We generally advise our clients to purchase property they fall in love with. Chances are that other people will feel the same, and your attitude alone will make a major difference if you decide to sell it later on. We are not the right company if your primary goal is to "flip" properties in a short term effort to build wealth through real estate. This is not our specialty, but we would be glad to refer you to people we know who provide this type of service.

Generally, we believe that real estate located in high quality gated amenitized communities bought prudently are solid "investments" but should not in most cases be purchased with a short term time frame in mind. Most of the time, clients that come to us for guidance and information are those that are end users. In other words, they buy to enjoy now or later. Some clients purchase lots that they plan on one day building on. Other clients purchase roof top property today that they plan on using immediately. In either case, these clients of ours are doing long range planning. They want to secure a great location now AND they believe this property they are purchasing will appreciate going forward.

There are those circumstances where purchasing property for short term appreciation where the buyer has no intention of ever becoming an end user do present themselves. Yet, we at The Schaffer Realty Group do not actively pursue these types of real estate transactions for our clients. There are 'great buys' from time to time and we do let our clients know of these. However, as a good general rule, we work with buyers that have a longer term time frame when purchasing property.

Bottom line, buying real estate solely for short-term appreciation is for the aggressive investor and that is not the market we concentrate in. Not to mention, the most successful real estate investors that have created significant wealth buy and hold real estate for well over eight years. If the property you purchase does not generate cash flow, such as a lot in a development, we recommend to our clients that they are able to cover the note on the property for a significant period of time without it altering their daily life style.

Make sure you have done your homework. Unfortunately, there are too many examples to show you where a family purchased a piece of land with the promise that it would double in value in 12 months since they purchased the property during the "pre-construction celebration". There was a time in certain markets of the country where people were seeing exceptional returns on their initial investment, but like the stock market, this was a time of irrational exuberance and it is not the market we are in today. If real estate is not your full time business, use a firm like ours to help you research the thousands of opportunities and to identify the right ones for you. Again, we at The Schaffer Realty Group feel you will be hard pressed to find a firm that has the extensive knowledge and experience that we have in the gated amenitized business.