Mockingjay: a symbol of rebellion and pursuit of freedom from the Capitol or any adversity
In the highly successful film franchise of Hunger Games set in a post-apocalyptic world of Panem, a mockingjay serves as a reminder of the importance of hope and turning one’s adversity to a golden opportunity. Such a situation hugely resembles the current state of our pandemic-filled economy. This 2020, it seems that players from all types of industry have to find their own source of hope and inspiration or at the very least, be their own mockingjays themselves.
Real estate investing and the stock market have been in a long-term rivalry for the ultimate title of “Best Investment Strategy of All Time”. However, after the emergence of the Coronavirus epidemic, the stock market was quick to take a downward trend, while real estate property prices have remained almost unshaken in the United States housing market in the spring of 2020. Stock investments seem to have bent the knee and slowly conceded although real estate activities have also shown a decline as buying and selling real estate properties in the time of COVID-19 became challenging. Nevertheless, real estate investors are not losing from the value of their income properties.
KNOW YOUR HISTORY
Despite the temporary economic crisis, real estate investments will continue generating fruitful long term return on investment.
As many experts have highlighted, the experience from the 2008 recession is showing us that while US home prices will drop to a certain point, the real estate market will be quick to make a comeback and recover as soon as things start going back to normal. Long term real estate appreciation will not be impacted in any major way.
Also, it is expected that once the pandemic reaches its peak and starts subsiding, it will be the best time to buy a house for investment due to the forecast short term decline in median property prices across the US house market. This will be particularly true for the locations which are most significantly affected by the Coronavirus (NYC, Seattle and Bay Area housing markets). In other words, good real estate investment opportunities should be abundant as soon as normalization starts happening.
To know when and where to start looking for real estate opportunities, keep up to date with Coronavirus real estate trends in our blogs.
REAL ESTATE INVESTING STRATEGY: Best and Finest during COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy is poised to establish once and for all that real estate investment is the ultimate investing strategy. But the next question in mind is: What is the best real estate investment strategy for beginners amid the pandemic?
And the winner is …Rental Properties. Emerging as the most recommended choice, rental properties seem to position itself as the top strategy for real estate investing for beginners in times of crisis and recession such as the current one.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, long term rental properties constitute some of the best real estate opportunities for both new and experienced investors. Shelter is a basic human need and regardless of the situation, people still need places to live. Very few tenants have been forced or have chosen to leave the traditional rental properties where they reside. Renters have received legal protection in the vast majority of US housing markets as evictions have been prevented in case of tenants not being able to afford to pay rent for a few months.
Actually, as many people are postponing buying a home at the moment, rental demand can be expected to go up in the future. Landlords will face lower vacancy rates. Meanwhile, rental rates are not likely to undergo a sharp downturn in the upcoming months. All in all, this means that traditional rental income is expected to remain strong despite the COVID-19 outbreak. That’s why long term rental properties will continue being one of the best real estate investments in 2020 and beyond.
Buying traditional and rental properties remains the undisputed best answer to the question of how to begin in real estate investing, even amid a pandemic. That’s because real estate investors will always have ways to make money in both the short term through rental income and the long term through real estate appreciation. That brings us to the next question: “How do you find the golden real estate investment opportunities during a pandemic?”Under the shelter in place and stay-at-home policies, driving miles for dollars is not a sustainable game plan from the 3rd quarter of 2020. To comply with federal and state policies as well as to protect their own health and safety, real estate investors have to look for other ways to find real estate opportunities. Poised as the undisputed No. 1 in Deal Finding, Real Estate IQ presents 4 surefire ways on how to start investing in real estate in the US housing market post-pandemic:
1. Reach out to Homeowners
A foolproof way to find real estate opportunities in the US housing market during the last stages of Coronavirus pandemic is to contact property owners directly. Even if your prospective clients are not interested in selling their homes at the moment, there is still a good chance that many property owners in your chosen real estate market are eager to sell
Yes, it seems to be a tall order finding them but worry no more, REIQ is here to the rescue. With the help of our property records and tools, COUNTY DATA FINDER will help you save valuable time tracking down property owners, finding out how much a property is worth, and finding investment opportunities. Narrow your search by ownership, property type, geography, land, home features, and value. Create basic and advanced reports in a format that is organized for investors.
2. Contact Your Real Estate Network
One feasible strategy is to turn to your own real estate network. This doesn’t have to be limited to real estate professionals only. Without realizing it, you might know someone who wants to sell his/her home at the moment but doesn’t know what to do under these peculiar conditions.
Just ask around. Talk to your friends, colleagues, neighborhoods, and other acquaintances to see if anyone is selling a home. With the limited number of property buyers, you might be able to buy an investment property below market value. This is the ultimate way to push up your rate of return on a rental property from the beginning. But time is of the essence as always. We can make it even faster. We research, clean, and aggregate the data and send you an updated list of off-market leads every day (M-F). Faster leads mean better leads!
A successful investor is good at seizing the opportunity to be the first buyer to bid on a home without competition from other buyers. Our research teams know how and where to get the best and most relevant data, and how to interpret it. You can receive daily updated lists of motivated and distressed sellers by utilizing our OFF MARKET LEADS
Of course, if you are already a real estate investor, you should contact your real estate network too. Real estate agents and brokers, property managers, and other professionals might be aware of off market properties in your selected housing market and within your budget.
As the deal finding authority, Real Estate IQ offers its REIQ Community, a unique environment of the real estate industry’s finest experts. Visit our Community and get the opportunity to network with other real estate professionals. Click HERE to join for FREE!
3. Hire a Real Estate Agent
Another strategy to find good real estate opportunities for rental property investment during the COVID-19 pandemic is to work with an agent. Many real estate agents have lost a significant part of their business due to the slowdown in real estate activities in the majority of US markets. Thus, they will go beyond the extra mile to find you a good investment property without exposing you to certain risks.
Real estate agents have started quickly transitioning to virtual realities such as virtual tours and virtual open houses to continue buying and selling properties despite the pandemic. Find yourself a top-caliber real estate agent in your market and ask him/her for the investment opportunities he/she currently has.
Check out our REIQ Vendors to help you select the best partners. Learn how to protect your assets! See our FREE list of available business consultants for your real estate business.
4. Utilize Real Estate Investment Tools
Another appropriate way to find real estate investment opportunities during the Coronavirus outbreak is with the help of online software tools. Good real estate opportunities are those which bring a high return on investment. Online real estate investment tools which use high-end AI, big data, and comparative analytics can be used to identify real estate markets in general and rental properties for sale in specific with a good cash on cash return and a good cap rate.
Here are the tools available on Real Estate IQ. Try them out and see the difference. These tools empowered REIQ to be the leading authority in deal finding for real estate investment opportunities:
FAST CMA
The first step to finding profitable investment properties is to conduct real estate market analysis. REIQ’s Fast CMA has unique automated valuation technology. Powered with speed, your time can be spent more productively. Most of the complicated tasks that go into completing a CMA are actually clerical and repetitive. Without this software, these tasks are extremely time-consuming and tedious.
Property Valuation is very time consuming – it typically takes a professional 20-30 minutes to complete a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis, or Comps). With Fast CMA, make your decision based on the photos of each property, location on a map, recency of the sale, price per square foot, agent remarks, or property data such as number of bed/baths and square footage.
MLS DEAL FINDER
MLS Deal Finder’s proprietary technology scans thousands of properties every day, and identifies houses that are priced significantly lower than the market value. As soon as a house hits the market, MLS Deal Finder automatically comes up with an estimated market value for the house.
ROI MUSE DEAL ANALYSIS
The final step of the real estate analysis needed for buying rental properties with a good rate of return is performing rental property analysis. This process comprises calculating different metrics to estimate the return on investment expected from an income property.
With REIQ’s ROI Muse, you can analyze Commercial and Residential Deals like a Pro! These powerful tools are designed for speed and ease of use. Avoid costly mistakes and make better investment and leasing decisions with ROI Muse.
Slaying the post-pandemic real estate competition clearly requires analysis of the real situation, finding the hidden opportunities and using the right tools for the job. Having the knack to identify real estate investment opportunities in post-pandemic times is like carrying a torch through a dark, moonless night. As long as you carry the torch with courage and wisdom and you raise it high enough so everyone will see and feel its light, no pandemic will be close enough to destabilize the real estate investing industry let alone put an end to it. After all, even the ancient people used to do scavenger hunt in the olden times to survive and carry on the pages of our civilization. And as they say in the modern times, “every cloud has its own silver lining”.
