Why Slow Times Are Great Times For Real Estate Investing

Radical wealth-creating advice from the Trump University classroom.

If you've been watching the news and listening to your friends, you're probably convinced this is a terrible time for real estate investing. Interest rates are up, housing sales are down, properties are overvalued. The "bubble" is about to burst.

Let me share this quote with you . . .

"The prices of houses seem to have reached a plateau, and there is reasonable expectancy that prices will decline."

That statement could have been written last week, but the fact is, it was written in Time Magazine on December 1, 1947. Too bad for the people who believed it and decided not to invest in real estate. They would have missed out on two or three of the biggest booms in history.

Now, there are lots of real estate gurus out there who will sell you the idea that the only way to make good investments in bad times is to take advantage of distressed sellers. Difficult times, they say, offer you an opportunity to find motivated people who will sell you their properties for 40 or 50 percent below market value. You can then flip these properties and make money quickly.

That strategy works, of course. It is one we discuss in detail in The Real Estate Investor Training Program at Trump University. But it is only one strategy that can make you significant money in lean times. Let me give you an example.

When I was just getting started in real estate, I bought an apartment house in Indiana for $100,000. I put $10,000 down and the seller agreed to finance the balance over 10 years. Twelve years later, I sold it for exactly the same price - $100,000. That's a lousy investment, right? Some people would probably say so. Yet cash flow from rents netted me an annual return of 25 percent on my $10,000 investment. Then there is the additional fact that I grew my total equity from $10,000 to $100,000.

Do the numbers and you will see that my $10,000 earned me money - a lot of money - even in a very flat market. Property values were not surging in Indiana at the time, to say the least.

One secret of real estate success is to understand the numbers well enough to pinpoint the value that can lie hidden in properties that other investors overlook. That kind of number analysis is an important part of The Real Estate Investor Training Program, my new course at Trump University.

With the right knowledge and the right outlook, you can make lots of money in real estate investing today - or on nearly any other day. You can run right by the ostriches who have stuck their heads in the sand because people told them this is a bad time to invest.