Real Estate Investing Training Resources Directory

The following real estate investing training resources are available for one and all. These are hand-picked real estate investment resources for real estate investors of any size or experience.

If you are a real estate investor, or involved in real estate investing, then you might also want to check out our highly acclaimed real estate investment training courses. Our premier course is really a coaching program, spread out over 6 months. It is designed to quickly get you up to speed with fix & flip, short sales, foreclosures, or even commercial real estate investment.

While we provide these resources and encourage you to use them, the fastest and most efficient way to get ahead in the ever-changing real estate investing game is to back yourself with an experienced real estate investing team. Our real estate investment training is designed for a fast start. But our real estate investing training is also designed to help you through the inevitable humps and hurdles that every real estate investor faces.

We wish you the best with your real estate investing and hope that we'll see you in one of our real estate investment training courses or our real estate investing coaching program.

The Real Estate Investment Training Resources Directory:

Mortgage Calculator
This Mortgage Calculator is quite dynamic. It will help you to easily determine the monthly cost of a mortgage for any property in which you are considering investing. It's a must for every real estate investor.

Credit scores, Credit Information and FICO Scores

What is my FICO Score, and How is my FICO Score calculated?

Lenders use credit scores such as the FICO to calculate interest rates and credit limits. FICO is a score based on mathematical formula developed by the Fair Isaac Corporation. It is the most widely used score in the U.S.

There are several important determinants of your FICO:

• 35% punctuality of payment in the past, especially mortgage and car payments
  
• 30% capacity used, i.e., ratio of current revolving debt (e.g. credit card balances) to total available revolving credit (e.g. credit limits)
• 15% length of credit history
• 10% types of credit used (installment, revolving)
• 10% amount of credit obtained and applications for credit in the recent past

The above percentages are approximate. Current income and employment history do not influence the FICO score. Generally, FICO scores range from 300 - 850. Scores at the higher end of the scale reflect a better credit rating.

Source: Wikipedia.com

http://www.myfico.com
MyFico.com is the ultimate resource for information about credit scores, including how they work and what they are.

http://money.howstuffwords.com/credit-score.htm
How Stuf Works is a wonderful site, chock full of useful information on any topic. Here's a great article about credit scores.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_score
And of course Wikipedia is the ultimate online encyclopedia. While you can't always trust the information you se there, this bit on credit scores is quite handy.

http://www.experian.com
Experian is, of course, one of the three leading credit reporting agencies. You can get all of this from the MyFico site, but here it is for easy reference.

http://www.bankrate.com
Bankrate.com is another valuable resource with tons of information on anything having to do with loans, mortgages, bank rates, etc.

REO Properties

Looking for some good information on REO Properties. Now that Bank of America is (likely) taking over Countrywide, they'll be the largest lender nationally. Thus, they're the first resource on our list for REO Banks. They also pop up first for REO Banks on a Google search. There's a good reason for this.

http://bankofamerica.reo.com
Yes, go here first. You'll find a couple regional REO banks or resources for REO Banks below, as well as a couple of global resources.

http://www.indymacbank.com
Another useful resource for REO Banks

http://www.buybankhomes.com

http://www.southernreo.com

http://www.lasvegasbankowned.com

http://www.reo.com

Real Estate Investment Loans

What's a real estate investor with real estate investment loans? We hope that you'll develop a reliable team that includes several outstanding loan mortgage brokers, but here's a short list of resources just in case for your real estate investment loans

http://www.nva-mortgage.com/investor_loans.htm

http://www.bankofamerica.com (http://mycountrywide.com)

http://www.pacificsecuritycapital.com (commercial loans)

http://www.steelheadcapital.com (commercial)

Finding the value of a home - Home Value

What's the value of the home you're considering as an investment? There are many resources on the Internet for finding the value of a home ("Home Value"). Here are just a few:

http://www.housevalues.com

http://www.zillow.com

http://realestate.yahoo.com/homevalues

http://domania.com

http://www.coldwellbanker.com/real_estate/Home_Value_Estimator

Real Estate Investing Tools

Property Analysis Software

www.rentalanalyst.com - $49 one time fee. Basically is what it says - rental property analysis to see if it's a good buy. Home page links don't work, though.

Advantage Software - http://www.invest-2win.com/ - Very basic flipping and analysis software. Stand-alone, $97 each.

Intellipoint Pro - http://www.intellipointpro.com/ - Property analysis software, but adds the ability to keep a database of potential buyers. Expensive: $1995

Rental Software - www.rentalsoftware.com - Landlord and Flipper analysis software. $79 each purchase.

Real Estate Profit Pro - www.realestateprofitpro.com - Deal analysis, cost estimator, document creation, "ready to use" marketing materials, "automatic offer" module. $1995 purchase price.

Advantage Software, LLC - www.invest-2win.com - Property Analysis software. $97 purchase price.

Real Cash Flow - www.realcashflow.com - Property analysis for cash flow. $5.99 per month fee.

REI Wise - http://www.reiwise.com/ - Professional software to analyze and market commercial and residential real estate. $15/month or $269 purchase. No sharing of data

Commercial Investment Software

Plan Ease - www.planease.com - Investment / Development Analysis Software, geared more toward commercial investments and apartments. Base product is $995. No online, no community.

Property Management Software

Real Estate Critic - http://www.realestatecritic.com/ - Free online property management software

Property Boulevard - www.propertyboulevard.com - Basic property management. $499 for base single user product.

Buildium - http://www.buildium.com - Online property management software. Includes document sharing, online payment for tenants, and all basic accounting functions.

www.propertyware.com - Online property management software. It's comprehensive, sharable, and online. Includes all document management, tenant and cash flow management, maintenance management, marketing (vacancies), and works with multiple owners (portfolio management). Also allows user to create their own customizable web site. Plans "start at $20 per month". Maintenance, marketing, portfolio management are add-ons.

www.Virtualpremise.com - Has Landlord edition with basic landlord property management, lease agreements, etc. Download, not online. No pricing.

Real Estate Investment Networks

Loop Net - http://www.loopnet.com/ - Commercial real estate online community/network.

Catylist - www.catylist.com - Online community/network for commercial real estate investment. They claim to have 87,000 Professionals market commercial real estate using the Catylist Network.

Bigger Pockets - http://www.biggerpockets.com - A great resource on everything for real estate investing: resource lists, forums, etc. 

Real Estate Investing Software

Simple Remote - http://www.simpleremote.com/Page.asp - Track all info about a property, with everything linking together. Ability to upload documents and email to others (document sharing). Can track many different kinds of contacts. Purchase price of $499

Profit Tiger Pro - http://www.profittigerpro.com/ - Stand-alone product. Retails for $2997 (Pro version). Can upload documents and email to vendors, agents, etc.

Profit Grabber - http://www.profitgrabber.com/ - Marketing, lead management. Seems to focus on the marketing aspect, Stand-alone. $4997. Most of the web site is under development.

Intuit Quickbase - http://www.quickbase.com/p/home.asp

Real E Flow - http://www.realeflow.com/ - Quite comprehensive, fully online solution

Foreclosure and Pre-foreclosure Resources:

There is SO much information available about Foreclosure and Pre-Foreclosure, but most of it is self-serving. Here are a few resources that you might find helpful if you're looking into foreclosure or pre-foreclosure.

http://www.all-foreclosure.com

http://www.realtytrac.com

http://www.foreclosure.com

Real Estate Forms

Again, there are a ton of resources that include real estate forms. Here are some of our favorites.

http://www.totallyfreerealestateforms.com

http://www.uslegalforms.com

http://www.realestate-paperwork.com

Real Estate Records Search

Looking for information about your investment property? Then you'll need one of these real estate records search sites. Note that one of the links in our list is where you'll get information about people, not properties.

http://publicrecords.netronline.com

http://www.searchsystems.net/

http://www.knowx.com/ (public records background check on people)

http://www.realestate-search.net/

Short Sale Resources

Looking into doing short sale investments? Here are a few great articles we found on the subject. Of course, you'll find many great articles on fix and flip, rehabbing, and short sale on our website, but these will help you get started.

http://homebuying.about.com/od/4closureshortsales/a/shortsalebasics.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_sale

http://www.ehow.com/how_8132_short-sale.html

Real Estate Maps and Mapping Resources

Certainly there is Google, the King of everything. But Zillow, our first resource listed, is one fine web site about which you should become intimately knowledgable, including real estate maps and mapping service.

http://www.zillow.com

http://www.housingmaps.com

http://maps.google.com

Landlord Resources

If you're specifically interested in resources for landlords, here are a few of our favorite landlording resources.

http://www.thelpa.com
The Landlord Protection Agency - Landlord Resources: free rental forms, state landlord tenant law, credit reports, tenant screening, advice. Free landlord tips and information.

http://www.mrlandlord.com
MR LANDLORD is THE INTERNET RESOURCE for do-it yourself landlords, rental owners and managers. Get the information, keys and tools you need

http://www.landlord411.com
The Resource Center has information on every subject related to investing in and managing income real estate, including Landlord Tenant Law, Landlord Maintenance, Section 1031 Exchange, and other real estate topics.

http://www.landlord.com
The core of the site is in the Information Center, Landlord Law, E-Forms Center, Tools and Calculators, Discussion Board, Tip of the Week and Quality Tenant Screening

Real Estate Law

http://www.nolo.com

http://www.real-estate-law.com
A real estate attorney in New York provides a plethora of information about real estate law.

1031 Exchanges

1031 exchanges, 1031 tax exchange
Managing a 1031 exchange is not difficult - but it does require adherence to strict 1031 tax exchange rules and regulations.You must enter into a 1031 exchange with the advice of a tax professional.Sell your Property Tax Free with a 1031 Exchange!