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Boost Your Rental Property Cash Flows

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Boost Rental Property Cash Flows

Updated April 13, 2024. Ever wondered if there was a way to get more money from your rental houses? In my opinion I believe these are the best three ways to boost your rental property cash flows into a real cash flowing machine.

There are three ways to dramatically increase the rental income for a property. Do you have rental houses that are close to colleges or universities? Do you have a vacation rental property that is close to the beach? The three kinds of rental properties that you could be making more money are student housing, vacation rentals, and my favorite: rent to own.

Let’s take a look at the 3 ways to boost your rental property cash flows into a real estate cash flowing machine.

Difficulty Finding Good Rental Tenants?

If you have or are thinking about buying other houses as rental units you can significantly increase the rent from these houses. Let me show you how. Let’s suppose that you decide to rent out a property. One of the problems is the occupant. What if the tenant decides not to pay the rent? You are getting no money on that unit. This is a huge problem because on most properties you still have taxes, insurance, maintenance, management fees, etc. On top of that many times you have a big mortgage to pay every month.

So if the tenant decides to move out you have a real financial issue on your hands. If you think about it, if the family moves out of the rental unit for one month so that it is vacant, a lot of time that will remove all the cash flow for the entire year for that property. So basically you have to have a 0% vacancy on the rental houses to make them work. But 0% vacancy is not realistic. In the real world, the reality is that some renters don’t always pay you.

Problems With Rental Cap Rates And NOI

The other problem is a lot of the time the rental houses will have a low cap rate. Say you rent out a property to a tenant for $1,200 a month. But then say you have to deduct the $100 for the taxes, $75 insurance, $100 property management fees, and $125 for maintenance. These costs total $400. So $1200 rent – $400 = $800 NOI (net operating income). In this example, after paying all the expenses you will have $800. Then multiply the $800 x 12 = $9,600 is what you receive each year for renting out this house. BUT this is assuming that you do not have a mortgage.

Determining Property Cap Rates For Rentals

To determine the cap rate you need to take the NOI of $9,600 and divide by the purchase price of the house. The typical family single home prices vary widely in the world. But let’s say that the cost for purchasing this house is $150,000. So $9,600 divided by $150,000 = 6.4 cap rate. A cap rate of 6.4 is bad. Most real estate investors look for a cap rate of 10 or above.

Blueprint To Boost Cap Rate On The Same Property

So here is the millionaire dollar question. How do we increase the cap rate above 10 on the same property? The cap rate is so bad in the example above we just looked at because the cost to purchase the house is so much more than the rental rate. Therefore in order to make this house a cash flowing machine we are going to have to get very creative.

Now let’s take this very same house and not change anything at all. We want to have a house that a person could move in and live in that home as their primary residence. Basically we still have the highest and best use of the house: a single family residence has the highest and best use.

There are three ways to boost your rental property cash flows. These three techniques will greatly improve your cash flow each time you find another house to buy. Let’s take a look at the 3 ways to boost your rental property cash flows into a real estate cash flowing machine.

3 Ways To Boost Your Rental Cash Flows

Idea #1 Student Housing

Are there universities, colleges or specialty schools in the area of the rental house? If the answer is yes, then get some more furniture and you can rent out the house by the room. The furniture for student housing can be bought very inexpensively at a second hand store and that will be fine for student housing.

Say the rental house has four bedrooms. You rent the house for $550 per room. 4 bedrooms x $550 = $2,200. Not bad right? $1,200 to a family or $2,200 for student housing and you market the student housing directly to the college or university.

Now usually you have to time it right because there are certain times of year that students will be looking for their housing. Once the students find their housing they are locked in for a year. You just have the parents co-sign, that way you are going to get paid no matter what. Once the students are there at the rental house, they will tell other students and the student rental house will be all set for years. This is an awesome way to turn a rental house into a cash flowing machine!

Idea #2 Vacation Rentals

Vacation rentals are the perfect way to rent your house if you are by the beach or by a beautiful place in the mountains. For most vacation rentals you are renting by the night. Let’s again use our example of the rental house with four bedrooms. This four bedroom rental house could easily rent for $4,000 a month. Compare $4,00 a month vacation rental to $1,200 a month for a normal typical family! What a huge difference between $4,000 a month versus $1,200 a month!

Remember though that there are a couple of expenses. One is furniture. This furniture needs to be a little bit more expensive. You need to be thinking about people writing positive reviews of your vacation rental. A little bit nicer furniture will positively impress the photos when people are looking online to decide which house to rent for their vacation. You may have to spend $5,000 or more on furniture depending on your location.

The other expense is utilities. Depending on the location of your vacation rental property, the utility bills could be a larger expense. Factor in air conditioning, gas, water, electricity, as well as internet and cable.

Earlier I was talking about cap rates for this four bedroom rental house. I was saying that to rent this unit to a typical family produces a cap rate of 6.4. A 6.4 cap rate is lousy. But here are the cap rates for student housing and a vacation rental.

Student Housing & Vacation Rentals Cap Rates

Student housing with purchasing second hand furniture: Double the cap rate of 6.4. Here you are looking at 10 or 12+ cap rate. Now you have a much better rental solution!

Vacation rentals with nicer furniture and possibly larger utilities: The cap rate can go to 20+. As you can see, a 20+ cap rate is awesome! But the best part is this. People come, stay, and then leave. You don’t have to worry about evictions because the people are there on their vacation! You have so much money coming from your vacation rental that you can afford some of the hassles (like little things getting broken) that will happen when people stay.

Idea #3 Rent To Own

Rent to own is a beautiful way to build nice profits in residential real estate. The big secret is this: so few people are doing this technique! People don’t know about it. The other real estate investors are concerned and there are not that many professionals that the other investors can call and ask for help. Please check out the laws of your rental properties to make sure that their are no laws against rent to own properties.

This technique is huge because for the most part student housing or vacation rentals are not an option for many cities and locations. There is no school nearby and it is not a vacation destination. So what do you do in these cases to turn the house into a cash flowing machine?

Setting Up A Rent To Own In Order To Boost Cash Flows

You have to offer the house on a rent to own rental agreement. Here is how to set up the rent to own strategy:

Get an upfront, non-refundable option payment. When the people are first moving in, they are getting a lease with you (one document), and another document which is the option to purchase the property at a specified price when they first move in (second document). To get that option they are going to pay you upfront.

How much are they going to pay you? Could be anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 or even more. Can you believe it?! Anybody could ask for $2,000. If you are good at marketing you can get even more. A lot of people have mattress money (more than you think). They have this money, especially around tax return time when they are getting a tax refund. Around the month of April in the US is a huge time of year for the rent to own strategy.

Move All Maintenance To Tenants & New Owners

Push all maintenance to the tenants. As a result, there is no more maintenance. They are becoming the owner of the property. If something bad happens, that is all them. For this reason, you can push all maintenance off to the new owners. Important: there are certain tenant and landlord laws that will supercede this. For example, even though the tenants signed an agreement saying that they will maintain the property, if the HVAC goes out, the owner might have to fix it.

So be wise and check and see what the laws in your area look like. But for the most part, this will save you $125 in maintenance that we were talking about previously in the four bedroom rental house example. This is awesome because now the tenants are handling the maintenance!

Higher rental amount. Usually the tenants want to pay less rent for the house. Normally. But here you can do rent credits. Check with your location to see if this is allowed. Rent credits allow you to raise the rental rate. Say rent is normally $1,200 a month. You bump that up to $1,400 a month. Then you give the tenants a credit of $300 a month. The tenants can use the $300 credits to reduce the price of the house when they are going to purchase.

Big Secret About Rent To Own Properties

Here is the big secret to rent to own properties. Ready? Over 90% of the people who do a rent to own will NEVER EVER exercise their option to purchase. They are NOT going to buy the property in almost all cases. So relax and do not worry. The probability is that no one will buy your rental home.

Now if you keep renting the rental house out, the probability will increase that someone will eventually buy your rental house. But if you keep doing the rent to own strategy, the rental house profits should make you very happy. If one out of ten buys your property, it’s ok. Just go and buy another property. It is a win-win situation.

What I love is this. With the rent to own houses I get the money up front. What if there is a problem and you have to evict the tenants? If that’s the case you already have money up front to do it. As well, what if you have to replace the interior of the house with new carpet and paint? Again you have the money to do these renovations as well. Whatever happens, with the upfront money you already have, you are covered!

I often get the question: why do people do the rent to own and then change their mind? The reason is because these people typically don’t have a better financial situation tomorrow than they do today. Typically these people are just not trying to better and improve their lives like you.

Advertise Your Rental Property

The rent to own is so exciting because so few people are doing it! If you put up a signs around town that say:

With this sign you will get hundreds of phone calls. You will have to get up a different phone to handle taking the messages you will receive. The phone will ring off the hook. This Rent To Own sign will work in urban or rural areas. It really doesn’t matter. Why? Because there is a huge population of people who want the OPPORTUNITY to rent to own their own home and almost no one offers it!

Examples Of How To Make The Phone Ring

So when you do it and the phone starts ringing you will find out that the majority of the people have some problems. Examples? No jobs, and no money to put down. Get a voicemail message machine. I say in the message on the answering machine that I am looking for people who have $5,000 dollars to put down and $3,000 dollars earnings a month. Please leave your information. You are going to have to filter the people because you will get hundreds of calls. Believe me, you will not have an issue with potential people to screen when looking for the right tenant.

Improve Your Cash Flow Today

There are three ways to boost your rental property cash flows. The best three rental properties are student housing, vacation rentals, and my favorite: rent to own. These three techniques will greatly improve your cash flow each time you find another house to buy. These strategies are the foundation of any creative real estate investor, and in my opinion, these strategies will build you wealth as a real estate entrepreneur.

What popular articles and blogs do you recommend?

If you are interested in finding out the secret to buying houses when you don’t have the necessary cash, please read my blog: Buy Houses Without Cash Or Credit to get you on the right path for creating wealth.

If you are interested in Becoming A High-Net Worth Individual, please read my blog and watch the YouTube video by a fancinating guy named Andrew Hendersen, founder of Nomad Capitalist. He believes that the world has changed forever and says it’s time for you to “go where you’re treated best.”

Best wishes! Until then, watch for my next blog….

Last Updated on April 13, 2024 by Financial Goodness

Financial Goodness

George Alexander Roy III and our team are experts in helping you to seek wealth through investing and tips on how to succeed. Join us at FinancialGoodness.com to increase your knowledge through education in the areas of personal finance, real estate, and investments. George has been an owner of a real estate investment business that focuses on wholesaling, fix & flip, and long-term buy-and-hold property strategies with a consistent increase of annual revenues. Consequently, as an entrepreneur, researcher, writer, and speaker he has sought the truth in everything he does, no matter how difficult. Hopefully this value and service will help each person achieve their financial freedom sooner.

Real Estate Investing Strategies That Work Every Time

*Stack of $100 US dollar banknotes. Photo credit: depositphotos.com*

Real Estate Myths

Updated April 13, 2024. There are a lot of myths in real estate investing. One of these myths is the most successful real estate professionals have perfect timing. However, if you think of this, it is absolutely not true. This would mean that these “professionals” buy when the economy is down and sell when the economy hits the absolute peak. Well this my happen sometimes, but the vast majority of the most successful real estate professionals apply specific strategies that always work. Here are three real estate investing strategies that work every time.

Three Strategies That Work

These three real estate strategies are: residential rentals; wholesaling; and fix and flip. These three strategies are among the most popular real estate strategies that produce consistent results regardless of the timing. Think about this for a moment, when you are doing your best financially it is usually in a good economy. Why? The prices of real estate are going up. For example, right now in January 2020 the prices of real estate are trending higher.

The Secret For Real Estate Guru’s Timing

The question is: how can you time it so that you can buy when the prices are low and sell when the prices are high? Well…

You can’t do it. It doesn’t make any sense unfortunately. You cannot take advantage of something like that. Clearly, you are not in that type of situation. If you think about it, it is really impossible to predict the future six months or a year from now.

The Future Is Not As Certain As The Past

Everyone knows the past. But how about this: right now are we in a real estate bubble? Some will say yes and others will say no. The point is no one has a crystal ball and can predict the future. No one really knows until we can look back six months or a year from now and can see what really happened.

What makes these strategies so important is that regardless if you have enough money in your pocket, and regardless if you can time the market, you can do these three strategies to increase your wealth.

Gain More Wisdom As Time Passes

As you get older you get smarter. You gain wisdom, knowledge and understanding. So with each year you are better and have more tools to be a real estate investor. Therefore, with each potential year you can apply the wisdom you have gained so you can apply it quickly to each house or apartment.

These three strategies will transform the way you look at real estate investing in the future. That way you can apply them at any moment in time. Then with more experience you will get better and better at them over time and become successful.

Here Are The Three Real Estate Strategies

Let’s get back to the three real estate strategies. This is my blueprint of the three real estate investing strategies that work every time and in any market. So our strategy is a combination of residential rentals, wholesaling and then balance that with rehabs to resell.

Residential Rental

The first one is rentals. But more specifically we am talking about residential real estate where people live in the property. People always need a place to live in good times and bad times. Typically when the economy goes down more people will rent. Residential rentals will always work if the numbers work. In fact, buying rentals will increase a person’s wealth more than any other strategy out there. If you do this correctly, are you ready to be a millionaire??!!

Need For More Capital

But the problem with rentals is that you need money. You need money for the down payment, money to fix up the house in some cases, money in the form of something like a line of credit so that if a tenant doesn’t pay you have to pay the mortgage temporarily while you evict and the related legal fees.

Wholesaling

This is where wholesaling comes into place. You put a property under contract directly from the seller. There are no agents listing the house on the MLS, these are off market deals. You go directly to the seller and made a deal.

Then you need to resell the property to a retail buyer or an investor. Basically you’re getting the property under contract at a wholesale or lower price and then you sell the property to another investor or at retail. Look to buy single family residences if possible. We recommend single family houses because they are the most plentiful. But depending on your market this could be apartments or condos. Here is the good news, in this real estate market right now, this strategy is working very well!

Right now, after 2018 and 2019, when a lot of people made money in the stock market, people are looking at real estate after the shakiness they saw in 2019 in the stock market. A lot of these people are in there 50’s or 60’s and are looking to invest their money wisely and some are looking to park their money in real estate.

When selling the wholesale properties, look for what are called sucker buyers. These are people that will offer you the most for the house that you have under contract. These people are willing to pay ever more for the house than you know it is worth.

If the dollar value from these buyer’s is the best price for the house, ask if they have all the documents to do a mortgage with a lender. Also, be sure to ask if they have approval for a mortgage. Obviously time is of the essence.

90% Of Investors Only Do 1 Deal

Have you heard that over 90% of real estate investors do one deal only? One deal! This means that only 10% are doing one deal after the other. The 90% may have lost money or not make much money. These 90% come in and buy one house. They go fix it up themselves. Then they realize it was a lot harder and a lot more work than they thought. Then guess what? They go and move on to something else in life.

So these 90% are always new people every time you wholesale a house. Can you believe it?! Remarkably this is very much the case. Therefore, take advantage of this never ending source of retail buyers!

Wholesaling Will Always Work

Wholesaling will always work because there will always be new people wanting to buy houses to fix them up. On top of this, houses are always deteriorating over time. For example: bad roofing, exteriors, the look of the houses is constantly changing, floor styles, paint colors, kitchens, bathrooms, etc.

Houses always need to be remodeled on a consistent basis. Always. If the houses are not constantly being maintained and improved, then the house becomes more difficult to sell and falls into the wholesaling category.

There are people that are looking to buy real estate thinking they are going to get rich quick. You absolutely cannot lose if you buy these wholesale houses at the right price. These three real estate investing strategies that work every time are a no-brainer, win-win-win situation!

Fix & Flip / Rehab And Resell

The third way to make money on houses is fix and flip or it is also called rehab and resell. This is where you buy the house, fix it back up and resell it. The reason why this always exists is again the fact that residential real estate is always deteriorating. Once you buy the house and get everything in your home, generally people are reluctant to fix everything.

For one thing, it is expensive, and it is a difficult task when you have all of your stuff in the house already. So the majority of people that buy homes normally don’t fix them up continuously to keep the market value increasing as the housing that are looking to be resold.

Look For Distressed Properties

There are always going to be deals in the real estate markets. One reason for these deals is that something happened that is completely separate from the market. These are what we call personal issues. A perfect example of this is a grandparent passes away and deeds the property to a son or daughter.

In case the son or daughter is extremely happy, but a lot of the time the son or daughter is broke financially and doesn’t have the money to handle this house. Often the son or daughter just wants money and they want it right now.

To top it off, the person who owned the house originally hasn’t done repairs in a long time. The house is old and outdated. This is a personal issue that is always going to exist. There will always be people passing away. This creates a consistency that will always need to be filled.

You may have the question of “What if I am in a market that is no longer hot. When people are no longer selling their houses for top dollar. Properties are sitting on the market longer. How do I buy a property and make sure I can do the rehab and resell and still make a profit?”

First of all, it is very important that you move quickly. You have to have all of your contractors lined up and ready to go. If you are not in a position of rehabbing the property in one to two months and get the property back on the market, you want to consider wholesaling.

Put Houses Back On The Market Quickly

So be careful about sitting on a property. One thing is fixing the property as fast as possible. The other factor is how fast you sell the property. You need to put the property on the market for as low of a price as possible. By doing this, you can generate instant offers. It has got to be fast. The rehab and resale of the property will always work consistently as long as you move fast.

If you need to get permits and other government documents you better consider your options. Sometimes the government is going to take months to approve things. That will slow down progress substantially. If you work on a property for six months, let me ask you a question. Do you know what is going to happen six months down the road? The answer is no. I have no idea what the economy is going to be like six months in the future.

Sometimes you can get fortunate when the market continues to go up. You can make a lot of mistakes in the last few years and still come out nicely when the market continues to go up and you have been able to fix your own problems. But now certain market in the upper price points things are not like that anymore. Builders have built enough inventory. An example is the coastal markets in the United States, especially in the west coast where prices have leveled off when you get up above the prices for affordable houses. You tend to see a lot more inventory in the luxury house markets, so be careful.

Do All Three Strategies To Create Wealth

There are a lot of myths in real estate investing. However, the vast majority of the most successful real estate professionals apply specific strategies that always work. We hope you liked my blueprint of the three real estate investing strategies that work every time.

What is nice about wholesaling is that you have a lot less risk. The problem with wholesaling is that you don’t make as much money. You will make a fraction of the price that someone is going to pay in the end to own the house. When you buy a property wholesale, then rehab and resell the property you are selling to a retail buyer. Retail buyers pay the most money. So you can make more profit.

But wholesaling has less risk. So a strategy that works very well is a combination of wholesaling and then balance that with rehab to resell. This way you are always flipping properties. With this strategy you can build up enough cash and capital so that you can start buying some residential rental properties. The residential rentals can then create long-term wealth.

What popular articles and blogs do you recommend?

Further Reading on FinancialGoodness.com: For more articles and blogs on real estate investing, check out our guides to Boost Your Rental Property Cash Flows and the Best Real Estate Strategies To Make 7 Figures. These strategies will help you build wealth as a real estate entrepreneur.

If you are interested in Becoming A High Net Worth Individual, please read my blog and watch the YouTube video by a fancinating guy named Andrew Hendersen, founder of Nomad Capitalist. He believes that the world has changed forever and says it’s time for you to “go where you’re treated best.”

These three real estate investing strategies that work every time are the keys that have made real estate investors very wealthy. They are the win-win-win strategy to real estate wealth. I have made very nice profits with these property strategies and I am sure you can too. Until next time, best wishes!

Last Updated on April 13, 2024 by Financial Goodness

Financial Goodness

Buying Stocks Versus Real Estate Investing

Stocks Versus Real Estate. Photo credit Pixabay.

Which Is Better?

Updated April 13, 2024. Which is potentially better? Buying stocks versus real estate investing. The best answer is that the stock market tends to increase in value faster than real estate. Historically, from 1968 to 2009, the S&P 500 has resulted in returns of 7.5% annually. But real estate prices head in the direction of outpacing inflation, but just slightly. After accounting for inflation, home prices have increased by 1.5% per year.

But, after accounting for inflation, stocks have returns of approximately 7% per year. Remarkably, the stock market gain of 7% is 4.65 times the rate of real estate. But there is more information to think about. In reality, stocks have experienced more peaks and valleys, making them a far riskier investment.

But numbers don’t tell the whole performance story. You also have to look at the impact of tax advantages, income yield, and the fact that real estate investments often allow for significant leverage.

Which investment is best depends on more than just their returns; other factors must be considered. But if history is an indicator of future performance, both stand to produce attractive gains in the long run.

The Benefits of Investing in Real Estate

In real life, real estate has higher risk-adjusted returns than the stock market. Despite their potential to generate sizeable returns, stocks have no tangible value; on the other hand, real estate is a valuable, tangible asset and profit generator.

The Big HOWEVER…

One reason why real estate as an investment has better annual returns is leverage. With real estate, the investor can do a significant amount of financing to leverage the property and purchase the property without adding a lot of risk to the investment.

However, real estate as an investment has a much stronger return POTENTIAL, especially with rental properties. Not to mention the awesome tax advantages.

Tax Advantages of Rental Properties

Operating expenses are deductible
Mortgage interest is deductible
Depreciation deduction of 27.5 years for buildings
Defer capital gains tax
Owner expenses are also tax deductible
Avoid FICA taxes
Qualify for pass-through deduction

Two Real Estate Investment Scenarios

This leverage can amplify small returns greatly. Let’s say you decide to buy a house or apartment for $100,000 using your own money. Say the value of the house increases by 3%. $100,000 times 3% equals $103,000. This means you have earned $3,000 on your initial investment of $100,000.

Now let’s say you find a house or apartment and purchase it for $500,000. But you only invest $100,000 of your money. Then you finance the other $400,000 with a mortgage. Let’s say again that this property increases in value 3%. $500,000 times 3% equals $15,000 profit.

Leverage Your Way To Big Profits

So, let’s take a look at difference in the potential profits. In both cases you have made a $100,000 investment. The big difference is the leverage that you use. In the first scenario, you purchased the house with your $100,000 and did not ask for a mortgage because you already met the buy price.

Conversely, in the second scenario, you also invested $100,000, but you asked for a mortgage of $400,000. The $400,000 mortgage that you asked for here will give you more leverage when you own the $500,000 house or apartment.

In the second scenario, you are using more advantageously using leverage. In the second scenario, you have now increased your potential profit to $15,000 versus the $3,000 with the same $100,000 investment in both cases.

Big Difference In Returns Is Leverage

In the second case, the leverage increased your returns by $12,000 for the same initial investment. Not bad…. But keep in mind that when you borrow money from a lender you usually have to pay the lender an origination fee at the closing as well as possibly other closing costs. Also, usually you will have to make monthly payments for each month that you own the property.

Nonetheless, most people choose to use leverage. When dealing with real estate, leverage can completely increase your returns when looking at potential investments. The idea behind leveraging real estate is to use other people’s money to increase your returns without having to put as much capital into buying the property yourself.

Many people still ask the question of which is better: buying stocks versus real estate investing? Real estate has a much stronger return POTENTIAL because of leverage. For myself, I like leverage. You can have $0 dollars and no credit. All you have to do is find the right property and put it under contract and the leverage of real estate will make you a nice return on that property.

Rent Out The Property

The other big reason that investors choose real estate is that investment properties can be rented out to generate more income. Look at the total money needed to make the mortgage and other payments each month. If you can justifiably increase the rent to cover the cost of the property, the rest is profit before taxes.

Real Estate Has Greater Potential Returns

In my opinion, real estate investments have a much greater potential return over the stock market if you look at the long-term returns. However, be that as it may, investing in real estate is arguably time consuming.

You or your management team will need to factor in the time spent to maintain your properties in order to justify having a portfolio that includes real estate. But if you take the time to set everything up properly, the investment returns on your real estate properties will dramatically increase your wealth for the long-term.

Greater Initial Time Commitment For Real Estate

If you are looking to buy houses or apartments that need to be renovated before you sell or place a tenant to rent out the property, going through this process is very time consuming. If you are perhaps younger, and have a lot of energy, this could be feasible way to invest and make nice returns. In addition, in many countries real estate investors also have enjoyed greater real estate tax advantages than have the investment in stocks.

Perhaps Best Scenario Is Invest In Both

On the other hand, if you already have a job or other time commitments, you might not have the time or energy to focus on real estate investments. I completely understand this perspective. In this scenario, maybe it would be better to focus on the stock market and buy the S&P 500 on dips.

Which is better: buying stocks versus real estate investing? Real estate has a much stronger return POTENTIAL because of leverage. Honestly, I would invest in both.

Invest On A Regular Basis In Stocks

Investing on a regular basis rather than trying to time a lump sum investment can help you become a more disciplined investor. You’re forced to invest regardless of whether the price is high or low. This takes some of the emotion out of investing and avoids any delays in putting your money to work. Most financial planners advise saving between 10% and 15% of your annual income. If you want to learn some key stock market investment strategies, please read my blog on How To Invest Wisely In The Stock Market.

Invest In Real Estate

Conceivably the best scenario is to invest in both real estate and the stock market. This way, if you have some rentals and regularly invest in the stock market, no matter what happens to the economy annually you will have a better chance of coming out ahead in the long run for retirement.

However, time is always a factor and many people have to choose. Which is better: buying stocks versus real estate investing? If you feel you are in this category, then we highly recommend real estate. We would say real estate because it has a much stronger return because of the leverage factor.

What popular articles and blogs do you recommend?

A strategy that works very well is a combination of wholesaling and then balance that with rehab to resell. This way you are always flipping properties. Please read my blog on the Real Estate Investing Strategies That Work Every Time. With this strategy you can build up enough cash and capital so that you can start buying some residential rental properties. The residential rentals can then create long-term wealth.

If you have ever wondered if there is a way to get more money from your rental houses, please read this blog on the three ways to Boost Your Rental Property Cash Flows. This article goes in-depth into the three kinds of rental properties that you could be making more money are student housing, vacation rentals, and my favorite: rent to own. This will make your rentals into a real estate cash flowing machine.