your own wealth, is a whole different ballgame.