3Rd Quarter Numbers for Apartment Investments are up. Both in new purchases and renovations to existing units.

Why and why should we be interested?

The news came out today that home sales in July fell by 27%.  Just yesterday the StarTribune of Minneapolis, MN stated a dramatic increase in apartments being rented, rents rising and landlords making improvements to existing properties to lure new tenants.

As it turns out, these days, ‘luring’ is easy. The number of people looking at apartments is on the rise.

Here are 3 Things This Could Mean for You:

1. If you currently own some apartment units, it may be a good time to follow suit, make some improvements, market to and attract a better, higher level of tenant and even consider raising the rent. When the market is full of ‘buyers’ in this case renters, supply and demand allow us to creep up rents back to there the used to be.

2. If you’ve been thinking about investing in apartments or already own some, apartments prices right now are actualy cheap, because of limited financing out there.   If you can get your hands on some dough, now might be a good time to start looking for some deals.

3.  If you like the idea of upping your game, ‘graduating’ to bigger deals. Go with the trends. Commercial properties in general right now are good deals and you can find them cheap.  Apartments are no different. But you do need to get boned up on the differences between the smaller SF deals and a 10+ unit complex.  Less than 10 units, and you can treat it like a normal SF buy, run the numbers as usual. Get above 10 units and you’re starting to get into different deal calculations.  Dave Lindahl (owner of 7,000) apartment units says his small deal-large deal cut off is 20 units.

Either way, if you’re looking into this, now’s a good time.  But get a partner who’s done it or get some training.

To hear an interview I did with Dave Lindahl on the pros and cons of Apartment investing and what you can expect, go here.