Clay Sparkman
These days–with uncertain markets—tools and resources which provide us with information and data are more crucial than quite possibly ever before.
I am always trying to find more resources that will be of use to both me and readers of this blog. Here are a few items that have popped up lately.
ALTOSResearch offers this wonderful site, offering “real-time real estate data.” I haven’t fully researched the treasures on this site, but have been quite impressed by their market specific data (just click on the “Take me to the data” tab off the main page.” It is free to use at a basic level and offers a very useful set of analytics giving you invaluable data on the current state of various real estate markets. The section for Portland looks like this. It actually offers some promise for the future of this market as we move into 2012.
I came across an interesting article at CNNMoney: Housing markets: Best recovery bets. This article begins, “Home prices are poised to fall in most markets this year, but 2012 will bring a rebound. Here are the 10 large metro areas that will record the largest price gains.” Thus more hope for 2012.
I am particularly excited to see that Tacoma, Washington is #1 on the list and that Seattle is #6. Since Oregon and Washington tend to move together, I think this bodes quite well for the chances of recovery in the Pacific Northwest—our core region.
One of our readers, Devin Schumacher, was kind enough to offer the the last two items. Thank you Devin!
First of all, I have long searched for a good beginning text book on private money investing and private money loans. Devin found something that might be pretty good.
Devin says, “The first book I just finished might be worth referencing on your blog. It is a very basic intro to how the business works, and how a person would go about setting one up. It reads almost like an intro to private money lending textbook might read if there was a class on the subject. But nonetheless, probably a good starting point for a lot of people to get an understanding of how it works on a very fundamental level.”
The book is, Private Mortgage Investing by Terri B Clark & Matthew Stewart Tabacchi. You can find it here on Amazon.com (where it gets good ratings, by the way).
And then this last juicy little morsel, a novel apparently built around the financial realm of hard money. You will find it here on Amazon.com. I haven’t read it and neither has Devin, so it is hard to say for sure that they mean Hard Money as in the sense of Private Money. If anyone ventures to read it, please let us know.
And with that, my well is dry for now. If you know of any other resources that might be of interest to the readers of this blog, please share them with us either via the comment section or in a direct mail to me (so that I may in turn share in a future post).
Here’s to a good finish to 2011 and a better year in 2012!
— Clay (sparkman@lendicom.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)
Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964. Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.
Tags: hard money investing, hard money lending, hard money loans, Oregon, private money investing, private money lending, private money loans, trust deed investing, trust deed lending, trust deed loans, Washington, web resources
