Many of yesterday's sure-fire investments now seem inadequate at best and precarious at worst. Five-year CDs currently yield slightly over 1%, and ten-year U.S. Treasury Notes only get you 1.98%. Even the Dow Jones over the last five years has yielded less than 1%. Despite these dismal figures, you have a responsibility to yourself and your family to provide for your future.

Is real estate investing a consideration in your asset allocation strategy?  Financial wisdom has proven over time that a diversified portfolio adds greater impact to your investment outcome than the selection of individual securities and/or assets within that allocation.  

Every broker needs a handful of hard money lenders as a part of their portfolio of professional contacts. While hard money can be expensive, in many cases, it can also be the only way to source debt for customers whose situation is unsuitable for traditional lending. In particular, if it’s a hard-to-fund property, brokers may find it difficult to match the right lender to their client’s transaction.  Here are a few things that brokers look for when choosing who their sources of hard money should be:

Current economic times do not bode well for the stability of financial markets. Most investors retain sizable holdings in cash or equivalents thus depressing the interest rate. The prudent investor fears this economic uncertainty but also yearns for more sizable yet safe returns.

This past month, the Federal Reserve published a white paper entitled, "The U.S. Housing Market: Current Conditions and Policy Considerations." While they don't try to outline and explain every factor influencing the current housing market, they do paint a fairly comprehensive picture of current conditions. These conditions should be carefully considered by people involved in any aspect of the real estate market--from real estate investing or working as an agent to issuing loans or helping investors find financing--and knowledge of these conditions should play a role in how you work within the market.

Before we talk about your long-term game plan and how to proceed from here, here's a basic summary of the whitepaper:

Have you thought about becoming a real estate investor this New Year? If you have, take comfort in knowing that experts believe now is the best time to invest in real estate due to low home prices and falling interest rates. Better yet, most real estate professionals and investors believe the real estate market is beginning to finally recover.

Most people simply turn to either banks or investment institutions when deciding how to invest their savings. Banks take your money and pay you as little as possible so they can go lend it at a higher rate and make money for themselves. Investment institutions take your money and invest it in all kinds of creative ways, take all kinds of “management fees” and leave you hoping that they actually achieve their projected returns. The following are 6 reasons why I chose to start the LinkedIn Group: California Trust Deed Investment Group, and to help people understand why they should consider trust deeds as an alternative: