Got a Million?

In 2011 in King County, 735 houses sold for 1 million or more.  471 were on the Eastside.  The most expensive one sold for $14.75 million in Hunts point.  Snohomish County saw 18 homes sell for 1 million plus.

Finance Multiple Properties!

Hey all my investor friends, do you know most lenders will not do any new loan for any borrower that owns multiple financed properties?  However, I know lenders that will finance all the way up to Ten Financed Properties with a Conventional Loan.   Not all lenders will do this.  In fact, most won’t touch it.

They have great terms including no point loans. Please call me or email me if you have any questions regarding Investor Loan products.  My team is closing most of our FHA loans now in less than 20 days and we are still offering same day approvals including evening and weekends.    Call me anytime for details!

Building a New Home? Choose Colors You Can Live With!

You’re building a new home. That’s great! Once you’ve selected the location, hired a builder and decided on a floor plan, you’ll begin working on the interior design of your home. The colors you choose to adorn your walls will play a major role in the overall look and feel of your home.

Colors can have an amazing effect on our physical and mental well-being. In most cases the impact is subconscious. Whether you’re planning your new home or painting a home that’s new to you, colors are important.

I should note, if you’re preparing a home to sell, stick with very plain, neutral colors and let homebuyers choose their own favorite accents. You never know when a color may evoke the wrong emotion in a home shopper.

Before you decide on paint colors, take these factors into consideration:

• emotional appeal for which you are striving in each room, sometimes called the room’s “mood.”
• lighting styles, sources and intensity
• carpeting color and texture

What Mood are You In?

Different colors have different effects on individual, but some pretty good generalizations can be made about many. The mood can be intensified or diluted with various shades.

Looking for tranquility? Try blue, a color that can actually slow your pulse rate and lower your body temperature. Some claim blue can even reduce your appetite.

Other words associated with the color blue are:

• Harmony
• Unity
• Loyalty
• Security
• Confidence
• Cold
• And . . . sorry, depression

Be careful how you use blue. You’ll want to stay on the lighter side of things to avoid unintentionally bringing people down.

Ready to kick in some high energy? Look to red. Can’t imagine painting a wall red? Reconsider.

Red evokes a sense of high energy in some and warmth in others. Used correctly, red can create feelings of:

• Love
• Speed
• Strength
• Desire

Overdone, red can also evoke a sense of:

• Danger
• Anger
• Violence

Did you know the Chinese consider red to represent luck? This probably isn’t the best color for a hyper-active child’s room. Painting a work-out room? Pump it up with red.

Do you love nature and the environment? Green is a great color to put you at ease with its calm, cool appeal.

Green can evoke feelings of:

• Health
• Youth
• Spring

I don’t want to lead you astray, so I should add that green has a tendency to inspire jealousy and envy too.

Simplicity and harmony are best represented by white. Never discount the power of white when choosing colors for your home. White is clean, peaceful and innocent.

White can be boring if its overused and improperly complemented with home décor – so don’t go crazy with white, but use it where you are looking for a sense of purity such as in a nursery or cleanliness in a laundry room.

You Choose the Colors and Make Your Choices Consciously

There are so many, many colors from which to choose. Do a little of your own research and find out what a color can do for you. If you consciously choose colors with a goal in mind, you’re more likely to stir in yourself and your family members the emotions and feelings you want to have in your home. Consider researching different colors’ meanings as they apply to your own religion and beliefs.

Investment Property – How Much Down Payment Do I Need To Make ‘Fill-In-The-Blank’ Dollars?

“The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” — Robert Frost

Another question related to investing in real estate I get asked a lot is, “How much do I need to put down to make ___________ dollars per year,” or “How much property do I need to own so I will make _________ in cash flow every year?”

It’s a great question, and one that many beginning investors want to know. The best way to describe this is by a simple example. There is a ton of assumptions and generalizations here, but let’s go with it for now.

Let’s say that you want $50,000 per year income from commercial investment real estate. Let’s back this up and see, conservatively, how much real estate you need..

If I have $50,000 of income coming from a property free and clear to me, lets assume that this is a 14% return on my investment (we won’t use a no money down scenario, that would be too complicated for this simple example)…

But, $50,000 is 15% cash flow of a $330,000 investment (down payment) into a property. So, we have established that if I can find an investment that gives me a 15% return and I want $50,000 of cash flow, I will be investing $330,000.

Follow me so far?

Then, how much will $330,000 buy you? Well, let’s assume again that we can get a property for a 15% down payment. If $330,000 represents a 15% down payment then my price is $2,220,000.

So, the short answer is to get a $50,000 per year cash flow you would be looking at owning $2,000,000+ in commercial investment real estate.

Of course it could be smaller or larger depending on how well the property does, but this at least gives you a rough formula to follow.

The mistake I see a lot of beginning investors make is having unrealistic expectations. They want to invest $50,000 and make that back within a year. In some cases I am exaggerating, but for many I am not.

Most people don’t have a clue of how much real estate they will need to own to achieve a certain level of cash flow. They do not know what to shoot for. If you’d like more information on this topic, just shoot me an email at dave@mynorthwesthomes.com.