Weekly Digs – Turn down (for what?)

Home-building activity makes a huge uptick, while house prices are dropping — this is actually a bad thing. A note on side hustles, and how you can make more money in 2019. This and more in our weekly edition of Real Estate Investing News.

From Realtor.com’s Latest News

• Fed Cuts Rates By Quarter Point, But Faces Growing Split
  • The Federal Reserve voted to cut interest rates by a quarter-percentage point for the second time in as many months to cushion the economy against a global slowdown amplified by the U.S.-China trade war.
• Home-Building Activity Soars 12% to the Fastest Pace in More Than a Decade
  • Permits to build new homes rose 8% to a seasonally-adjusted annual pace of 1.42 million, the fastest pace since 2007.
• The Surprising Ways Foreclosures Make Housing-Market Downturns Even Worse
  • New research is shedding light on how much worse foreclosures made the last downturn in the nation’s housing market.
• Home Prices Are Finally Going Down, Instead of Up: Why That’s Bad News
  • Typically, prices surge the most in the summer months. But this August something unusual happened: Home list prices fell in a worrisome sign.

From Spark Rental’s Latest Blog Posts

• Driving for Dollars & How to Find Motivated Sellers
  • When Deni and I poll new real estate investors about their greatest challenges, two answers pop up again and again: coming up with a down payment and finding good deals on real estate. So we talk about those two challenges a lot 😊 But the thing about finding deals is…
• How Much Emergency Fund Should I Have as a Property Owner?
  • Just 40% of Americans could cover an emergency expense costing $1,000, per a 2019 study by Bankrate. The other 60% would be up the creek without a paddle. Because emergencies do happen, and not just to other people, either. Three out of ten Americans say they or an…
• Cats vs. Dogs: Should I Allow Pets in My Rental Property? (Infographic)
  •   Pet lover? So are we! There are some great reasons to allow pets in your rental property… and some risks. What are the pros and cons of allowing pets in your rental? Is renting to tenants with cats better than allowing dogs? What are the risks of each? Most…
• Should I Pay Off My Mortgages or Invest in New Rental Properties?
  • You have $15,000 set aside, and you have a few rental properties. Should you aim to pay off a mortgage or invest in a new rental property? The answer, of course, is it depends. But it’s an easier question to answer than you think. Here’s what you need to know to…

From Bigger Pockets’ Top Popular Posts

• The 5 Best Home Renovations to Increase Your Property Value
  • By Mat Piche
• How to Make Extra Money in 2019 (22 Part-Time Gigs & Side Hustle Ideas)
  • By Dan Sheeks
• The Top 3 Things I Wish I’d Done Differently as a New Real Estate Investor
  • By Ryan Deasy

From PM Insider’s Latest Posts

• Lending a Helping Hand with Student Housing Turn
  • Just about any student housing operator will gladly take a helping hand during spring and fall semester turns. That’s when, amid a flurry, students move-in en masse to their new living quarters just before classes begin. It’s the peak of peak season. Lines form to the right. RealPage’s student team was more than happy to[…]
• Overcoming Risk in Affordable through a Learning Management Platform
  • The path to a successful career in the Affordable Housing industry doesn’t always start in a college or university classroom. Only a handful of the 80 or so institutions that offer undergraduate, graduate and doctorate degrees in real estate or residential property management focus on the Affordable side. The truth is that most people who manage properties[…]
• Industry First: A Centralized Portfolio Reporting and Analysis and Platform Addressing All Asset Types
  • RealPage Asset and Investment Management (AIM) aggregates and clearly presents property performance and valuation data to owners, asset managers, investors, and operators. Until now, pulling together data across a diverse portfolio in a form suitable for analyzing performance, valuation, cash flow, and other metrics has involved a confusing, time-wasting jumble of software solutions and manual[…]
• Smart Home Technology: Managed versus Unmanaged Systems
  • Smart home technology is hardly vanilla these days. For an apartment community to provide residents with amenities like smart locks, smart thermostats, lighting and shades accessible through their smartphones, finding the right recipe may be akin to having too many cooks in the kitchen. The answer is boiling down to managed and unmanaged smart community[…]

From Reddits /r/RealEstate Subreddit

• 45% of millennials say cost of living hold them back from buying homes
  • current score on reddit: 355
• 3 days before closing seller drops this bomb
  • current score on reddit: 189
• Drowning. Unsure where to turn anymore.
  • current score on reddit: 120

Join our weekly Real Estate Investing newsletter for insights delivered to your inbox every Monday.