Real Estate Investing Roadmap

Many business people believe that real estate investing is one of the safest ways to make money, protect your assets and grow wealth. Investing in real properties has many different avenues, creative financing and various ways to diversify. The majority of new real property investors tend to start off buying single family homes because this is what they are used to. A real estate investing roadmap can be easier because these new investors generally understand how to finance and maintain single family homes.

Let’s start with the first piece of the roadmap and that is capital. There are many people who say that a home is the most important asset one owns. However what they leave out is the amount of capital needed to make it work. In general real estate investing in investment property often requires 30% down payment, which means 70% of the property is financed. So, if the property is $200,000, you are still putting down $60,000 with the majority of the home being financed.

Another component of the roadmap is learning about the market. Seminars are a great way to not only learn about real estate investing, but also about what are the best areas to invest. Many seminars are put on my brokers and some institutional lenders. Yes, their goal is to sell you on purchasing, but if you keep an open, yet cautious mind on the information, you can quickly deduce the best areas in which to invest. You should also double check their sales pitch and do your own offline research.

A great deal making opportunity in the real estate investing roadmap is to find motivated sellers. These are pretty easy to find right now, especially because of the market downturn. Foreclosure and short sale opportunities do exist. The best thing to do is to find these buyers BEFORE they become owned by the bank (REO). Although banks are pretty open now to give great deals on properties they own because they are not in the business of owning real estate.

Understand your market is a lesson your parents and my parents told me over and over again. If you just buy property without regard for location, local market dynamics, title ownership, etc., you will get burned. It doesn’t matter whether you are getting a great deal on a property; there are many external factors that can affect your ultimate sale. So make sure you know where you are buying and why defects there may be physically and on paper.

Your real estate investing roadmap should also include hiring a broker… and make sure they are reputable. The job of the broker is to help you wade through the above title, market dynamics, etc. And, generally speaking, you do not pay the real estate broker. They are paid by the seller. So, it really is a win for you as a buyer.

Finally, once you’ve decided that you’ve found a great opportunity, move on it. Chances are if you found a great deal, there will be others willing to move quickly as well. You should make sure you have all your ducks lined up ahead of time. This is especially true today since there are so many properties on the market due to the financial meltdown.

So, a real estate investing roadmap is key to finding success in real estate investments.

Bike Fitting Tips – Be One With Your Bike

The importance of bike fit can’t be overstated. You pedal thousand of revolutions per ride, putting thousands of pounds of pressure on the joints. If you aren’t aligned well the joints are getting loaded improperly which can lead to over use injuries. Cycling can be pretty kind to the body as it doesn’t have the impact of running but you can still hurt yourself if you are set up wrong.

You and your bike must work like a fine tuned machine. Think of you knee as a hinge. If a hinge isn’t side loaded it will eventually bind and wear prematurely. Your knees work the same way. If even one aspect of fit is misaligned you can hurt yourself. The good thing is that bike fit, while a little complicated due to all of the inter-relationships of machine and body, isn’t rocket science.

If you can’t get into see a professional bike fitter, these rules will help you improve your bike comfort and performance.

Rule 1: Everything is connected.

If you move your seat back you will need to lower your saddle and possibly shorten your stem. Everything on the body is interconnected so you can’t just move one piece without is affecting all the other adjustments to some degree. Remember that song about the shin bone being connected to the knee bone. When fitting a bike, I start with the cleat set up and work up from there. Cleats need to be anywhere from 5-15 mm behind the ball of the foot. Your saddle height needs to be high enough that you get a good extension at the bottom of the pedal stroke (around a 30 degree knee bend at the bottom) but no so high that the hips rock when pedaling. A slightly lower saddle will feel smoother pedaling at high cadence while a slightly higher position will maximize leverage when pushing bigger gears. Depending on your riding style this can influence where in the range you want to position the saddle.

Rule 2: Fit your bike to your body as you body won’t adapt to your bike

If you need a higher bar position or shorter reach, then make the changes as your body won’t adapt to a position that is much out of your comfort zone. In particular are side to side balance issues. If your hips sit twisted on the saddle you will need to adjust slightly to the opposite side of the forward hip. If one leg is longer than the other or just behaves that way on the bike, you should shim the shorter leg for half the difference. With road pedals, you can put a shim between you cleat and shoe. If you have mountain bike clipless pedals, then it’s best to fix build up the insole in the shoe of the shorter leg if you have the room within your shoe. If you shim the cleat on a mountain bike it can create instability as the cleats are so small.

Rule 3: Look for balance when riding

If any body part protests (hurts) when you are going hard then look to re-balance your position. If you get numb hand you may need to move your saddle back and down, shorten your reach or raise your bar. It’s often a combination of these to achieve a balanced position that lets you put out your maximum sustainable power with minimal body fatigue. By having your cleats back on your shoes, your saddle back and your bar position adjusted to match, the postural muscles will have the least amount of engagement making for a more comfortable ride. This combination will also tend to increase the involvement of the hamstrings and glute muscles there by increasing endurance as the load is spread over more muscles.

Overview

Bike fit is both an art and science. There are no magic formulas to get in the right position. It’s a combination of bio-mechanics, experience and understanding that the body works as a unit can help figure out how to fix discomfort and performance issues.

Content Marketing: Announcing 4 Powerful Content Marketing Tips

Whenever someone purchases an information product online, there are two things that they will take into consideration. First, they will confirm that your reputation is solid. Second, they will confirm that you are an expert in your niche. For an example, if you were going to buy a horror book, would you rather buy it from Stephen King or an unknown author?

How can you position yourself as an expert? And how can you go about improving your reputation? Fortunately, the answer to both of these questions can be answered with one answer. The answer is content marketing. You should give your prospects enough information to achieve two things. One, they should be convinced that you are an expert. Two, you should answer their questions. It is best to leave them wanting more information, so don’t give away everything that you’ve got.

As promised, here are 4 Content Marketing Tips that will help you.

Content Marketing Tip # 1- Do Your Due Diligence. Research, Research, Research

Are you prospects looking for in-depth information about a specific topic? Or are they looking for a how-to guide? Do they want answers to specific questions? These are the questions that you should be asking yourself before you decide to start writing about anything! Your objective is to provide content that is as targeted as possible. You will be highly effective if you do your research and it is that simple. Are you unfamiliar with how to go about finding out what your prospects want? Try logging on to amazon.com and read the reviews that customers write. This information is literally invaluable.

Content Marketing Tip #2 – Let Your Personality And Sense Of Humor Shine Through Your Words

As you are probably well aware, people tend to do business with those that they know, LIKE and trust. Your goal should be to answer your prospects questions while making them laugh or at least smile. I realise that this article is not the funniest article that you have ever come across, but you get the picture right?

Content Marketing Tip #3- Go Above And Beyond

You are probably also aware that word-of-mouth advertising is extremely effective. Do everything that you can to give your prospects and customers significantly more value than they expect. The more value that you can provide in exchange for their money, the better. Try to over-deliver and under-promise.

Content Marketing Tip #4- Avoid Being Inconsistent At All Costs

Inconsistency is the number one cause of failure with content marketing. A formidable number of marketers think that providing content from time to time is acceptable. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you have a blog, update it daily. Try going on forums and posting on a regular basis. Another thing that you could do to be more consistent is to hold weekly webinars.

These are the four content marketing tips you can begin to carry out immediately. If you choose to do so, you will experience more traffic, more sales, a better reputation and you will be known as an expert in your niche.

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