Location! Location! Location!

Brick row housesWhat are the three most important things to consider when buying a house? Location. Location. Location. The repetition intentionally over-emphasizes this point:  if the location of your new real estate purchase is not good, then the details of the home don’t really matter.

A spacious kitchen and updated bathrooms are nice, but even a perfect house located near the end of a busy airport runway will not bring a high value in the real estate market. For this reason, many savvy investors buy the worst house in a great neighborhood and then upgrade it to suit their tastes, rather than buying the best house in a mediocre neighborhood.

So should you spend money to improve your current residence, or use those funds to move to a different neighborhood altogether? Clearly, the answer depends on the quality of your current location.  Continue reading