Ideas for better real estate investing

How to Buy Property in Barcelona
Barcelona Tourist Guide provides tutorials on researching the Barcelona real estate markets for locating an ideal property, developing contacts with English speaking legal services that can arrange the mortgage, and mediate throughout the property acquisition process to ensure that the property purchase is sound and all the property related documents are in place. The guidance provided on this page is meant for locals and foreign investors in Barcelona real estate. Different rules and restrictions may apply for individual cases, but most of the information is applicable to anyone.

How Crowdfunding Has Changed Real Estate Investing
This Forbes blog post describes the merits of crowdfunding in real estate. Ever since the initial barriers of crowdfunding were removed, this method of investing has made rapid strides in the real estate market and has become immensely popular. After the real estate laws were amended, small businesses or start-ups have been able to raise funds and advertise their offerings publicly for the first time in 80 years. In crowdfunding, all an investor needs is a laptop to directly access deals without any special connections with the who’s who in real estate. Crowdfunding enables common investors to begin real estate investing with a paltry sum of $1000.

Real Estate Investing 101
Teresa Brooks, a national speaker, consultant, and trainer tries to explore a basic challenge facing every RE investor. If an investor is asked how much he or she earns and spends every month, would he or she be able to provide the exact calculations? Probably no. Ms. Brooks presented this training course on RE investing basically to teach real estate investors how to plan for and manage their earnings from RE investments. The tutorial teaches such practical skills like calculating regular income and expenses, tabulating everything on a spreadsheet, and generating an annual financial report card to review one’s net worth. This primer on RE is available for download in pdf format

a Miami Beach a Top Market for Hotel Investment
This Real Deal article reports that last year, hotel investors invested a whopping $40.5 billion in the U.S. hotel industry, according to data collected by STR. In the STR Report, Miami Beach featured as one of the top three markets, preceded by New York and San Francisco in terms of price per hotel room, and ranked No.2 after New York in terms of building cost. In 2015, hotel rooms on Miami sold for an average price of $660,000, and the average building cost worked out to be $832,000, as per the STR spokesperson.

Foreign Direct Investment in Tourism
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Tourism involves the flow of capital from a foreign country to the host country’s tourism assets such as land, new constructions, and businesses. The FDI opens up possible markets for the foreign company with cheap labor, low production costs and access to new products and easy finance. For a host country, FDI offers foreign technologies, funding, and management skills for engineering overall economic growth. The FDI believers think that this system favors both the host and the foreign countries. The FDI skeptics think that foreign investors can easily gain an advantage over vulnerable economies through their investment ownerships and operational control, thus disrupting the local economy.

Investing in Condo Hotels
Wealth Daily in this article describes condo hotels as luxury four or five-star hotel rooms or suites with elegant furnishings, which are typically priced between $1 million and $60 million. Operated by top tier hotel chains like The Ritz Carlton, Trump International, or Four Seasons, these condo hotels offer the full range of five-star amenities like spa, gyms, private pools, world class dining, 24 hour room service, concierge, valet parking, and babysitting services, and that too in the comfort of your own home. Whenever the owners are not using their properties, they can use the hotel’s rental program to rent out the condos. Generally, a professional management company takes care of renting, condo maintenance, and the guest services. The rental revenues are usually split 50 50 between the condo owner and the management company. The management foots the bill for operating expenses, while the condo owners pays for taxes, insurance, and improvement costs.