Using Housing Alerts As A Due Diligence Tool

Learn How to Increase Your Real Estate Investing Profits.

Previously we discussed what HousingAlerts Real Estate Market Technical Analysis (TA) software was (click here to view that prior post).

Now we will discuss how to utilize the software to maximally expand your utilization of automatic appreciation as it pertains to the real estate market place.

We realize that every industry has a market cycle.  There are times when business is booming and times when the business market contracts, and the real estate market is no different.  As we are currently seeing we are now in the down cycle of the market.  The main objective of HousingAlerts is to utilize accurate housing data to best predict these market cycles.

Knowing when the best times (high appreciation) occur in the real estate markets to buy a property is key to maximally utilizing the advantage of automatic appreciation.  It is also just as important to avoid those times when the market is significantly declining.

How many of us purchased an investment property and then watched as it began to decline in value with the next year?  If you look back at the losses you have incurred up to now, I wonder how much profit an analysis tool like HousingAlerts might have saved you?

You can significantly improve your real estate investing profit and success by simply knowing when to buy with high appreciation and selling at the times when real estate begins to depreciate, not just a pull back.

You may think by investing in this way you would be faced with short holding periods, or be in and out of the real estate market quite a bit.  In most cases when you compare the 30 year buy and hold strategy to following the HousingAlerts strategy it would require to buy and sell 1-2 more times during that same period. Six to eight years is still a longer term hold from my view point.

This whole discussion can become a bit confusing without pictures and graphs.  Email me (HA@RealMarketPros.com) and I’ll send you a PDF document which better demonstrates the potential benefits of using HousingAlerts to assist you in making informed decisions about your current real estate market.

To receive the maximum value of the HousingAlerts Analysis tool you first must know your real estate investing strategy is.

Are you taking the perspective of investing only in your close surrounding area (backyard investing)?  (For those of you with little or know experience this is usually the best place to begin your real estate investing activity.  Get familiar with the process of buying, selling and managing your investments.  Then when you’re comfortable consider expanding to areas that are further away.)

Using HousingAlerts in your local real estate market area can allow you to fully maximize your investment activity.  Just think about if you were able to buy prior to the high appreciating times in your market and sell prior to the high depreciation times in the market.  You would make a lot more money!

Or if you have a little more experience with real estate you can use the HousingAlerts analysis system to find the next upcoming potentially hot real estate market.

Kind of like using a fish finder to locate the best places in the lake to find fish before you put your fishing pole in the water.  Fishing in the part of the lake where there is a decreased probability in finding fish is just a waste of time and effort.

So we must consider HousingAlerts as one of the first and most important steps in the entire real estate investing process. HousingAlerts may be the most critical step in helping you create the best chance of a successful outcome during the real estate investment due diligence process.

Its value comes in to play way before you commit substantial resources (time, energy, money or opportunity costs) in locating or analyzing particular neighborhoods or properties.

Long before you start focusing on individual neighborhoods, you need to first identify which phase of the real estate market cycle your overall investment market is facing. Then (and only then) will you know which investment techniques and strategies are appropriate at the “neighborhood” level… providing you determine it is a market you want to be in.

Since the most significant aspect of creating real estate wealth is through capturing “Automatic

Appreciation” (view my previous post here) you need to focus on a few specific questions:

1) In which real estate market should I invest (and when)?

2) What strategies and tactics are best going to fit the current market cycle?

3) Should I buy, sell or hold?

4) What should my hold period be?

Getting it right (or wrong) at this early part of the investment process will have more impact on your ultimate success (or failure) than anything else you may do.

In Summary

For Local Market Investors (back-yard investors… or those interested in only a single market), following a few simple market timing indicators can mean the difference between huge success, mediocre success or miserable failure. Another key is to pursue the correct buying, holding and selling strategies tailored to the specific market cycle you are investing in.

For Total Market Investors (those wishing to maximize their real estate wealth, while at the same time reducing risk and effort by continually investing in only the most highly appreciating real estate markets) the key is to always be seeking HOT emerging real estate markets while avoiding dead or flat markets.

You can learn more about the HousingAlerts system by visiting RealMarketMastery.com.

Or email me ( HA@RealMarketPros.com) to request the PDF document I mentioned earlier to better explain the system with graphs and pictures.

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Finding the Best Real Estate Investment Areas In Phoenix, Arizona

Searching for The Best Real Estate
Investment Areas In Phoenix, Arizona

All due diligence contains an element of market research.  You need to find a source or sources to at a minimum give you an over all view of the market place.

When considering real estate as an investment, whether it be a personal residence or an investment property, there are several key areas that you want to consider to maximize your future profits.

The qualities that make a neighborhood attractive to live in are also the qualities that often make a good neighborhood to purchase investment property in.

One of the best indicators of a good neighborhood is the school district that it is located in.  Most parents myself included intend for their children to excel and prosper in life.  A key part of that equation is sending children to excellent schools.  Public schools more than private schools will often attract parents to the neighborhoods in those excellent school districts.

The Phoenix area schools offer open enrollment.  This means that students can attend schools other than the district in which they live, as long as there is space in the school, and parents are able to provide the needed transportation.

Transportation is provided to the children residing within each school district. So even with open enrollment there may a slight advantage by living within the school district.

Investing in areas that are within an excellent school district, or in close proximity are good places to begin your real estate investing due diligence.

You can find school information located on the Due Diligence page of this website, or go directly to the website of the Arizona Department of Education. (http://www.ade.state.az.us/)

Crime is the next area that often defines the quality of a neighborhood.  Even though crime can happen in nearly any neighborhood, great neighborhoods often have low crime statistics.

Investing in areas with low crime rates is beneficial in several ways.  If you should have a short-term vacancy there is less of a chance of your property being vandalized while finding a new tenant?  People generally want to live in safe areas, especially if they have children.

You can find school information located on the Due Diligence page of this website, or go directly to the website

Amenities are also to be considered when researching a place to buy real estate investment property.  Locating areas that are close to grocery stores, malls, entertainment and other destination areas should also benefit your real estate investment in the long run.

Where To Live In Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun is a very good resource to begin your real estate research with.  This book contains descriptions of the all the areas I mentioned above plus many more details on the neighborhood specifics for the Phoenix and surrounding areas.

As the book indicates, it was created and designed for an individual or families with specific needs and desires in the area in which they would like to live.  It can assist you in asking more informed questions to help you match your needs and wants to specific neighborhoods, or cities.

The book is designed to go from general geographical areas of the Phoenix metro area and is then further divided into cities, towns and neighborhoods.  The editors also use a 5 star ratings system for each area detailed in the book based on desirability, home prices, personality and access to amenities.

So the benefit is that most anyone new to the Phoenix area has a good resource for learning more about the local areas and neighborhoods.

The added benefit is that real estate investors can also use the book to easily locate the areas that will most likely be good areas to purchase real estate. Remember what I mentioned earlier, places that are in demand to live in often are the same places that are good to invest in.

I have ready to go search parameters based on the editors 4 and 5 star neighborhood ratings.  This assists you in quickly and easily searching for real estate investment property in the potentially higher appreciating areas.

Email me (Searches@RealMarketPros.com) and I will set up a search with your specific criteria for the area you are interested in purchasing an investment property.  The search will automatically inform you whenever there is a price change or new houses come onto the market.

There is really no easier way to begin your real estate investment purchase research.

You can find a used Where To Live In Phoenix book at Amazon.com for under $5 bucks (shipping included).   Or you can buy it new for $24.95.  Either option will give you an excellent start to your neighborhood research and due diligence.

Check it out today!

Using The Housing Alerts Program To Predict Real Estate Market Cycles

Searching For The Next HOT Real Estate Market.

About a year ago I joined HousingAlerts, as a charter member.  After hearing a little about it, I did a little research and was very impressed with the potential of the system.

The HousingAlerts Analysis System was developed a Harvard University Graduate, CPA and veteran real estate investor Ken Wade.

He developed the system out of the frustration of not having an accurate way to analyze real estate markets. He personally funded the research and development of a system that could perform technical analysis and utilize standard statistical methods to assist him in predicting real estate market cycles.

HousingAlerts is a web based software program that uses the U.S. Census Bureau’s Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Data as the basis for performing Technical Analysis (TA).

A MSA can be defined as: A core area such as a central city along with the counties economically and socially connected to it.

Technical Analysis is a very sophisticated market cycle prediction tool that utilizes past results, trends and cycles to anticipate future market directions. Most investors are familiar with the use of TA to assist them in making financial decisions related to the stock market.

The MSA data is generated quarterly by the federal government and then complex statistical methods are applied to the data by the Housing Alerts program.

The genius of the system is in use of TA applied to the MSA data to develop Moving Averages (MA) pertaining to local real estate market cycles. These MA can act as triggers to assist you in making a decision on whether to buy, sell or change your acquisition strategy, in a particular real estate market.

You may be more familiar with the many stock trading software programs in which a red line crosses a green line triggering a buy or sell signal. A similar approach has now been developed for the real estate market through the use of HousingAlerts.

HousingAlerts monitors actual home price movements for all of the 379 individual MSA’s, using the same standard of measurement used by the U.S. Census Bureau.

HousingAlerts is purported to be the only system that uses actual and repeat home transactions to track home value changes.

This is really the only way to obtain truly accurate home price data. The significance of this software and the data is that it is currently the most detailed house-by-house price change data available.

It opened my eyes to the power of automatic appreciating real estate markets and the ability to locate them in a somewhat predictable fashion.

To learn more about this program you can click here to visit the HousingAlerts Website.

In next session I will discuss where HousingAlerts might fit into your real estate investing activity.

More To All and Less To None