Why do you want to invest in real estate?

Sound like an obvious answer??? Not really... There are a lot of different answers and depending on what yours is will depend on what direction you want to go...

Possible Answers

1. Short term cash

You're looking to buy properties & flip them quick (within a year) for a profit. You need to look for properties that you pick up at a significant discount, either because of poor property condition or desperate sellers. Poor condition properties provide a tremendous opportunity, because your average buyer doesn't want to deal with the aggravation of fixing up a home after they buy it, either because of lack of financing, expertise or time. There are many reasons a seller may be motivated (desperate). It could be due to divorce, death, estates, city or company owned properties. It's basically anyone that would forgo some profit to get their cash quick.
The key to being a short term investor is figuring out the reservation price that you can pay for any property. The following calculator will help you figure out what you should pay for any property... And how much money you'll make.

2. Monthly Income

So you're interested in monthly income? So the key is what your net income will be on any property. The most important part is to figure in all expenses including a reserve for vacancy, delinquency, advertising, repairs, utilities, etc. Take the yearly rental income and minus out all expenses. That will leave you with the net income. Divide that figure by the sale price and this will give you the capitalization (cap.) rate or rate of return on the property. The higher the cap rate, the better the deal.

3. Speculation

The speculator is not buying something that has a particularly good net income now or something that's significantly under market price. Why are they buying it??? They're buying it in the hopes that the property's value will go up in the future. It's just my personal opinion, but since I can't predict the future, I'm not a big fan of speculation.