Trying to find great investment properties requires careful planning and research. The location and amenities of your home are important in deciding whether or not it will be an asset.

Q: First off, I love all of your greatly informative articles and blogs. Thank you for providing the public with such useful information. I was curious to know how to go about locating and purchasing some properties that would be comparable to the ones in your article “What Can You Buy for Less Than $1,000?”

I am new to real estate and have no prior experience though I believe this may be a good way to get my feet wet. Could you please help?

A: That story was published some time ago, though we are planning an update. The best way to find great investment properties is to hire a local real estate agent who can help you search for them. There are properties out there that are priced extremely low, but there aren’t that many and some are in less than desirable neighborhoods. That’s why you need an extremely good agent who can assist you in finding the right properties in the right location at the right price.

In addition, you’ll need to put together a great team of people, of which the real estate agent is just the first. You’ll also want to hire a great mortgage lender, property inspector, accountant or tax preparer and attorney. Each of these folks plays an important role in helping you build your own real estate investment portfolio. If you get them talking to each other, so that they feel comfortable reaching out with questions about your investments, all the better.

Ilyce has written an eBook series on investing in real estate. You might consider buying it for $2.99 on Amazon called “The Successful Real Estate Investors Guide.” We believe that if you take the time to learn about how to invest in real estate, you’ll do much better than if you throw cash at a property just because it seems like it is low priced.

As a first time home buyer  you need to understand that the price of a home is only one piece of a larger puzzle. You need to understand that the location of a home is extremely important to how well you enjoy living in the home and the community. The type of home, size, and amenities is extremely important in deciding whether to buy an asset that you may keep for years to come.

The article you quoted was from some time ago when foreclosures and other bank owned properties were selling at record low numbers. You could buy a property for almost nothing, but you’d need to be prepared to put a significant amount of money into those homes to restore them and bring them up to a level where people could live in them.

Learn about the area you might want to live in, decide what type of home you like, your must-haves in a home and what your budget is. Then find a good real estate agent in your area to guide you in the housing inventory out there so that you may make a sound financial decision for yourself.