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In the process of having my loft conversion there were a few items which took me by surprise.

The largest shock, quite literally was the size of the steel which had to go into the house. I hadn’t really considered how the upstairs floor would be supported but it made sense as the architect described it to me that the floor was suspended and supported from above by steel girders. What I didn’t know at this time was the British Standard or Guidelines required the support to be capable of holding 4 people per square metre plus the weight of the roof, plus the floor and furniture etc etc.

Well, it turns out that my house is 11.9m across which is the maximum distance without having an internal load bearing wall. Add to that a 4.4m width. Even if you round the numbers down, I can have a party of 176 people on my top floor!

To add insult to injury the structural engineer also insisted on a smaller beam under the ridge. There is a steel construction bridge near me which has less metal. Car parks have fewer iron atoms than my house. In the event of a hurricane, I fully expect the first 170 neighbours to be sheltering at my house.

The second surprise for me was the ability for the guys to rip and replace walls. Everyone knows that internal walls are just stud and plaster, but the tradesmen working on my property looked at the problem as though they weren’t there. I’m sure it comes with experience, but it took a morning to remove a ceiling, a wall, 2 doors and slide in a staircase. I could lie in my bed and look straight up to the roof. The roof lights were not in place or it could have been an opportunity for a bit of star gazing.

It maybe the lazy person in me, but I’m surprised at how far it is from the top floor to the bottom of the house. Working from home involves a regular scoot down 23 stairs to get to the front door. Not so bad when it’s a new piece of electronics but a long trek back when it’s a door-to-door salesperson. Her indoors has the right idea. She just sends me a text message when my input is required.

The final surprise for me was simply how nice it is in those 3rd floor rooms. There is a zen-like quality to the natural light coming from above. The view across the rooftops is a completely different angle on the neighbourhood. When the rain falls on the roof lights (anything up to and including hurricane force), the result is a very soothing white noise. And finally, with the doors closed, you can’t hear the kids yelling on the ground floor.

In this article, I am going to tell you how you can make money with low rents; the two primary reasons why landlords keep their rents below market; and how you can profit handsomely because of it.

I am a value investor. What does that mean? That means I look for opportunities in the marketplace where I can buy a property that has a small problem, fix that problem and make a bunch of money because of it. In the market place, this is called “value add.”

If you want to maximize your return on your real estate investments, you should be buying a property that has a value add component.

One of my favorite value add components is buying a property that has low rents. Of course, when we buy a property with low rents, we are going to buy the property based on the actual cash flow of the property. Therefore, we are going to buy based on its actual numerical value.

I stress this because some brokers and sellers try to sell properties based on “pro-forma” numbers. If you swap the word “pro-forma” for the word pretend, they you will understand the value of these numbers.

With income properties, we always determine value based on actual cash flow. This is step one to making money with low rents.

The next step is to understand why those rents are low. When I say low, I mean they are not at the market rate, but below it. Typically, rents are kept low for two reasons.

The first reason is landlords are afraid to increase rents because they are afraid tenants will call and ask for repairs to be done to their properties.

This is crazy because if common repairs are not done on a regular basis, those repairs will get worse and will cost a lot more money to fix. The money to fix them could have come in the rent being brought to market.

Plus, the more wear and tear an apartment has, the lesser quality tenant you will get who will accept that type of living condition. Now not only do you have a property that has lost value because of needed repairs but also you have less quality tenants who will turn over more often, costing the owner lost rent from vacancies.

The second reason is landlords are afraid the tenants will move out if they raise the rents. Well, if you are taking care of your tenants like you should be, treating them like the gold that they are– let’s face it, your tenants are you business’ cash flow, and you’ve got to take care of that income stream– and you raise your rents to the market rate, your tenants will not leave.

Why won’t they leave? Because you are taking care of them properly and they won’t be able to get a better deal somewhere else with the same quality ownership.

So we scour the markets for owners who have these erroneous mindsets and buy their properties from them based on the current cash flow stream.

When we take over the property, we do an evaluation of the property. We make the necessary repairs, if any are needed. Sometimes there are some needed and sometimes there are not. Then we have the management company start raising the rents as the leases start to renew.

Since leases are typically a one-year term, and all lease contracts are transferred to the new owner, it takes a full year to raise all of the leases. But as the year goes by, your cash flow is getting higher and higher and more importantly, the value of the property is getting higher and higher. And, all you did was do what the previous owner should have done– do regular repairs on the property and raise the rents.

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Dave Lindahl offers a different point of view on real estate investing by showing you, through education and coaching, how to start making money from right where you are, and taught directly by him. Go to http://www.rementor.com/freebookoffer to discover how to unleash your real estate profits. Contact Dave at Creative Success Alliance.

The luxury market is the segment of the property market concerning homes approximately valued from one to twenty million Euros. This very wide range includes the best quality houses which can be found on the market. Several studies conducted on the average price of the properties belonging to this segment over a long-term period (ten to twenty years) point out that they are able to increase their value more than the properties of the mainstream segment (i.e. the houses below one million Euros). This characteristic makes them an interesting asset for people searching a safe way to invest their money.

Why luxury homes are able to maintain their value

The main reason why luxury homes maintain their value better than normal homes is that the offer of these properties is limited with respect to the demand and the demand is generally formed by international buyers who constitute quite a stable base. This also ensures that luxury homes are relatively easy to sell. The price of these homes should firstly reflect their quality and quality should be the first aspect to be considered by the investor. The quality of a home can be determined by many factors and they must be carefully evaluated before buying: the location is probably the first because all the other aspects are generally consequent to the location.

What it is meant for quality

Let me give you a couple of examples. A villa of ten rooms with garden, swimming pool and so on in a superb position overlooking the sea obviously has not the same value as the same villa built in an isolated hot place far from the sea and from the town centre. But nobody (probably) would build a luxury villa in a place which looks like a desert. An apartment of three rooms with frescoes in a palace dating back to XVII century in theory may have the same price of a ten rooms apartment in the periphery, but what would you prefer as an investment? XVII century palaces are rare and they are located only in the historical centres. This grants that they will continue to maintain their value. What I mean is that the best homes are in the best locations: the historical centres of the towns, the hills, the sea and the mountain resorts. Generally, this is a crucial point: when considering a property valued one or more million Euros, you should think to the features which preserve the value of the property (the location, the characteristics of the building) beyond the fashion, which may change.

Something more about the price

A price range between one and twenty million Euros may seem too wide. In fact, the lower end of this range is affected by the trend of the market more than the upper end. The average price demanded by the investors who search through the specialized international web sites is about three million. On the other end, one may ask why we put an upper limit to the price of this segment. The reason is that homes above a determined price (which is approximately fixed at twenty million) are unique pieces which lose the fundamental characteristic of an investment asset: to be marketable. People interested in buying certain historical properties valued dozens of million euros are too few to constitute a market.

What statistics say

As an example of how the prime property market is working well in this period of continuing crisis, we may look at the statistics of the web sites specialized in selling luxury homes in Europe. Data say that the searches for this kind of properties have increased by 2% in the last twelve months and that the most active buyers come from countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy. What does it mean? Very simple: the wealthy people from the countries most affected by the financial crisis are looking for safe investment abroad.

Luxury Homes in Italy

Italy is among the countries with the highest offer of luxury homes (the second after the US according to data of luxuryestate.com). The offer includes a very great variety of buildings: medieval castles, ancient villas, countryside cottages, historical palaces. The typical places where luxury homes are searched are the historical centres of Milan and Rome, the so-called art-cities (Venice and Florence), the Chianti hills in Tuscany, the famous sea resorts in Sardinia (think to Costa Smeralda) and Liguria (Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure, Bordighera, Alassio). Liguria is, with Tuscany, the region with the highest concentration of luxury homes. For example, you can find wonderful villas there, built in front of the sea by the European aristocracy and the upper bourgeoisie in the XIX century.

Massimo Viola writes for Liguria for Sale, a web site about the territory and property market of Liguria. The site contains a specific section devoted to Luxury Homes and articles illustrating the features of the luxury property market in Liguria.

What is Camposol?

Camposol, which translated means countryside in the sun, is a large rural development based around an 18 hole golf course. The development has over 5000 residential properties, a hotel and spa complex, many shops, bars and restaurants, as well as basic amenities such as a medical centre and banks. Camposol is perfect for both a second home and holiday property, or for full time residents. There’s a wide range of homes available from low maintenance apartments to large villas with pools. There are approximately 3500 permanent residents, mostly British, but also a fair number of Spanish and Europeans have properties here too. Due to the high proportion of permanent residents a real community has developed, with a range of clubs, charities and social groups having been established.

Where is Camposol?

Camposol is in south east Spain, an hour south of Alicante in the province of Murcia. The development is set in a valley surrounded by hills and rugged mountains, just 10 minutes drive from the unspoilt town of Mazarron and it’s many beaches. Nearby there is also Murcia city, with a historical old town centre and excellent for shopping.

Getting there

There are two international airports nearby, Alicante is just over an hour away, and San Javier is just 45 minutes drive. A third airport is due to open close to Murcia city. There area also has excellent motorway links to the rest of Spain and Europe.

Weather

This area of Spain has over 3200 hours of sunshine a year, with an average temperature throughout the year of 20 degrees Celsius, rising to 25 in the summer. The valley location of Camposol means that the mountains either side offer protection from any winds, meaning you’re just left with a pleasant ocean breeze.

Property

Camposol villas are very good value and a good potential long-term investment as the Costa Calida coast is relatively undiscovered, especially when compared to the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol.

Property ranges from small terraces with courtyards, to villas with swimming pools on large plots of land. They are all constructed with curved lines and clear forms, designed to create a harmonious and relaxing feel.

Camposol villas start at around 100,000 euros, which gets you a 2 bedroomed terraced villa with one bathroom and a roof solarium. At the other end of the spectrum is a four bed villa with pool which can be found in the region of 300,000 euros.

Camposol has a lot to offer in terms of lifestyle, with its superb year round weather, shopping, eating out and sports opportunities, not to mention great value property, all within easy reach of the beach and excellent transport links. Maybe your next home could be one of these Camposol villas?

Alana Holder writes about the current trends in the Spanish Property market.

At Mercers we have years of experience in the Spanish Property market and are considered specialists in the area. On our website you can search hundreds of apartments and villas to buy or rent and get lots of information on local areas. For a great range of Camposol Villas, visit the website.

A lot of people are into real estate investment, but they don’t really have the time to spend hours and hours researching on properties and making a serious decision about investing in a property. This is why nowadays people prefer to hire the services of property investment agencies to provide them with investment consultants, real estate consultants, contractor architects, property advisor and real estate broker. You might need the services and help of the above mentioned real estate personnel in many cases. For example the decision of buying a home in a neighborhood that is far away from nearby supermarkets or gas stations. Another example is choosing a building structure for your commercial project or residential project that might somehow damage your property and also cause some serious damages to the nearby properties. You as a non real estate person can’t afford to make these decisions on your own. You need help and this is where real estate property management comes in.

If you hire a investment consultant to provide you with right property management services then you can be assured that all your financing related to property will be handled efficiently and effectively by them. The main reason behind this is that these agencies have many experienced and knowledgeable advisors and property brokers who are familiar with every nook and corner of a place you are looking forward to buying. They are the people who can help you take a better decision before investing in a property for either commercial or residential reasons. You can trust them and take their word when they say that a certain piece of land is worthwhile while another one is not. These are the people who prevent you in making a bad decision which can cause you to lose your money.

For example in case of residential projects they make sure that all the home owner taxes and fees are paid off before you buy the house. They attend all meetings with you to make sure they have a full analysis report about how much you owe and what has to be done to make sure you get the property you are interested in. They will handle all sorts of payments between you and the seller and make sure that the whole experience become easier and simpler for you. All your headaches and issues will become theirs.

Real estate property management involves beautifying both the exterior as well the interior of the home or office you are buying. This means that both a strong construction and a beautiful interior designing are part of their job.