Real Estate Investing - The Marvel Of Home Depot And Lowes

Repairing a rental home (or your own home) use to require running down to the local hardware store or to the nearby building supply house. After several stops around town, you found everything you needed to solve your maintenance problem.

If you are a fixer upper or tenant landlord today, you now have the marvel of Home Depot and Lowe's!

Now we have one-stop shopping for virtually everything needed at one of these two stores.

But more than that efficient feature for saving time (and often cost), you can get instruction for repairs from either experienced employees and/or special classes of instruction. If you don't know how to perform the job, you will often find it easier than you imagined. I had never laid any tile, until I discovered that an experienced tile-layer-turned-Home Depot-employee showed me how easy it is. And I found I could get my tile cut free at the store to fit those difficult spots around the tub faucets.

And add to these attractive store features the ease of acquiring commercial and consumer credit, often with promotions of $299 or more purchases at 0% interest for 6 months or more.

I was in Phoenix many years ago when I visited my first Home Depot. It was love at first sight. I had always wanted good quality tools fit for the job at hand at discount prices, and what I saw was a dream come true. I walked that store in amazement as I saw row after row of ceiling-high supplies of every sort of tool and construction material imaginable. It was an awesome experience, and I have never lost that euphoria in walking into a Home Depot or Lowe's. I have become increasingly appreciative over the years at this luxury of shopping at these two stores. Shopping is time-saving, and I leave it to Home Depot and Lowe's to do the research on discovering which suppliers manufacture the best tools, equipment and supplies for the job at hand.

Even if you are a real estate investor who does NONE of your own labor, these stores are a great place to learn how a job should be done right.

But if you perform the repair work on your own properties, you can find the materials and instruction at Home Depot and Lowe's.

It seems Home Depot and Lowe's are gonna slug it out for the predominant position in the marketplace. In some areas, when one new store is opened, the other store buys the lot next door for its own new location. America loves these two competitive stores. Some individual stores do a million dollars of business a week. I find both stores are excellent sources for the best tools and materials I've ever found. And it's hard to beat their prices.

Home Depot and Lowe's fill a void for real estate investors with convenience, pricing, instruction and availability.

Phil Speer, Ph.D., started his real estate investing career 25 years ago. Without the availability of credit and using only a $10 bill, he purchased $1 million in properties in his first year, and had accumulated $10 million in properties by his fourth year. http://www.CashinHouses.com/ He was featured in a Wall St.Journal editorial as most successful investor in the Nothing Down Real Estate Movement, and was honored with a Caribbean cruise as top investor of the year. In his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, he has been a businessman and Human Resources Consultant for 30 years. He is an author, speaker and seminar director.

To learn how to profit in real estate investing, even without cash or credit, read his report at http://www.General-RealEstate.com/business/flipping.html/ Subscription is free to his Fix-up Ezine. He and other contributing authors provide free articles and resources on real estate investing at his online "Academy of Advanced Real Estate Investing Techniques" at http://www.AAREIT.com/

The talk show host pays $12 million for the 4,088-square-foot house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. The ocean-view home sits on 1.26 bluff-top acres with beach access.

In one of the more talked-about transactions in town, actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have sold their Malibu beach house to daytime host and comedian Ellen De Generes for $12 million.

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom house built in 1920 for industrialist James Wigmore lists for $2,875,000.

A decorative cast stone entrance opens to this restored Spanish Colonial Revival-style house in Pasadena's South Orange Grove area. Built in 1920 for industrialist James Wigmore, the house retains such original details as coffered wood ceilings and arched doorways.

They don't believe they can sell their property for what it's worth, so they're spending money on making their homes more comfortable.

Do you fit any of these descriptions?

A biennial research report by the National Assn. of Realtors indicates that a handful of real estate agents and brokers and their clients either don't know the law or don't care to follow it.

When it comes to lawsuits, real estate agents and brokers tangle mostly among themselves.

The president aims to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages.

 

The White House hopes to help millions of homeowners lower their monthly mortgage bill with a $5 billion to $10 billion plan to set up a streamlined refinancing program for people who are current on their payments.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 large U.S. cities fell 1.3% in November from October as foreclosures continue to drag down the housing market.

Three straight months of home-price declines in the biggest U.S. cities showed that foreclosures remain a significant drag on a housing market that is entering its fifth year of deterioration.

L.A. Clipper Chris Paul may be quick down the court, but he moves pretty fast when it comes to buying multimillion-dollar real estate too.

Karen Mena managed to get a foreclosure on her San Bernardino home rescinded. But she continues to negotiate with Bank of America over loan terms and could still lose the house.

Foreclosure commonly represents the end of a struggle. A borrower can't pay a mortgage, loses a home and moves on.

A.F. Leicht designed quirky Spanish Revival houses in Los Angeles as well as evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson's landmark Angelus Temple. His interiors often had irregular-shaped or curved walls, rooms or hallways. This Los Feliz villa, with rounded rooms, fancifully shaped living room French doors and elliptical master bathroom, captures his signature style.