Real Estate is a multi-faceted investment arena - there are MANY different methods to earn money from different niches in real estate. One or several may work for YOU!

Here's the typical experience: "buy your own residence and sell it when its all paid off and you want to retire, oh my gosh look at all the money its worth".

If THAT worked well for so many people, imagine the effect on your finances of having another property, rented out, or several!

Some people get into "flipping" properties, finding an undervalued good deal and selling it at or close to its "real" value.

Others buy a run down property, and put work (and money) into renovating the property, expecting to be paid well for their efforts - especially if you concentrate on the changes that drastically improve the look and value of the property.

There are a group of people re-zoning properties, looking to take a larger parcel and subdivide it into smaller, more valuable properties. This can involve a LOT of time working (begging!) city hall to approve your plans.

The principle of highest value useage of a property means that if you improve the use to a more valuable useage, you increase the value. One example of this would be taking a warehouse and converting it into lofts, or office spaces for that matter.

Pre-construction purchases, or options on future availability of a property are time honored methods for the builders to get construction financing - they NEED pre-sales - and for you to profit from the future value of the property once it is actually built, sometime in the future.

Moving a house is another opportunity - houses that are structurally fine, but about to be replaced by a new building, can be moved to an empty lot, possibly have a basement added to improve the value, and resold. Often houses to be moved cost $10,000 or less, but there are substantial moving costs to watch out for.

Foreclosures are a great opportunity to either make as much as 15-18% interest on your money, or purchase a house for merely the amount of back taxes. This can be a bargain, but involves a lot of time researching properties to avoid getting the deed on a trashed house, or a piece of swampland!

Short Sales are purchasing foreclosed homes directly from the bank, which wants to be in the banking business, not the owning homes business. There are some hard negotiating sessions to get a great deal, but it is more certain than the foreclosure process, where homeowners can often redeem the properties after a period of time, just paying you interest on your money.

On top of these areas, there are huge opportunities in apartments and revenue properties, in shopping centers and malls, in "build to suit" commercial offerings, and in buy and hold land purchases.

There are pros and cons to all of these, but there are obviously MANY more opportunities than just buying your home and hoping to pay it off - keep an eye out for some of these different areas, and look for an opportunity that could work for YOU!