Now, how can you get these potential profit-making deals?
Your first avenue for finding good deals is the local newspaper (the property newspaper). Just search for properties that are listed directly by the owners who want to avoid paying commission to the real estate brokers.

Since the owner is saving on the commission that they would otherwise have to pay to the broker, they would probably be able to offer a lower price to you and be more open to negotiations. You could also place your own ‘wanted’ ad in the local newspapers.

On the same lines, you could use internet to search for the real estate investment avenues. In fact, you would be astonished by the number of real estate investment opportunities you are able to locate on the internet. Not only that, searching for real estate investment opportunities (i.e. property for sale) is much easier on internet than anywhere else.

Another good way to hunt for real estate investment opportunities is by using the services of real estate brokers. Some people use real estate agents as their first (and maybe the only) touch point for getting real estate investment opportunities. The real estate agents act as information hub for people looking to buy property. In fact, a lot of sellers find it much more convenient to sell their properties by listing it with real estate agents.

Multiple listings service is another good way to find real estate investment opportunities. Since the multiple listing book is provided only to the real estate agents and not to the general public (unless you are very lucky), all the cream (good real estate investment opportunities) would have already been taken before you get to see the book. The key here is to look for expired listings that didn’t get converted to a deal.

Another good way to get a property, that is a good real estate investment, is to look for foreclosures by banks/ VA/ FHA or to visit public auctions. You can generally get a good deal here. Divorce settlements are another good real estate investment opportunity.

So, real estate investment is really about finding good deals. And finding good deals does take some effort

So, getting back to my suggestion of developing a childlike attitude, as an experiment, I want you to read this article with childlike enthusiasm. Think of no option except this “real estate investing can work for you” because it can – if you apply some proven principles and strategies. As we “grow-up” we tend to lose that childlike sense of awe and wonder, the sense that anything is possible. We start over analyzing and thinking too much and we label that as maturity. In my opinion taking action always outweighs overanalyzing. The right combination of knowledge and action can deliver tremendous results for you no matter what it is you’re trying to achieve. On that note, I want to tell you about my first real estate deal, and I’ll say right upfront that one of the reasons it worked was because I never thought that it wasn’t going to. My youth and inexperience allowed me to keep focused on winning and nothing else. If I’d been older and overanalyze the situation, I may never have done it.

Here’s the story.

I was in my late teens and I was flat broke. There was an apartment house in my town that had once been a decent place, but the owners and let the wrong tenants in and the place began to deteriorate. Soon there were broken down cars in the yard, garbage piled in the hallways, a broken front door, and some busted windows. This apartment house was for sale, but its horrible appearance meant that no bank was going to give anyone a loan to buy it. The worst of its features was an eight-foot tall front porch that was about ready to collapse! It wouldn’t have been able to get a certificate of occupancy, and in most cases, you can close on a piece of property unless a certificate of occupancy exists. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, a certificate of occupancy ensures that the property is livableand this place wasn’t!

After some negotiations with the sellers on the price, I told them that I’d like 45 days to clean the place up, but then they would have to sell it to me. To keep them from selling it to anybody else, I told him I was going to give them a tiny little down payment. I also said that in 45 days I would start pursuing a bank loan, and then I wanted 60 days from that point to close on the property. I asked for a lot. I didn’t know any better. Guess what? The seller agreed! But here’s the scary part that I wouldn’t suggest anyone else do. Once the seller and I had a deal, I immediately went to work on the place before even knowing whether I could get a bank loan. I figured cleaning the place up was my first priority because I thought “the bank will look at the place before make it pretty, and I will never get the loan.” So I blindly put my heart, and soul, and sweat equity, into cleaning that place up. I got creative too, remember I was broke! I got rid of the junk in the front yard by calling a guy who would agree to take everything away for free so he could sell it for scrap. Then I got together with some friends and hired the cheapest laborer’s I could find. Together, we fixed all the broken windows, the front door – - and the porch. A contract with the owners allowed me to evict some of the worst tenants, so I got rid of the ones who are unwilling to be part of the massive cleanup. We planted flowers across the front, mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges, and painted the front of the building.

Then we went inside and painted the hallway and cleaned up couple of the apartments that we evicted people from. They were nice apartments; they just needed to be cleaned. In 45 days, the building looked gorgeous. Then I went to the bank and was fortunate enough to get a loan. In fact, I get a loan for 100% of the money I needed because the property appraised for much more money than I was buying it for. Wow! Success!

I kept that apartment house for many years and each month I enjoyed great positive cash flow from it. Then I sold it during the peak cycle and made a wonderful profit. What a great learning experience and what a great sense of accomplishment I felt. To this day, I can remember standing on the front lawn, looking at the apartment house after I purchased the property, and feeling a sense of accomplishment that came from knowing I did everything I said it was going to do.

Now I don’t suggest you rush into your first deal like I did. But looking back, I was so aggressive, because I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. There was no “what if” option only a “when”. Hey, if a nave kid who came from no money, had no mentors and never went to college can do it. You can to. You just have to get the right knowledge take the right action. Those are the two little known secrets that will allow you to realize your dreams. Your first deal could just be weeks away!

Think about the amazing amount of junk you have accumulated during your years of living in the house. Buyers who come to see the home don’t want to see clutter. They will have a difficult time seeing past this and imagining themselves living here. Sort through everything you have to distinguish the old from the new. If you don’t use it and it hasn’t any monetary value, the best thing to do is to throw it out. Make sure your kitchen counter is clean and if necessary place essential items in a box in a closet. Try not to have any knickknacks around the house. You can think of it as preliminary packing because you will have to pack it all up anyway when you sell the home.

Buyers will look in closets and open cabinet doors. You should try to have the things inside arranged neatly. When buyers see that you are organized they will also have the feeling that they won’t have much cleaning to do after you move out and they take possession of the home. If you know that you have too much furniture in some rooms but you don’t have anywhere to store it, you can rent a storage unit. Then you have the furniture ready for another place when you do sell. You can also have a flea market and sell off some of your used furniture especially if you plan to move to a smaller property where you will have even less space.

If there are any window coverings that you want to keep, remove them before you show the house. When a buyer looks through the home, if there are window coverings, they will be included in the sale. So if you remove them first, the buyer will not insist on them being part of the sale agreement. This also includes such things as removable rugs on the floor or a fireplace.

The next step in making sure your house is ready to put on the market is to make any necessary repairs that may turn off potential buyers. This includes replacing any cracked or broken tiles, making sure any holes in the walls are repaired properly, there are no leaky faucets or cabinet doors that don’t close properly. Neutral colors work best because the dcor you choose may not be in the same taste as the buyer. You can repaint the walls a neutral color. Remember that what was in fashion when you moved into the home may not still be in fashion now, such as flowery wallpaper. It doesn’t cost a lot of money to remove any wallpaper and paint the walls.

The house must be sparkling clean before potential buyers come to call. Prepare a checklist of things you need to do and then check them off when they are completed. Wash the windows, dust all the furniture, wash the floors, make sure there are fresh towels in the bathroom and that the beds are made. You should not have any clothing lying around the bedrooms. Put everything in the drawers or hang it in the closet so that the rooms look neat and tidy.

Once you’ve carefully scrutinized, repaired and cleaned the interior of the home, then its time to tackle the exterior. Make sure that all the doors open and close properly and that the outside of the home is clean and tidy. If there is any peeling paint on the windowsills, scrape it off and repaint. Trim the brush or hedge around the lawn and make sure the lawn is mowed.

1. Use an agent, and a good one at that. Yes I know we have all seen and heard bad tales of duff agents disappearing to Bangkok with all the rent money, but believe me, these crooked agents are few and far between. Yes an agent will cost you money, but who works for nothing? You can expect to pay anywhere between 7.5% and 15% of the gross rental in agent’s fees, but good agents invariably earn that money. If you don’t use an agent how are you going to carry out a credit check? You can always ask the agent to see the references too, why not? And can you be confident in the tenancy agreement you use. An agent’s agreement will be tried and tested and usually bang up to date. And how long is it going to take you to let the house yourself? Good agents always have a register of potential tenants readily to hand, and even if they don’t have the perfect one for you, they will locate you a tenant quicker than you could do it yourself. If they let the property a month earlier than you could, and the rental was 1,000 per month, think how much of their fees they have already covered by doing so. An agent also acts as a buffer between the two parties and that is invaluable. If you have no agent and two weeks after the let commences and there is a burst pipe, the tenant will ring you up at work, or on holiday and demand that you come and fix it. You could be several hundred miles away; you could be on the other side of the earth. An agent will field those calls for you. Believe me, a good agent will pay for their fees quite comfortably over the course of a year. So ask around about who is good and who is not. Quiz the agent too until you are satisfied that they are the correct person for you.

2. If you can empty the house of furniture, then do so. Why? Well for a start any furniture containing foam should be of recent manufacture and contain the necessary safety marks. Secondly if the expensive TV you have included in the let goes on the blink two weeks later, you are obliged to replace it with a set of equal value. The same applies with all appliances. Many tenants have their own anyway, so let them use theirs, and when they go wrong, the tenant bears the cost of repair or replacement and not you. Good furniture has a habit of getting marked and broken too, so take your priceless possessions out of the house.

3. Check all safety aspects, especially for gas and electricity. Make sure everything is in prime working order and that you possess the necessary safety certificates where required. The last thing you would want is a tenant gassed to death in their beds within the first month of the let, or any time come to that! You would be responsible, and you could end up in prison, and who could argue with that? So never economise on safety issues, and check that everything is just as it should be.

4. When you get the house back don’t expect it to come back as it was when you let it. Why? Because if a tenant is in that house for two or three years there is bound to be some wear and tear. Just as if you were living there yourself. You must expect some wear and tear on carpets for example, so be realistic and budget for a redecorating job and probably replacement carpets too. Some people fancifully imagine that the tenant will do all that for them, at their expense. It does happen, about once in a blue moon, so be realistic and understand that you might need to spend a little money to return the property to how you would like it.

5. Budget for taxes. I cannot tell you whether there will be any tax payable on your collected rent because I don’t know where you live and what laws apply to you, but as a norm imagine the rental income may be taxable at 25%. Imagine you had a let at 1,000 a month and the let ran on for three years. That’s 36,000 gross rental, that could produce as much as a 9,000 tax bill at the end of it all. So don’t go off on world tours spending every last bean until you have checked out the tax position as it applies to you, in your territory in your time. It is normal for some tax to be paid on some part of that rental money, so be aware of it, and budget for it, and you won’t have a nasty surprise waiting for you at the end of it all.

You should note that with term life insurance that no payout is made is you are still alive when the policy reaches the end of its term.

Some people will take out the cover to run until they reach retirement age, when their mortgage will be paid off or when their children have completed their education and are not financially dependent on them. How long the term of the policy will be is down the individuals’ own needs and circumstances.

When calculating the sum insured, this will be based on the amount your loved ones would need in order to clear any outstanding debts or to replace your income, should you die. To give you an idea of how much life cover you may need, multiply your annual income by roughly 10. This amount may be the bare minimum amount that you need.

Where to buy the cover?

Using the internet can be a quick and easy way of finding life cover. Term life insurance can be found online with a website specialising in offering comparisons from various insurance providers and this is often the cheapest way to take out your policy. You can compare not only the cost of the insurance but also what the different policy features and benefits.

There are certain things you need to consider when looking for cheap life insurance cover, and that is how you can influence the premium. Firstly, by using a specialist broker, you can get access to a wide range of insurers, some of who may offer special web only deals. So, knowing where to get a cheap deal is the first influencing factor.

If you are a smoker then your policy will often cost you more. Therefore stop smoking for at least 12 months before applying for your cover and you could see a reduction in the cost when getting quotes.

The same can apply to those who enjoy drink, so cut down or stop

If you are aged in the fifty plus age group then look for companies who offer plans tailored specifically for this age group. There are some low cost deals available and a specialist broker will search for the cheapest quotes on your behalf.

Of course, being fit and in the best of health is the way to obtain the biggest savings on your premiums for life cover. The more exercise you get and the nearer you are to your target weight then the healthier you will be and the less chance of you getting ill.

Do note that taking on a joint policy (ie for yourself and your partner) can often work out cheaper when you take them out together. However, the insurance will only pay out once.

There are many insurance companies out there so when taking out something as important as term life insurance it is essential to choose an ethical insurance provider that is not going to disappear overnight. Your broker will help you find the right one.

In summary, term life cover would allow the ones you leave behind to be able to meet financial commitments which you probably took care of, without them having to struggle or worry about where to get the money when bills arrive.