By Tim Blackwell

A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. But when it comes to photography in multifamily, a shot featuring the property shouldn’t be that verbose. The right picture with the right angle, the right composition and the right lighting should send the very concise message to prospective renters that this is the place to be.

By Elizabeth Millar of AppFolio, Inc.

A great tenant is gold. You know that they’ll respect your property, keep you informed as ears on the ground, and most importantly, pay rent…on time! As great as it would be to have all renters be just like this, it doesn’t always happen. Have you ever signed a new tenant thinking everything is going to be great, but shortly after you hand over the keys you realize that it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows?

By Kay Properties and Investments, LLC

Delaware statutory trusts offer a number of potential advantages to investors. Used correctly, they can be an effective tool for building and preserving wealth. This article discusses a handful of the potential advantages that are available to investors using DSTs for their 1031 exchange. Please remember that Delaware Statutory Trusts also have a number of disadvantages that investors should consider as well.

by Guy Lyman, RealPage, Inc.

Solid occupancy numbers often blind senior living property managers to a glaring problem: the cost of keeping those units full.

Add up what you’re spending on third-party lead sources along with internal resources devoted to working leads and you’d probably be shocked at your cost per lease. The good news is that forward-thinking senior property managers are slashing this cost dramatically by simply taking full advantage of marketing tools that have been around for a while now.

By Ryan McMaken, Mises Institute

The LA Times recently reminded its readers that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. 

Specifically, when using the Census Bureau’s most recent “Supplemental Poverty Measure” (SPM), California clocks in with a poverty rate of 20 percent, which places it as worst in the nation.

To be sure, California is running quite closely with Florida and Louisiana, but we can certainly say that California is a top contender when it comes to poverty.

This continues to be something of a black eye for California politicians who imagine themselves to be the enlightened elite of North America. The fact that one in five Californians is below this poverty line doesn’t exactly lend itself to crowing about the state’s success in its various wars on poverty.

Many conservative sites have seized on the information to say “I told you so” and claim this shows that “blue-state” policies fail. One should be careful with this, of course, since there are plenty of red states in the top ten as well.

By Rob Stephens

Interested in renting out your yurt, tiny house or couch? Now there are several options homeowners have to make extra income. For those looking to purchase a second home, often called a vacation rental home, renting out to vacationers is a great way to afford purchasing an additional property. Not to mention, for a growing number of travelers, renting a private home is the only way to go and typically offers more choices, comfort and privacy than hotels, and often cost less as well.

There’s no question that the vacation rental business is booming. In the United States alone, revenue in this market is approaching $18 million, with a projected annual growth rate of 6.6 percent. That makes operating a short-term vacation rental an extremely attractive option for generating extra income.

While there are plenty of opportunities in the vacation rental business, there also are plenty of questions about how to succeed. If you’re thinking about investing in a vacation rental property (or renting out property you already own), here are the top four questions to ask before you purchase:

By Chay Lapin, Senior Vice President, Kay Properties & Investments

Recently a client in a 1031 Exchange with $4,000,000 of equity was working with another registered representative and talking to a sponsor directly. In talking with Kay Properties and Investments, they learned that we specialize in DST 1031 Exchanges and that we have access to a variety of DST properties from many DST sponsor companies throughout the industry.

After we hosted the family at our Los Angeles Headquarters and they had a chance to visit with our team, we learned more about their situation.

The building they were selling was debt free. In this scenario, the client could go into DSTs that are debt free with no mortgage. This means that these DST properties could never be foreclosed on by a lender and do not carry the risk of mortgage maturity and refinancing.

By Craig P. Alexander

Among the many burdens we place on military families, there’s frequent re-location from one military duty station to another – one year you’re in North Carolina, the next in Southern California or Norfolk, Virginia or even Germany or Japan. These are not combat zones but some of the places the military send both the military member and his or her spouse and family. Part of that is requiring children of a military family to pack up and move their lives, including their ongoing education, to another state or even nation.

By Kathy Fettke, Co-Authored by Donna Behrens

Landlords and investors may feel the sting of lower cap rates in 2018. We’ve been seeing price appreciation and rent growth year after year during the economic recovery, but the economy is shifting gears and returns are shrinking. Cap rates are expected to run flat this year, or fall somewhat, depending on other economic pressures, like interest rates.

If you are a real estate investor, you know that cap rates are an important valuation tool. They can help you determine the value of a property before you buy it, and they can tell you what kind of returns on investment you are getting as you move forward.