When I saw the "American Inventor" program, I immediately loved the show. It's a parade of ingenuity - and sometimes silliness and total ignorance of markets. Watching some of the inventors come onto that stage, I realized I wouldn't want to be a judge on...

You probably have seen a rent-versus-buy calculator here and there online, and you may have even used one. They are supposed to help you decide if buying a house makes financial sense for you, but do they really tell you what you need to know? Let's take ...

Those who want to invest in real estate often get excited by HUD foreclosures, thinking that they are going to buy a house for half of what it's worth. Real estate investors know that this isn't too likely. However, there are opportunities for flipping th...

What you know about the market matters, if you want to save money on the things you buy. This is certainly the case with product life cycles. Understand them, and know where in the cycle a product is, and you get to pay a lot less. Fortunately, the lif...

If you are interested in saving money on the things you buy, you have to start by being honest about what they REALLY cost. Lets look at an example of what this means. Saving Money On The Swimming Pool Jeff and his wife loved the idea of havi...

The good news for sellers is that most home buyers don't know the following tricks. Even if they did, many would hesitate to use them. Some of them are unfair, but some are just good tough negotiating tactics - I'll let you decide which are which. In any ...

A land contract, sometimes also called a "contract for deed" and other names, is a contract to sell real estate on payments. It is basic seller financing, in which the seller takes payments from the buyer rather than the buyer borrowing from a mortgage le...

How do you maintain and increase the rental income from your properties? Start by keeping your renters happy. That's what the first two of these tips are about. Happy Tenants Mean More Consistent Income 1. Find out why tenants leave. Sometime...

Home pricing is an art, but fortunately there is a little bit of science to it as well. As in many areas of life, learning what not to do when pricing a home is an important part of doing it right. Here are some of the common mistakes sellers make, which ...

You just bought a small apartment building. Do you hire a good property management company or do you try to manage your rental property yourself? The best answer to that depends on what your goals are and what your skills are. Your Goals Do y...

Want to save money on the things you buy? Then you need to be aware of the games that retailers play. Here are two of the most common. Reference Price Advertising "Was $119. Now only $89!" You have seen ads like this, as well as similar signs...

Credit cards are just a curse for many people. They make it too easy to buy on a whim when the money isn't there to pay for the purchase. They raise the cost of everything bought by the amount of the interest that will paid over the years. They create deb...

Do you really need to learn special techniques for negotiating a real estate deal? Absolutely not. You can get by with offers that you know work for you, and just keep making them until one is accepted. On the other hand, if you know a few simple real est...

Yes, brainstorming can turn a paper clip into a house. More on that in a moment. First, a question. Have you ever had a brainstorming session where people sat around hesitating to contribute? If so, you can understand how important having the right frame ...

Ah, residual income - easy money. Well, not quite, unless you look at the long view. It can take a lot of effort to create streams of residual income. But since this is income which continues to come in long after your work has ended, it might be consider...