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How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor
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How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor with Mashvisor


Every aspiring real estate investor dreams of making money and building an empire of investment properties. While almost anyone can get on the real estate investing wagon, not everyone knows how to be a successful real estate investor. Successful real estate investing is not simply buying an investment property and waiting for it to make a passive income – it takes hard work and making smart investment decisions. Here’s where we jump into the picture.

Mashvisor is an online platform that provides property investors with real estate investing tools and data analysis to enable them to make the best investment decisions with less effort and at a faster pace. Our tools provide investors with tons of value that no other online tool could! In this article, we break down how Mashvisor can help you take the necessary steps of how to be a successful real estate investor. So, without further ado, let’s jump right in.

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Get Educated

The first step to start real estate investing is to educate yourself about the business. Just like any other business, you can’t succeed if you don’t know at least the basics of real estate. Beginner property investors should read all about the different types of investment properties, investment strategies, how to finance the purchase of a rental property, the risks you could face, and the legal aspects related to real estate investing. When you surround yourself with knowledge, the next steps of how to be a successful real estate investor will become easier to take.

How Does Mashvisor Help? Beginner property investors can head over to the Mashvisor Blog to read and educate themselves on different aspects related to buying an investment property. We publish a number of blogs on a daily basis to ensure that property investors using our platform are up-to-date and on top of their competition. Our blogs range from step-by-step guides to city guides to tips for beginner property investors to give them a better understanding of the business.

To learn about all aspects of real estate investing, continue reading our Blog!

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Invest in the Right Location

If you did your research as a beginner real estate investor, you’d know that the most important factor you need to keep in mind is the location of your rental property. Location determines the purchase price, rental income, rental expenses, occupancy rate, and other factors that affect how profitable your rental property and return on investment will be. Thus, investing in a good location is an essential step in how to be a successful real estate investor.

How Does Mashvisor Help? Mashvisor provides a number of real estate investing tools, one of which is the Investment Property Search Tool. This tool comes with a Heat Map function that allows property investors to find rental properties on the city or neighborhood levels using visual cues. Using different filters, you can set your criteria to see the areas with highest values regarding listing price, cash on cash return, rental income, and traditional and Airbnb occupancy rate. Thus, with the help of this tool, property investors can analyze and compare different neighborhoods to see which one has the best profitability for real estate investing!

Related: How to Find the Best Investment Property Using a Heat Map

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Find a Good Investment Property

After finding the right location in which to invest, the next step in how to be a successful real estate investor is finding a good investment property. Searching for and finding investment properties the traditional way can be done through searching the MLS, driving around looking for “For Sale” signs, networking, or hiring a real estate agent to do the work for you. This can easily take more than 3 months to complete your property search, and in the end, you may not even find a rental property that is worth your money.

How Does Mashvisor Help? With our Investment Property Finder Tool, property investors find the best rental properties with a guaranteed return on investment in only 15 minutes! This is a heavily customizable search tool which you can use to search for investment properties based on specific criteria and using different filters. For example, you can set the filters to find rental properties within a certain price range, in a certain neighborhood, or for a certain rental strategy. Consequently, you will find different investment properties in the same location, all with the highest return on investment!

Do you have a free Mashvisor account? Click here to use our Property Finder and find properties in a matter of minutes!

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Perform a Comparative Market Analysis

In real estate investing, a comparative market analysis can greatly affect the success of your investment. As the name suggests, this is an analysis based on comparing a number of investment properties (real estate comps) within a neighborhood using certain data to determine the best one with the highest profitability. So, a comparative market analysis analyzes both the neighborhood and investment properties within it, which is why it’s a necessary step of how to be a successful real estate investor.

Related: Comparative Market Analysis: Real Estate Investing

How Does Mashvisor Help? Mashvisor uses property comps to help you determine whether a rental property or a rental strategy is good based on your investment goals. Therefore, you can compare similar rental properties in an area based on the metric of your choice to determine which property is more suitable for your investment plan. This way, you can eliminate investment properties that fall below your desired standards, saving you tons of time which you would otherwise spend on analyzing each individual property and comparing it with the other rental properties!

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Analyze Your Investment

A major mistake that many beginner property investors make is buying the first or cheapest rental property that comes their way thinking they can quickly fix it up and rent it to make a passive income. However, many end up with rental properties in very bad conditions and spend way too much on renovations that they end up losing money on instead. Thus, successful property investors always analyze the profitability of a rental property before making a purchase!

How Does Mashvisor Help? Another real estate investing tool provided by Mashvisor that has an important role in how to be a successful real estate investor is the Investment Property Calculator. This is a versatile tool that allows you to calculate the different values related to a rental property, giving you accurate data and estimations to help you determine its profitability. These values include cash on cash return, cap rate, cash flow, and rental income (for both traditional and short-term Airbnb investment). Instead of manually creating spreadsheets, this tool fine-tunes your costs and calculates your returns for you. Moreover, interest rate, property tax, maintenance, and more expenses are pre-calculated. With this tool, you can ensure finding the best rental properties to invest in.

Related: Why an Investment Property Calculator Is Better Than Spreadsheets

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Determine the Optimal Rental Strategy

As previously mentioned, successful real estate investing requires making smart investment decisions – one of which is the rental strategy. After buying an investment strategy, a real estate investor can rent it out as a traditional long-term rental or an Airbnb short-term rental. There are a number of factors that should be taken into account to determine the optimal rental strategy which you need to be familiar with if you want to know how to be a successful real estate investor. This blog breaks down these factors in details and shows you how to determine your optimal rental strategy!

How Does Mashvisor Help? As mentioned, our real estate investing tools provide you with different values related to rental properties. Mashvisor then provides you with a rental strategy overview which compares traditional and Airbnb strategies for your selected rental property or for the area that you’re investing in. As a result, you can make quick comparisons and determine the optimal rental strategy for each property!

How to Be a Successful Real Estate Investor? Sign Up to Mashvisor!

Say goodbye to the traditional ways to succeed in real estate investing. Mashvisor will definitely give you the best tools and accurate data you need to make smart real estate investment decisions to succeed in the business. So, what are you waiting for? Sign up with Mashvisor or click here to start your 14-day free trial!

If you have any questions about Mashvisor, click here to read our FAQs and learn about our tools.

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Eman Hamed

Eman is a Content Writer at Mashvisor. With a focus on market reports, she enjoys researching the state of the real estate market in different cities across the US. Eman also writes about trends, forecasts, and tips for beginner investors to gain the confidence and knowledge they need to make wise decisions.

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