While everyone’s attention has been focused on the Millennials and their housing choices, it turns out that it may be those famous Baby Boomers who wield more influence in today’s housing market. According to new article from the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter, research from Merrill Lynch reveals that the “magic age” for housing choices is not those post college years, but one much farther away: age 61. That’s the age when, according to Merrill lynch analysts, people really feel free to choose...

The Millennials have taken a lot of heat lately, criticized for poor work ethics, overdependence on technology and general lack of interest in notching up the traditional milestones of “adult” life. Now, as home sales continue to drop, market watchers are looking once again to the attitudes and behaviors of Millennials for explanations. Millennials - those born between about 190 and 2000 – do account for 76 percent of first time homebuyers. But since as a group they’re postponing home buying...

The recovery from the much publicized housing crash of a few years ago may be hitting a wall, thanks to declining numbers of a group that’s essential to a robust housing market: first time home buyers. Although the US housing market continues to show encouraging signs of emerging from the rubble of the 2008 collapse, its long term recovery depends on those first time buyers, who inject new life into the market not just by purchasing new and resale homes, but also by spending money after the...

By a number of indicators, the US housing market is bouncing back after its massive collapse of 2008. But US homeowner rates are at near historic lows, with few first time buyers. Among the many factors contributing to those low rates are an often overlooked, but essential one: in many areas around the country, there’s a housing shortage: the supply of avaialble homes to buy is lower than the demand. After the housing collapse put unprecedented numbers of homes into foreclosure and millions...

Fifteen years can seem like a pretty long time – and the year 2030 sounds like a date from a science fiction novel. But the future is now – and, as a recent article from Business Insider reports, today’s emerging trends will shape the investing landscape of tomorrow. According to Business Insider, KPMG, the international tax and financial advisory consortium, recently released a report detailing likely changes in the financial and investing fields over the next fifteen years, and their...

The specter of inflation strikes chills into the hearths of many consumers – even more than its cousin, deflation. But not all inflation is created equal – and for both the economy at large and for income property investors, some inflation can be a very good thing indeed. Consumers fear inflation because to them it means higher prices for the goods they buy every day. In oth4er words, the dollar doesn’t go as far as it once did. And most people don’t give much thought to inflation’s opposite...

No more real estate agents? In the brave new world of real estate, agents, brokers and just about every other part of the traditional way of buying and selling property could be going the way of the dinosaur, thanks to innovations in virtual reality and artificial intelligence technologies. Online access and social media have already brought big changes to the world of real estate. Most real estate agents and other professionals involved in real estate transactions do business online, and...

Time was, renting an apartment – or maybe a house – was just a temporary arrangement until you saved up enough to buy your very own home. But for a growing number of today’s renters, that scenario just doesn’t appeal – and that trend has big implications for investors in rental real estate. According to recent statistics reported by Business Insider, at the end of 2014, only 14.7 percent of tenants moving out of an apartment did so because they were buying a home. And in the years since the...

The “Millennials” have been in the headlines a lot lately – and not for good reasons. Alternately criticized for their values and work ethic and pitied for their crushing load of student loan debt, this generation of new and recent college grads seems to be facing a bleak financial future. But a young real estate investor is proving that smart money management can pay off handsomely – even for those cash strapped millennials. A recent article from NextShark profiles 27-year-old Brian Maida,...

In the Gold Rush days, the slogan was “California or Bust!” But now, as the Golden State faces yet another year of its historic drought, “Leave California or Bust!” may become the new rallying cry for the people and enterprises facing a waterless future. And that, say real state experts, could change the US housing landscape forever. The entire state of California is under drought conditions ranging from “abnormally dry” to “extraordinary drought,” which trumps even “extreme drought” in...

Is the red-hot rental market getting ready to cool down? The US housing market continues to recover, fueled by promising numbers for employment and other consumer sectors. But major shifts in the housing landscape may be changing all that, as the balance tilts between renting and owning houses in 2015 and beyond. The devastating crash of 2008 that left the housing sector in tatters and created conditions for dramatic changes in the way Americans choose and maintain places to live. When a...

Time was, anybody who wanted a safe and anonymous hideaway for financial assets turned to offshore banking. Swiss bank accounts and offshore havens in places like the Cayman Islands allowed depositors both legal and not so legal a way to safeguard assets from risks of taxation or seizure by the home government. But as new and proposed laws threaten to eradicate that privacy, real estate investing remains the only really private way to safeguard assets abroad. Offshore banking has always...

It’s often said that the devil is in the details. But for investors, attention to some things that may not seem so significant can make a big difference in long-term returns. That’s the topic of a recent article and infographic from Visual Capitalist, which points out how very small tweaks to an investor’s mindset and strategies can yield more wealth. And it’s also what Jason Hartman has been saying all along: Invest early. Diversify your portfolio. Minimize risks. Keep expenses...

It’s practically a given in American society that owning a home is the key to stability and success. But although the US government has spent more than two decades drafting a variety of policies to create that “homeownership society,” the percentage of homeowners has hardly changed at all. And that’s good news for income property investors ready to reap the benefits of the shift to a “renter society.” As a new article from The Washington Post points out, home ownership in the US has always...

Online real estate transactions now account for over half of all housing purchases in the US alone. The Web offers a place for buyers, sellers, agents and investors to do business that bypasses the traditional “brick and mortar” style of doing business – and it’s changing the game for all concerned in ways both good and bad. The online world of real estate takes many forms. Only databases provide a place for agents to list their services and properties. Buyers can search by price, location,...

he Bitcoin has changed the way the world thinks about money, and its influence continues to grow. Since the first Bitcoin transaction took place 2009, the digital currency has been accepted by a steadily growing list of businesses, institutions and marketplaces – including real estate. And it’s a trend investors need to watch. The Bitcoin was created in 2008 as an experiment in freeing financial transactions from the control of traditional institutions and regulations. Completely digital and...

If you put your money on coffee and cattle in 2014, you might be smiling all the way to the bank. But if you backed crude oil and gas – well, not so much. That’s the verdict from Business Insider’s recent charting of the performance of what it claims are all the major asset classes in the world. It’s a complex, visually striking chart that lays out, in shades of green and red, which assets showed a profit at the end of the year, and which didn’t. While the results are striking in some ways...

Coming your way: a new generation of (probably permanent) renters. It’s the millennials, making news once again for the basic contradiction of their lives: better educated than their parents, but simultaneously economically more disadvantaged. And because this generation is both the largest demographic and one of the poorest, their circumstances may mean new opportunities for income property investors. According to census data reported in a recent article from The Atlantic, the median income...

More than half of American children live with a single mom. That’s the finding of a new study on the changing demographics of American culture – and those numbers, and the economic realities behind them, mean new challenges and opportunities for rental property investors. The new findings by researchers from Princeton and Harvard aren’t really new. The trend toward single-mother households was first noted in studies dating from the 1960s. And while research into the impact of that rend...

Jason Hartman maintains that investing in income properties is not a difficult process. Where too many people go wrong is messing up the simple stuff. Today we’d like to point out a few common ways investors accidentally lay waste to their property portfolio and how it could be avoided. 1. Make a Plan: Just because you stumble across a great deal doesn’t mean you should pull the trigger immediately. The time to decide exactly how this new property fits into your larger investment scheme is...

Interest rates that continue to run low and rising prices make the housing market pretty hot right now. Banks are offering attractive mortgage packages, too. But, say some market watchers, it’s hotter still for buyers who can pay cash. To compete in the cash wars, what’s an investor to do? Recent data crunched by DataQuick reveal that the number of homes bought with cash has been rising steadily over the last few years, with cash transactions accounting for as much as 30 percent of home...

The recent spate of natural disasters – superstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods – has homeowners and property investors throughout the country checking their insurance policies and talking to their lenders about how to recover. But, as recent news reminds us, the biggest threat to the economy – not to mention a little thing like the planet – may come from space. And while there’s not much we can do about that, it’s a reminder to take the actions we can to protect assets and...

We recently mentioned that the Platinum Properties Investor Network believes in a real estate strategy that is exactly opposite of flipping. We think that the strategy of buying and holding prudent rental properties over a long period of time offers tremendous advantages, one of which is the ability to refinance your loan mortgage time and time again. “But wait,” you say. “I thought the goal was to pay off the mortgage.” Not so fast. That’s what most people think - and that is not it at...

If you’ve been a follower of Jason Hartman and Platinum Properties Investor Network's style of investing for any length of time, you know we don’t believe flipping properties is the best approach for creating wealth in real estate. There are several reasons we think this way, but let’s consider a single one - taxes. Part of any investor’s success is the extent to which he manages to avoid paying taxes. Let’s make it clear we’re not encouraging illegal activity. What we do suggest is you take...