In my travels, last week, I saw several t-shirts in a souvenir shop that had the phrase “rush slowly” on them. It seemed to be the perfect combination of two phrases that dominate the thinking in the real estate world, ...

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HomeUnion, an online real estate investment management firm, has announced that Charlotte placed in the top 10 of single-family rental markets when ranked by overall cap rates. Cap rates are the relationship between an investment property’s net operating income (rent ...

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You’ll find endless debate in real estate circles about whether you should buy houses, mobile home parks, apartment buildings, raw land, or commercial buildings.  It’s impossible to say that every person should concentrate on one or the other, but I ...

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Dear Mr. Berko: We have a $100,000 certificate of deposit, yielding 1.5 percent, coming due this month. Rather than roll it over into another CD, my wife and I decided to ask you to recommend 10 stocks (we will invest ...

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Baby Boomers, coming upon their retirement years, like my husband and I were a few years ago, have been discovering a powerful secret: that “self-directed” IRA custodians are an excellent way to invest in real estate and other assets and ...

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Dear Readers: Over the past seven months, I’ve received several dozen questions about a relatively new retirement product called a qualified longevity annuity contract. Though I’m not an annuity aficionado, I think this annuity may be an impressive product. Like ...

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“When it comes to investment, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.  Somehow, we are prone to think the grass is greener in the other fellow’s yard … The net result of this is that, while the grass may indeed ...

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I have known about Parkinson’s Law long before I studied it.  In college I always had too much on my plate between a grueling football schedule and difficult classes. Yet, I almost always achieved my best grades during the busiest ...

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I first encountered Smaug the dragon when I read “The Hobbit” back in fifth grade. As I recently watched the movie, I couldn’t help but notice the huge, painful voids that were exposed by the language and actions of that dragon. ...

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For two weekends in a row, I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with some high-quality investors. During one of the conversations, it dawned on me that there is a major difference between a “problem” and ...

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