Real estate is considered an orphan investment that is shunned by traditional financial advisers because they view it as a non-traded asset that unlike stocks and bonds, they cannot earn fees for trading and advisory services. Recently The Tiger Group, a group of high net worth individuals, reported that almost 40% of their assets were in held real estate as a personal investment. The investor and the market for real estate investments is misunderstood. This first of its kind professionally conducted study addresses this and dozens of other questions.

Debunk Myths & Quantify Business

Most people think that real estate investors have helped destroy the housing market. This assumes a very small number of individuals had undue market influence buying junk houses or pre-construction homes and flipping them – adding no value – making vast profits. Have “speculators and investors” ruined the residential real estate market?

This first of its kind national study conducted by Harris Interactive, parent company of the Harris Poll for Anne Randolph, publisher of LORE Magazine and Andrew Waite of Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine, debunks this and nine other widely held “myths” about the over $320 billion dollar annual market.

“This is a very large market that is currently underserved by real estate professionals and misunderstood by the investment industry and general media.

The potential for individual investors, agents and brokers is tremendous”, says Anne Randolph who developed the study. The research, by Harris Interactive, showed that the typical investor buys a single family home in a relative good neighborhood, cares about things that regular homebuyers care about, but they buy every year versus once every 6 or 7 years. “This suggests that if an agent served an investor, they would have 7 or more transactions with the same investor in the same period that they did one with a traditional homebuyer”, continued Randolph. “But investors account for less than 9% of the market.” says study co-author Waite

Market Opportunities Myriad

Some brokers and investment entities have figured out that companies who offer comprehensive investment sales and property management are a profitable and growing business for real estate brokerage companies.

Why isn’t real estate recommended by traditional financial advisers? “Easy, they don’t get paid for it, and they can’t trade it easily to earn fees”, says Waite, a real estate investor of more than 20 years, and the publisher of a magazine dedicated to helping the investor find properties, resources, and information to be successful. “Add the fact that a well bought and financed home out performs the Dow Jones 5 to 10 times any year, and Wall St is intimidated” says Waite.

Who, What, Where, and How?

This story is from literature promoting “The Invaluable Investor,” a 68 page report that details the study as well as some very clear perspective on where the opportunities are for investors, real estate and investment professionals by providing them information on how the most successful investors do business – what they put down, how long they hold, what they expect in returns, what investing approaches they use, what works best for them and more. It also lets the reader know what type of training they should get and where it is available.

The report can be purchased at the Personal Real Estate Investor magazine website.

Thanks and Happy Investing.  -PB_