If you have received the proper training as a real estate investor, you realize there is no such thing as a "bad" real estate market. The real estate market fluctuates cyclically, driven mostly by the laws of supply and demand. As you probably learned in grammar school, supply and demand drive prices and opportunity based on availability and desire, and this is true in most areas of business. Therefore, in the real estate market, when there is a greater supply of real estate than there are buyers demanding it, you have a buyer's market. When the opposite is true and there are a number of buyers demanding property and few for sale, you have a seller's market.
Unfortunately for the typical self-proclaimed real estate investor, the media drives his or her decisions based on reports that are unfounded and full of sensationalism and hype meant to drive ratings. On the other hand, a real estate investor who has the proper training will ignore what is said on the news, following the trends and using his or her own wits to make important decisions. Of course, the fear that the media can strike into the hearts of the uneducated can easily lead to your profit as a skilled investor.
Take, for example, the occurrence of a buyer's market. What this means to the uninformed is that, because there are too many homes on the market, the value of their property is going to plummet due to a lack of interest. Therefore, in order to get out from under the property before they "lose money", they will be willing to sell the real estate for what you can offer. This means you can get into some great properties at low prices all because of media hype.
Had these individuals received proper training as a real estate investor, they would have realized it would have made more sense to sit on the property and wait for the real estate market to cycle again, creating a seller's market in which they could have demanded any price they liked for the property or get better trained from qualified sources on how to move properties in a slow market.
As a savvy real estate investor, you have several options. You can sit and wait for the next seller's market, demanding a high price and turning over a large profit on the property, or you can set up the property in a manner that allows you to turn it right back around, even in a buyer's market, and make a profit. While any real estate investor can come in and buy up properties during a buyer's market, it is still quite difficult for the average aspiring homeowner to purchase a home, especially since the majority of potential buyers don't have what it takes to qualify for a traditional mortgage loan. Therefore, you can offer lease purchases and seller financing options on the home, both of which actually draw a higher price for the property than straight financing.
Such an option offers a solution to someone who can't get the help they need elsewhere and allows you to draw income from the property. It's a win-win situation, one which was created because you made use of what the media felt should be dubbed a "bad" real estate market.
