Many motivated individuals use the new year as a time to hit reset and establish goals for different areas of their life. Paula and I do the same in our lives and one area we consider each year is our goals for investing. Today, we will give you four questions to ponder that will help you to make the investing goals that fit best for you and your family.
1. Do you want to be active or passive?
I have had new investors ask me if they should put their investment money towards a small property or a large investment where they can be passive. The answer to this question is different for each person but ultimately comes down to management. Who will manage the smaller property when there is maintenance to be completed or a challenging tenant to deal with? For some, the idea of being a landlord is not frightening but for others passive investing can provide an alternative way to invest without having to deal with these obstacles.
2. What asset class of real estate will you invest in?
This might be the most challenging question for a new real estate investor. Scan through a few articles or listen to a few podcasts and you will see that investors are making returns with all types of real estate. While investors have proven that most any type of real estate can produce returns, we at Apogee like commercial real estate because of the ability to force appreciation and because of the tax benefits it offers. Additionally, we focus on multifamily because it provides for a basic need that will always exist to matter what happens in the economy.
3. Are you looking for cash flow or appreciation
While most real estate investments have both a cash flow and appreciation component to them, there are certainly some that are much stronger in one than the other. Investors looking to live off of their investments will often choose a cash flow heavy investment perhaps with a large preferred return. Other investors, who are looking to build their wealth, choose to focus on asset in strong markets that will appreciate more even if the cash flow they return isn't as high.
4. Does your chosen asset offer tax benefits?
Another one of the advantages to real estate in general and particularly commercial real estate are the tax benefits it offers. Investors can leverage those benefits to offset taxes from other passive income sources thereby reducing their overall income tax which allows them to invest even more. While some newer investors see tax benefits as icing on the cake, a savvy investor will consider the tax benefits offered on a given investment against their current financial situation in order to pay the least taxes possible.
There are many important considerations when evaluating a multifamily deal and we make it our mission to careful vet each of these items. If you would like to learn more about passively investing in multifamily, please check out our free ebook "Achieving Financial Freedom Through Multifamily Investing."
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