Author's articles
Real Estate land contracts are not without drawbacks
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
When we pay taxes, a huge chunk of money came out of our accounts a twice a year. We did not escrow the amount. We decided to turn things around. We wanted to put this ...
Pros and Cons of using land contracts for real estate
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
We have talked about the pros and cons of using land contracts. Of course the pro is that your tenant buyers pay the taxes and insurance. The con is that if we feel we have ...
How to profit from buying real estate property with IRA money
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
I like to teach people how to buy bank repo houses using their IRA. In the recent market, buying property with IRA money is a win/win investment. You buy a property for $100,000 but you ...
How to find the safest bank repo houses
By Alan Cowigll · 13 years ago
I started this business with a buy and hold philosophy which means I had tenants and I would purchase on the fringe area of town. When I was trying to figure this business out, I ...
Hiring office help so you can flip houses for profit
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
I began flipping houses for profit with a desk in my two bedroom apartment and a plastic file box. You know those plastic file boxes with a handle on them that you find at Office ...
Entity structuring for your real estate business
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
I get a lot of questions on entity structuring. It is a complicated but important subject.
Some time ago, I found out that with C-corporations, your earnings are retained within the corporation. With an S-corporation, ...
How to sell your real estate properties to IRA holders
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Flipping houses for profit is probably what you’re most interested in. I am going to explain one technique that will help you make that happen.
I have professed the concept of holding luncheons for people ...
How to market your open houses to get your property sold
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Back when I had 31 empty houses I became very creative very quickly. I learned a lot about how to market houses.
We learned to give ourselves driving time and we advertised different open houses. ...
Details you should put in your real estate advertisement
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
There are a number of tricks to real estate advertising. Successful ad campaigns usually consist of ideas that lure people in and create a desire to learn more. You should, however, give some detail to ...
How to easily collect on tenants debt
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Collecting payment is one of the toughest parts of any business. I want to tell you how I handle it, what has worked, where I am today and what I recommend for this often complicated ...
What is a real estate land trust?
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
In the real estate business, there are any number of ways that you can turn a profit from buying and selling investment properties. Whether the deal is wholesale or retail, land contract or lease-to-own, there ...
With female buyers, use plumbing to up the WOW effect
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Good plumbing is obviously an important point when selling real estate. If your home has plumbing problems, you will have difficulty getting top dollar for it. Therefore, it's highly important that you work with a ...
What are qualified tenants?
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Potential tenant buyers need to be handled with care. In order to ensure
that you get quality people, you need to do your research. That begins with a credit check.
A company can pay for ...
Buying and selling houses is largely a numbers game
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Buying and selling investment properties is largely a numbers game. That's certainly true when you're talking about placing tenant buyers in your houses. Your success greatly depends on the strength of the numbers you work ...
It pays to advertise when buying investment properties
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
A famous old saying states, 'It pays to advertise.' That is certainly true when it comes to buying and selling investment properties.
Veteran house-buyers use a variety of methods for letting homeowners know they're in ...
House buying, simplified
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Buying a house is one of the nation's most common large-scale financial transactions. Still, there are a great many financial hoops you have to jump through in order to strike a deal. As a result, ...
The basics of subject to and short sale deals
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
'Subject to' deals have become quite common in the real estate marketplace. There are distinct advantages to doing these types of deals, especially for those who make their living buying and selling houses. Interestingly enough, ...
The fine art of the real estate deal
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
To be truly successful in the real estate investment business, you must develop the art of the real estate deal. This can be quite challenging, but it can also be quite lucrative, if you do ...
Staging your investment property the right way
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
You've purchased an investment property that appears to have a great deal of potential. You've done a thorough rehab job, using trusted contractors who have turned the house into a masterpiece. You've done some staging, ...
Small decorative touches that sell houses
By Alan Cowgill · 13 years ago
Buying and selling houses is certainly an exciting enterprise. In some cases, extensive rehab work is needed in order to turn an 'investment property' into a house. But it actually takes more than new bath ...