Business Insider • 21st April 2024

The meteoric rise — and spectacular fall — of the Queen of Airbnb

On a mild Tuesday evening in early 2022, some 150 people packed into the VFW hall in Tulsa to hear the Queen of Airbnb make her pitch.Post-pandemic, with interest rates low and travel once again booming, Airbnb listings had been popping up all over the city. For average investors, the back-of-the-napkin math was irresistible. In Tulsa, you could buy a suburban-style home for less than $75,000 and rent it out for $117 a night.

Business Insider • 29th March 2023

A personal-finance blogger quit being a landlord, sold her rental properties, and still plans to retire early. Here's how.

While countless people jumped headfirst into real-estate investing over the last few years, Holly Johnson and her husband have decided that it's a great time to get out.

"Prices are high," she said. "It was the right decision. I will never think about it again because I set aside dollars for taxes and invested the rest immediately."

Business Insider • 25th March 2023

Influencers make being a landlord with lots of rental properties seem easy. But a real-estate investor with 482 units warns newbies to not scale up too quickly.

The prospect of steady cash flow and financial independence has lured many investors to real estate, particularly between 2020 and 2022, when low mortgage rates made borrowing a breeze and rents skyrocketed.

Business Insider • 23rd March 2023

Phoenix residents are transforming their homes to save energy and conserve water as climate scientists warn of an ever-worsening crisis

The United Nations just released yet another report about the devastating consequences of climate change, urging world leaders to take immediate action to contain the global rise in temperatures. This time, its recommendations are being described as a "final warning" from scientists.

Business Insider • 18th March 2023

Don't bother writing a 'love letter' to home sellers.

When Lauren Byington and husband, Warren, listed their home outside San Antonio, Texas, for sale in 2020, she was relieved when they quickly received three offers close to the full asking price of $975,000.

Business Insider • 9th March 2023

A popular tax-avoidance tool that home sellers and real-estate investors have been using for decades is at risk — again

The Biden administration has signaled a renewed effort to get rid of a popular loophole that real-estate investors have long used to avoid paying taxes after the sale of a property.

Business Insider • 5th March 2023

Real-estate investors seized upon a tried-and-true strategy to fix up homes and make money. Then the market turned.

A perfect storm of softening home prices, increasing taxes, higher mortgage rates, and steep building-material costs has made the BRRRR model less attractive to investors. And Austin is particularly vulnerable, as home prices have fallen drastically since last summer, when they peaked.

Business Insider • 1st March 2023

The problem with home-flipping giants

The scalpers, people or entities who resell something quickly for profit, are winning. Meanwhile, the corporate scalpers of the housing market — companies that buy and relist homes by the thousands without doing much, if any, work on them to make a profit — are struggling.

Business Insider • 18th February 2023

A 27-year-old real-estate investor who rehabbed 7 Austin properties last year is now targeting San Antonio, where homes can cost less than $100,000.

After a dramatic bull run during the pandemic, the Austin market is finally starting to cool off. However, despite home prices dipping from their 2022 peak, homebuying in the Texas capital continues to be competitive and especially challenging for shoppers on a tight budget. For this reason, Crenshaw sees a lot of opportunity in nearby San Antonio for newbies and experienced investors alike.

Business Insider • 16th February 2023

Homebuyers have a better shot at scoring a deal on a house in the 14 cities where home prices have plummeted the most

Fatigued home shoppers across the country have more of a reason to relax — if ever so slightly — as home prices continue to slide from their peak in 2022.

Steep mortgage rates and still-high home prices in major cities sidelined many homebuyers last year who may not have been able to stomach such high monthly payments. But there's a chance for them to come off the sidelines as prices fall in some key areas.

Business Insider • 29th October 2022

The founder of a real-estate investing platform highlights the 3 most attractive cities in the southeast right now, explains what's so appealing about them, and offers predictions for the coming month

Institutional money has made big waves in residential real estate over the last year, with each quarter seemingly setting a new record for the number of homes purchased by investors versus regular individuals.

Business Insider • 24th October 2022

Online real-estate investment firm Fundrise is paying way over housing-market value for some build-to-rent communities. Here's why it says it's still a winning strategy.

Just down the street from each other in Palm Bay, Florida, are two newly constructed residential subdivisions — both built by DR Horton, the largest US homebuilder. At one of the communities, called Cypress Bay, DR Horton sells homes directly to consumers.

Business Insider • 17th July 2022

Real estate investors sitting on the sidelines could be rewarded for their patience as home sales slow, price cuts increase, and consumer sentiment softens

After one of the most dramatic real estate bull runs in recent history, the housing market has taken a noticeable turn in recent months. More indicators are pointing to a softening real estate market, meaning that patient investors who have waited out the hot market since the start of the pandemic could be handsomely rewarded in the near future.

Business Insider • 5th June 2022

I became a first-time homeowner and landlord at 29. These are the 3 most important lessons I've learned in the past 7 years of owning and managing a rental property.

Before becoming Insider's real-estate-investing editor, I was a small-time landlord in Chicago. I purchased my two-unit building in September 2015 and have had several tenants since then.

Business Insider • 18th May 2022

Are we in a housing bubble? We asked 32 experts, and most said no. They explain their answers and offer insight about what we could see with housing prices in the coming months.

Twenty-six of 32 experts canvassed by Insider's reporters said the housing market would not crash as it did in 2008. They outlined several reasons.

Business Insider • 1st March 2022

Wealthy oligarchs and other elites with Russian business ties have at least $570 million invested in upscale Manhattan real estate. Here's where their properties are located.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters into its second week, Western nations have intensified sanctions against the country's elite, including Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.

Business Insider • 27th February 2022

The 'crypto mortgage' could become yet another way that investors crowd out traditional homebuyers

As US real-estate prices hit records in many markets, some people are pointing to investor activity as one of the causes of the high demand and increased competition. Now, international investors who have been unable to secure financing and were stuck on the sidelines have a new method of purchasing real estate in the United States: a so-called crypto mortgage.

Business Insider • 23rd February 2022

How one Montana family created a successful Airbnb side business and transformed their property into a popular high-desert retreat by renting out their yurts during the pandemic

Upon returning home to Montana after a long vacation in Mexico at the start of 2020, Jessie and Nolan Salix thought it was time to do something with the three yurts on their property. Before then, the family didn't realize that hosting on Airbnb could be an option for them.

Business Insider • 27th January 2022

An investor who quit a 6-figure job at Google to focus on real estate full-time explains how he did it

On one Wednesday afternoon this January, 27-year-old Faraz Hemani had a surreal moment while taking a call from his car in a strip mall parking lot: he resigned from a coveted job as a program manager with Google.