How to Analyze a Duplex Some real estate investors are sensitive to their ability to get ten 30-year fixed rate financing loans and would prefer to fill those loan spots with larger purchases than just single family rental homes. One way to do that is to buy more expensive properties like duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes. In this class, James will walk you through how to analyze a duplex using The World’s Greatest Real Estate Deal Analysis Spreadsheet™. Or, check out the deal analysis example for Chattanooga, Tennessee: Deal Analysis and Modeling for Chattanooga Free Real Estate Deal Analysi ..read more

How to Calculate PMI If you're a house hacker, Nomad™, investor buying properties with less than 20% down, or buying creatively where the seller has PMI, you'll want to make sure you know how to analyze deals that have Private Mortgage Insurance. In this mini-class, James will cover how to analyze deals that have PMI, with an emphasis on doing it using The World's Greatest Real Estate Deal Analysis Spreadsheet™. In this class, James discusses: What is Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) and why does it exist? How to anaylze deals with a single up-front, lup-sum PMI payment How to anaylze deals w ..read more

In many cases—not all, but many cases—real estate investors can speed up the time it takes to become financially independent by choosing to pay off the mortgages on their properties early. Sometimes it makes sense to take every extra dollar beyond a healthy amount of reserves and aggressively pay off properties as quickly as possible. Other times, it might be better to invest money that you have earmarked to pay off properties in something else—like the stock market, for example—until you have enough to completely pay off the mortgage in one single large payment. In this mini-comparison class ..read more

Deal Alchemy™ - Residential vs Commercial Property Deal Alchemy™ is all about manipulating the returns you're earning on your investments. Often, this is done through the choices we make when selecting the investment property and the strategies we choose to implement. For example, you could choose to invest in residential properties where your tenants would live in the property. Alternatively, you could choose to invest in commercial properties where your tenants do not live in the property. Often, these investments would have different numbers and characteristics, such as who pays taxes, insu ..read more

How to Calculate PMI If you're planning to buy a property and put less than 20% down, you're likely to be required to pay Private Mortgage Insurance. Lenders prefer that you put at least 20% down, but if you insist on putting less than 20% down, they may still make the loan. However, they will usually do so at a slightly higher mortgage interest rate for taking on more risk and require that you pay a third party to insure them in case you default. This insurance you pay to the third party is called Private Mortgage Insurance. But how much is it? The easiest way to find out is to call your lend ..read more

There are a large number of investing strategies you could pursue as a real estate investor: Nomad™, house hacking, fix and flip, buying 20% down rentals, buying 25% down rentals, saving up to buy free and clear rentals and many, many more options. Which is the best? Which gets you to financial independence fastest? Which gives you the highest net worth? Which gives you the highest standard of living in retirement? Which has the lowest amount of risk? Which should you pursue and implement? These are some difficult questions. But, in this mini-class James will compare saving up to buy 20% dow ..read more

Deal Alchemy™ - Increasing Down Payment There are four primary returns from investing in rental properties: appreciation, cash flow, debt paydown, and the tax benefits of depreciation. Additionally, there is a secondary return in the form of the interest earned on the reserves required to make the investment in the first place. Many real estate investors prefer the cash flow return over the others. Often, we can manipulate the investment to shift returns between appreciation, cash flow, debt paydown, tax benefits, and reserves. We call this Deal Alchemy™. There are many variations of Deal Alch ..read more

How to Analyze a New Construction Single-Family Home Property in Chattanooga Your ability to analyze deals is arguably the most important skill as a real estate investor. It allows you to make smart investment decisions and helps you avoid making career-ending bad decisions, such as buying cash-flowing-sucking vampire properties. In this class, James will help you utilize The World's Greatest Real Estate Deal Analysis Spreadsheet™ (a free download) to analyze a new construction single-family home that you plan to buy as an investment. Analyzing new construction is slightly different from analy ..read more

The 3 Strategies to Pay Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) Whether they're putting 15% down and buying a non-owner-occupied property or utilizing an owner-occupied loan with 0%, 3%, 3.5%, or 5% down for Nomading™ or house hacking, some real estate investors will choose to put less than 20% down. With the decision to put less than 20% down comes the choice of how to pay for private mortgage insurance (PMI). There are three options (plus some combinations of the three options): up-front lump sum, lender-paid, and monthly. And, as you might have guessed, there are pros and cons to each option. In t ..read more

Investing in real estate is full of truthy-sounding falsehoods: it is always better to do X than Y. However, if you were crazy enough to sit down and do the math, you'd find the truth to be much more nuanced. For example, should you take all your extra cash flow and savings and apply it to your mortgages each month to pay off rental properties faster? And if you do, is that a faster path to financial independence? Does it result in your having a higher overall net worth? A higher overall standard of living in retirement? Is it less risky to do that? That's what we will discuss in this special ..read more