Real Estate Investing Articles
Read our thoughts on the industry and how you can work toward achieving permanent wealth through multifamily apartment investing.
Bonus Depreciation – Dramatically Cut Your Taxes With Real Estate
Even some of the most seasoned apartment investors have never heard of bonus depreciation. Why would they?...
Accredited Investor Defined
“Learn the history, definition, and confusion behind what makes someone an accredited investor.” So you want to invest in private placements? Welcome to the club! With more than a trillion dollars worth of investment...
Understanding Regulation D
If you’re an accredited investor interested in private placements, then you should get comfortable with and have an understanding of Regulation D of the securities code. Now if you’re like most people, brushing up on securities law...
Real Estate Due Diligence: A 7 Step Process
Real estate due diligence is essential, as every day in the United States commercial real estate changes hands. Brokerage firms handle the vast majority of these transactions. For a fee, these sales and marketing professionals create...
Using Rental Property Depreciation To Reduce Your Tax Burden
Whether you’re a seasoned apartment investor or just starting out, you really need to know about rental property depreciation. Clearly, the tax advantages inherent in real estate are substantial. And the cornerstone of those benefits...
Multifamily Financing – A Primer
Unless you hit the lottery or you’re sitting on a massive hoard of cash, you’re going to need commercial multifamily financing to buy properties. As a private multifamily real estate acquisitions and asset management firm we do that,...
How To Be Successful In Real Estate
How to be successful in real estate is a question that millions of would-be investors ponder. The U.S. real estate industry is worth trillions of dollars. And many would love to tap into its wealth building potential. But being a real...
Real Estate Syndication Best Practices
Winston Churchill once described Russia as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. For some investors, the subject of real estate syndication is equally perplexing. While Churchill’s description of Russia remains apropos...
Investing In Apartment Buildings – 3 Metrics You Need To Know
Most people in the United States fall into one of two categories; homeowner or renter. The more people who choose to rent, the more demand there is for apartments. That demand is vitally important to you if you’re investing in...
Why Invest In Real Estate – Top 5 Reasons
Why invest in real estate? As a multitrillion dollar industry and the third largest asset class in the United States, commercial real estate has always been a viable option for investors. However, over the last several years we have...
Top 10 Real Estate Investing Tips
Top 10 real estate investing tips from 37th Parallel Properties. When it comes to long-term investing, real estate regularly ranks as the number one option for adults in the United States. In fact, 34 percent of Americans consider real...
Six Fundamentals Of Supply And Demand That Multifamily Investors Shouldn’t Miss
This article was authored and published for the Forbes Real Estate Council In an ever-changing world, it can be hard to keep the fundamentals of real estate investing in focus as new research and information are made available at a...
Optimizing Your Apartment Investment
Professional commercial real estate investors consider apartments their businesses, and that the best way to optimize their business performance is through NOI (Net Operating Income) optimization. There are three principal avenues to...
New Real Estate Tax Laws: What Investors Need To Know
Investors want to know if the new real estate tax laws will help or hurt them. In short, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 will be a boon to the industry. But to understand why, we need context around the U.S. tax code before we get...
Apartment Investing – How To Get Started With 37th Parallel Properties
Clearly, apartment investing appeals to you. Who could blame you? After all, commercial multifamily real estate has the best long-term Sharpe Ratio (risk-adjusted return) of any other major asset class. Simply put, investing in...
The Best Tax Free Investments for a Tax Free Retirement
“I want tax free investments and a tax free retirement.” That is the response I hear over and over again when I speak with investors about what they want from their investments. In fact, questions about taxes and the tax advantaged...
Income Investing – Higher Yield In A Low Yield Environment
Yield or income investing is a critical component of my investment plan. Real estate investors call it cash flow. We know that if we create enough stable streams of passive income, we become financially free. With that said, growth is...
Financial Freedom: Embracing Passive Income Investing
Say the words financial freedom and different things come to different people’s minds. For some, financial freedom is having a good job that pays them more money than they need to live on each month. With their excess they can buy...
Lease Agreement (Rental Agreement) In Pro Landlord States
The laws surrounding the lease agreement, also known as the rental agreement, is what makes up a state’s landlord tenant laws and pro landlord states are those with laws favorable to landlords. In an ideal world oil would mix with...
Apartment Buildings & Rental Demand – Houses Are Too Expensive
As multifamily real estate experts, we keep a close eye on housing, homeownership, whether or not houses are too expensive and rental demand for apartment buildings. This is important because there is a clear relationship between the...
Passive Income from Commercial Multifamily Real Estate
Passive ownership of commercial multifamily real estate can be a great way to create stable streams of passive income. What many people don’t realize is that they can invest in multifamily real estate either actively or passively. For...
Commercial Multifamily Real Estate – Correlation and Diversification
Correlation and diversification in the multifamily sector As a private commercial multifamily real estate acquisitions and asset management company, many investors turn to us for portfolio diversification because of our return model...
Real Estate Without Liability – Investing in Commercial Multifamily
Real estate without liability describes commercial multifamily real estate’s inherent ability to eliminate personal liability for the investors. The dictionary defines liability as, “the state of being responsible for something,...
Commercial Multifamily Real Estate: Consistent Long-term Performance
The long-term performance of commercial multifamily real estate makes it a compelling asset class for many investors. If I could sum up that performance in two words, it would be consistent performance. Consistency is valued in so many...
Commercial Multifamily Real Estate – an Oasis of Lower Volatility Investing
Unlike investing in the stock market, direct ownership of commercial multifamily real estate is a low volatility asset class. The dictionary defines volatility as the liability to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the...
Commercial Multifamily Real Estate – Significantly Less Risk Than The Stock Market
Saying that direct ownership in high-quality commercial multifamily real estate has less risk than the stock market is like saying that broccoli is better for you than Twinkies or water is better for you than soda. It just is…the...
The 4 Biggest Tax Benefits of Real Estate Investing
The tax benefits of real estate investing make it one of the most attractive places to park your money, even during a recession. Individually, these tax benefits are powerful tools that dramatically increase the value of real estate...
Multifamily – An Investment in the Basic Need of Shelter
When it comes to the study of millionaires in this country, Dr. Thomas Stanley collected the definitive body of research. His life’s study is summarized in the book the “Millionaire Next Door.” In it, he found several commonalities...
Freddie Mac Predicts A Bright Outlook for Apartment Investors
Freddie Mac is a major player in commercial multifamily lending. The GSE (Government Sponsored Enterprise) has more than $80 billion in capital tied to multifamily investments in just the last 5 years. Obviously, they spend a lot of...
How to 1031 Exchange into Commercial Multifamily Properties
I’ve been in discussions with a few of you regarding 1031 Exchange options and how you can transfer out of non-performing or headache inducing residential properties into one or more of our stable multifamily investments. I’m guessing...
3 Housing Trends in 2014…and What They Mean for Multifamily Investors
As apartment investors we are constantly looking at the relevant data and trends which impact our performance. In this article we look at a few key trends in the residential housing space and its impact on multifamily. The 2013 US...
Why Rising Home Prices and Boomerang Kids are Good News
Recent economic data is showing positive trends for apartment investors. Home Prices and More Jobs Improve Multifamily Outlook Rising home prices are good news for homeowners looking to sell, but for those looking to purchase, this...
18 Ways You Can Invest in Multifamily Apartments
I talk to prospective investors all the time. One question that often comes up relates to the various ways one can invest in multifamily apartments. Hey, if twenty raise their hands and ask, you know that there are a ton more wondering...
How AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) Affects Multifamily Investors
Disclaimer! I am not a tax professional nor do I claim to be. The commentary and opinion expressed in this article are to give you a baseline understanding of the issue and ways in which we think about it as active commercial real...
Multifamily Continues Strong Performance
Here is the latest in economic and multifamily trends: Multifamily Continues Strong Performance A recent survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers highlights strong performance in the commercial multifamily sector and a positive outlook for...
How Echo Boomers Will Drive Multifamily’s Next Decade
Multifamily apartment growth is driven by demographic trends. The Echo Boomers are the second largest generation in US history and in the prime renting age. Yet, in a recent Harvard study, Echo Boomers (also known as Generation Y or...
How Inflation is Consuming Your Stock Investments
Every year, inflation eats away at your portfolio. Inflation is averaging 2.5% a year for the past decade and a half. Your portfolio must have grown almost 30% in the same time period – just to keep it’s true value. With the...
Finding the Perfect Apartment Project
In recent weeks, we have walked through the ideal criteria for a multifamily market, as well as the attributes of the most desirable submarkets. But even after you have narrowed your search to the most ideal location, you need to...
How Neighborhoods Impact a Multifamily Investment
In our last article, we reviewed the 4 crucial features of a stable multifamily market. But even when you have found a market with strong employment and population growth, you need to dig deeper and ensure you are investing in the...
5 Features of Every Great Multifamily Market
The Market Always Wins. Always. You can invest in a great looking property run by an excellent management team, but if that asset is in a bad market, you will at best tread water. More often than not, you will lose money. While the...
From Poverty to Commercial Real Estate to Sports Empire?
Jerry Buss, the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, died earlier this week after a lengthy bout with cancer. Many will focus on Dr. Buss’s success as a sports team owner. But, the career that led to his well-earned fame is worth a longer...
The 4 Multifamily Trends that Will Make You Wealthy
A recent Harvard University study released highly promising information for commercial multifamily investors. Four key trends are driving the multifamily sector to historic levels and investors are receiving superb returns as a result....
How to Make an Extra 20% or More on Every Transaction
When T.J. Starker took on the IRS in the late 1970’s, he re-defined how investors could manage their portfolios and permanently changed the core strategies of commercial real estate investors. The resulting tax code modifications,...
Investor Intelligence – Foreclosures Stabilizing
Foreclosures Stabilizing At its peak in 2010, more than 14% of all mortgages were in some form of delinquency or foreclosure. Many feared these distressed properties would be sold at steep discounts by desperate lenders and...
Investor Intelligence – The Shrinking Shadow
The Shrinking Shadow During its peak in 2010, more than 14% of all home mortgages were in “Shadow Inventory,” homes that were either delinquent in their mortgage payment (over 10% of all mortgages in Q1 2010) or at some...
The New American Dream
The one thing you should never do if you want to retire is…..invest in the stock market. The American Dream is going away and it is not coming back anytime soon. When it does return, it is likely we will not recognize it. For...
Wall Street’s Lost Decade
A Decade of Negative Returns Last week, the S&P 500 Index made news by hitting a 4 year high. While Wall Street shamelessly hyped this grand achievement, here is the reality: At a time when tens of millions of Americans are nearing...
Apartment Investing Growing Globally & Nationally
Successful apartment investors know it is critical to monitor the prevailing real estate trends. And, unlike the volatile equities market, the trends that affect apartment investing are far-reaching and slow moving – giving the...
New Kids on the Block
The Other Side of the Coin If we had a nickel for every article written about the Baby Boomer generation, we would most likely be living in the Caribbean sipping umbrella drinks and thinking about an afternoon nap. The ubiquitous...
Texas Triangle Presents a Historic Opportunity
Not All Lists are Created Equal If you want to be successful apartment investor, selecting the right market is one of the most crucial decisions you will make as you manage your portfolio. Each year, we see just about every major...
A Tale of Two Storms – Multifamily Investing
The Wall Street Thrill Ride The last few weeks have been the worst kind of roller coaster for an investor with money in the stock market. Wall Street is seeing several factors influence trading and none of them are good. Debt crises...
Baby Boomer’s Boon on Apartment Investing
The most significant factor for apartment investors is the Baby Boomer’s move from homeownership to renting. 2011 is the 65th birthday for the Baby Boomers as they continue to impact every facet of America’s economics. Boomers...
2 Pillars of Apartment Investment Value
Retaining and increasing the value of your apartment investment is fundamental to your long term survival. It is Warren Buffet’s number 1 rule: “First rule of investing..Don’t lose money” To follow that rule...
Higher Down Payments Push People to Multifamily Apartment Living
As housing prices drop, mortgage lenders are requiring larger down payments on homes. Since the housing bust, the down payments demanded by banks to buy homes has ballooned, forcing many people to rethink what they can afford and...
The 3 Most Crucial Investment Diversification Tests
Apartment investing diversification Diversification and the goal of having a diversified portfolio in general is an overly abused concept. It is an ideal made popular through a strong push by the equity investment, investment...
3 Critically Important Demographic Trends You Need to Know
Apartment Investing is a the most proven building block for developing permanent wealth. With sound market analysis and strong property and asset managers you can rest assured that your investment will: Maintain its value Increase in...
Investment Property and Permanent Wealth
Investment Property and developing Permanent Wealth are a key parts of the 37th Parallel Properties investment philosophy and approach. It is a slightly different concept than just net worth, and it is worth understanding the...
Real Estate Investing – 10 Common Mistakes of New Real Estate Investors
Real Estate Investing is the greatest wealth builder in history, but it requires a focused plan, determined effort and time. And, like all endeavors, it won’t always go as planned. “I have not failed. I’ve just found...
Real Estate Investing Lessons from Jason Bourne
Have you ever seen the movie “Bourne Identity” with Matt Damon? If not, you should. Great movie. Or better yet, read the book by Robert Ludlum. Now, there’s a particular scene in the movie though I want to talk about...
Wall Street’s Perspective on The Real Estate Sector
A recent summit in Wall Street has provided some interesting insight into what is going on in the Real Estate sector, both here and globally, and predicts what investors can expect in the next 12-24 months. At this summit, David Wyss,...
Six Facts Why Apartment Investors Should Be Optimistic
Winning in Real Estate investing requires that you follow two simple rules: 1) Understand which asset classes have the best risk/reward ratio. 2) Invest in the best locations for your asset class and strategy. In this article,...
How to Get Rich in Real Estate: Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome
Shiny Object Syndrome – How it can derail your investment strategy and how to avoid it. In our daily conversations with investors inside and outside of our community we find certain consistent and repeated trends. One of the...
Are You an Investor or a Gambler?
3 Ways to Tell if You are an Investor or a Gambler Real estate investing is a wonderfully lucrative, empowering and life changing venture. But it needs to be approached with the right mindset if you want to realize success. We have...
Cash Flow Real Estate Investing: How CAPT can make you rich
Why Real Estate Investing for Cash Flow is Your Safest Bet I’ve been accused on more than occasion of using too many acronyms. And more often than not it’s a fair accusation! You can blame it on a military father or too...