Adding Value to Your Properties

In the latest episode of the Real Estate Investing for Professional Men and Women podcast, I spoke with my good friend Anna Jenkins about her investments and the strategies she uses. Anna is a highly-rated real estate broker in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area and also owns a large number of rental properties herself.

Anna got into real estate after her eleven-year career with the Navy ended, and it all started with buying a duplex property to live in. She rented the other unit in the property and realized the cash flow potential of real estate rentals. It wasn’t long before she converted the garage and turned her duplex into a triplex.

On this episode of Real Estate Investing for Professional Men and Women, Anna shares her strategies for adding value to an investment property and she discusses the viability of rental units as a long term portfolio strategy. You won’t want to miss the great insights Anna shares, so I hope you enjoy the episode.

The Value of Rentals

Rental properties can be an excellent long term investment due to the appreciation of the property’s value over time and the fact that they can easily pay for themselves through rent collection. Anna has successfully used this strategy to fund retirement for herself and her husband, and she is a testament to the value of real estate for any business professional looking to invest their money into a steady stream of income.

Part of Anna’s strategy involves purchasing properties in neighborhoods she herself would live in, then renovating them to modernize their appearance and increase their appeal. Anna invests in good mid-range neighborhoods so that she can attract great renters and charge higher rent than low-end properties would allow.

Splitting Properties

As Anna demonstrates, remodeling and renovating a property can be an excellent way to add value and appeal to the home, but Anna also invokes another strategy to increase the rental value of her properties: she turns single-family dwellings into duplexes and triplexes. Instead of, for example, charging $1300 per month in rent to a single family, Anna is able to split the property into multiple doors, creating smaller individual homes that she can rent for greater overall monthly profit. A $1300 home can be turned into two smaller $950 per month homes, and the additional rent collected can rapidly pay for the cost of remodeling. This is a fantastic method of maximizing your total returns on your investment, and the longer you hold onto the property the more money you can continue to collect. 

Anna’s investments prove that there are many different strategies for increasing the value of a property, and that there is tremendous value to be found in thinking outside the box and getting creative. Anna is well on the way to achieving her pre-retirement investment goals, thanks to her fast-track methods. This improved cash flow also allows Anna and her husband to achieve their goals of giving back to the community, allowing them to work with charitable organizations and do philanthropic work they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

Want to hear more? Listen to this podcast here.