Accidental Landlords: The Next Real Estate Nightmare or Effective Housing Solutions?

Most businesses use some kind of commercial real estate. Leasing property has been a bargain in the past year. Prices for buyers are very favorable, though commercial mortgages are still subject to pretty tight underwriting. Many commercial tenants have renegotiated their leases to lower their rents. Going forward, though, good deals are going to be more difficult. 2011 is the year to lock in current rents. If you are going to need more space in the future, you might want to commit this year while landlords are still feeling desperate.

We’ve been skeptical of the private equity land rush to snap up single family homes for rentals. They’ve been a big enough force in the housing market nationwide to lead some commentators to question how solid the housing “recovery” is. Yet the combination of rising enthusiasm for housing and a richly-valued stock market is leading a raft of PE firms to ready IPOs as a way to take profits and establish valuations for their profit participations.

By Dividends4Life: A multitude of self-made millionaires (and billionaires) made their fortunes in real estate. Often through the development of large-scale projects such as shopping centers or planned communities. On a smaller scale, there are many landlords with one or more rental properties earning them a monthly income.

I once had a tenant secretly move 15 children into her 800-square-foot house.

By Russ Winter:An article in the "Arizona Republic 'Phoenix Becomes Virtual Investor's Housing Market', reveals how a handful of large financial institutions are dominating housing purchases and ownership in regions such as metro Phoenix. Key takeaways:

These real estate investors are taking advantage of rock-bottom prices with the knowledge that the markets have to recover at some point. While they wait, they're making a pretty nice return on their investments as landlords.