A Brief Review Of Short Term Real Estate Investing

I have been investing in real estate for more than two decades, and I have seen some pretty amazing changes in the market during that time. One of the most interesting shifts that I have seen in real estate investing is the notion of short-term investing. Generally, the term short term investing refers to flipping or turning houses quickly sometimes even before you have them under contract. This is an exciting and fast-paced business that tends to yield big rewards fast. Many of my colleagues and students make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on every deal.
However, short term real estate investing is a relatively new concept. Historically, people build real estate portfolios to be long-term investments. They selected markets that they thought would grow, then purchased and maintained property in those areas until they wanted or needed to sell. When they did, they reaped massive financial rewards because the property had appreciated as real estate nearly always does even in todays terms over the period of time when they held it. However, in the 1990s and first part of the first decade of the 21st century, short term investing began to catch on. Real estate investors would purchase properties at a bargain, and then sell them on the market for an instant profit. Sometimes, they would just sell the contract on the property so that they did not have to even handle the closing. Property values were shooting up so rapidly that you could make thousands just on the contract and literally do very little work.
During this time, lots of people got involved in real estate investing who had never been involved before. Many did not understand how to really manage an investment, and I know a lot of people who made a lot of mistakes, but still came out okay because the market was just so good for buyers. Now, however, because it was so easy for so long, the common perception is that there is no room in the real estate market for short term investing. The people who think that are just plain wrong.
Short term real estate investing relies on the same principles that it always has: mainly, buy low and sell higher. That means that you need to find good deals, and then figure out a way to make them attractive to buyers in todays market. While that may take a little more creativity than it did a few years ago, it is still completely within the realm of possibility for a detail-oriented, savvy real estate investor to turn a serious mint in short term real estate investing. And once you figure out the system, it is not any more difficult to implement than it was 3 or 4 years ago.
Im tired of people telling me that the time for flipping is over. Im flipping deals right now, and so are a lot of my colleagues. In fact, in many geographic areas of the country, property values are still rising, or even better they are on their way back up, but still pretty close to rock bottom right now. So its time to stop thinking about how the time to make money in short term real estate investing is over, and start thinking about how to make this market work for you in as many ways as possible including short term real estate deals.
Peter Vekselman has been successfully investing in real estate since 1996. He has completed over 1200 real estate deals, owned a construction company, been a private lender, and owned a property management company. Peter currently works with clients all over the US helping them achieve riches in real estate investing. For more information please visit www.CoachingByPeter.com.