Market Trends and Condition

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/sharpie_parties_fuel_rampage_on_JA...

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/real_estate/2012/08/15/affordable-homes-cit...

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-mcmachen-snatches-up-650-foreclosed-...

Commonly people wonder: "How do I find a good tenant that will not destroy my property?"

Here is a little tip I have used and suggest you look at as well. It is not full proof but does ad a level of understanding about a possible tenant that is not available otherwise.

When a client fills out a rental application it will have a spot for the applying tenants current place of residency.

You, now having their address, can send family, friends or receptionist to the address on the application. They will knock on the door and ask for a random address that may or may not exist.

What happens often is that the person who has answered the door to give directions to some address has let the door open and allowed whomever asking to take a long view of the conditions of the inside.

Mortgage rates help both retail buyers and wholesale buyers ... so as mortage rates are dropping it's another great reason to invest in real estate.

Inman News reported the following

Mortgage rates sank to new lows this week as fears about a U.S. economic slowdown and the impact of the European debt crisis continue to make Treasuries and bonds that fund most mortgages look like safe bets to investors.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.62 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending July 5, down from 3.66 percent last week and 4.60 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That's a new all-time low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971.

Zillow has many great options on their website...
however one issue that people question is the reliability of the comps.

Paul Hagey wrote an aricle for Inman News
discussing Zillow and the MLS

Real estate portal Zillow has appealed to multiple listing services to provide Internet Data Exchange (IDX) listings data directly to the site, originally claiming that it can "sometimes be days" before syndicators like ListHub provide new or revised listings to the site.

Zillow has since backed down from that claim, acknowledging that ListHub -- which is owned by Zillow competitor Move Inc. -- provides Zillow with updates every 12 hours, and has offered to increase the frequency to four times a day.

Hi DG family,

My name is Matt Schneider. New to realestate investing. I was wondering if anyone could clarify some things for me. I have read all the forums that I could find pertaining to market analasys. I have read Deans book Be A Realestate Millionair. In the 1st chapterbhe discusses how to evaluate my local market by evaluating national and local factors, but I don't understand.

How are markets defined? I think it is by zipcode but not 100% sure.

New U.S. single-family home sales in June fell by the most in more than a year and prices resumed their downward trend, suggesting a set back for the budding housing market recovery.

Read the entire CNBC.com story here:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48317831

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/real_estate/1207/gallery.half-priced...

Can someone please tell me if it is still a good time to invest in RE? I'm so confused about what I hear on TV about prices going up, my realtor telling me that if I would have contacted her a year ago that I could have made money as the inventories are so low now.

Does the 25:1 still work..I just don't know anymore. Extremely confused on what is working, what isn't etc. I'm lost!

Thanks,