According to the National Association of Realtors®, “distressed homes” represented nearly two of every five home sold in January 2010. Clearly, real estate investors are taking advantage of good deals on cheap property.

This NBC Today Show interview first ran in March 2009, featuring real estate expert Barbara Corcoran. Despite its age, the message remains relevant. Today may be a terrific time to buy a bank-owned home - just make sure you do your research first. There are plenty of ways for investors to get burned.

Some of the tips in the video include:

• Buy in your own back yard
• Start small, then build to a bigger portfolio
• Watch receipts - rent rolls don’t matter if tenants aren’t paying rent
  

Corcoran also gives pointers on how to evaluate a prospective tenant.

Foreclosures should represent a large number of 2010’s total home sales and will offer incredible opportunities to bona fide real estate investors. Before you jump in, make sure to watch the video. The rents you save may be your own.

Remember, the stats and the data are from 12 months ago, but the advice stays meaningful.

Posted by Ryan Leahy

This is a guest post by Ryan Leahy. He is a lender with Leahy & Associates in Austin, TX, and updates his blog daily. To contact Ryan, call (512) 692-7242 or email rleahy@houseloan.com.

Tags: Barbara Corcoran, investment property, screening tenants

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Real Estate Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.