The Big Picture On Creative Financing in Real Estate: Seller financing and installment contracts allow investors to negotiate directly with sellers for financing, potentially reducing the need for traditional bank loans. These strategies include options like assuming...

G. Brian Davis
Brian Davis is a real estate investor and personal finance writer with over two decades in the real estate and finance industries. After graduating from University of Delaware in 2003 with two useless B.A. degrees and an even more useless minor in anthropology, he fell headfirst into real estate finance by accident.
Then he promptly went on a property buying spree from 2005-2008. It was what you might call a “learning experience,” all of the lessons expensive.
Eventually, Brian tired of landlording and unloaded his own portfolio of rental properties. But he still loved real estate as an investment, and today he owns fractional shares in over 2,000 units.
The difference? Nowadays he only invests passively in real estate.
Along with his wife and daughter, Brian spends most of the year abroad living by his own rules. He loves hiking, cooking, pairing wine with said cooking, scuba diving, and occasionally surfing (badly). And writing: he writes as a real estate and personal finance expert for Inman, BiggerPockets, R.E.tipster and dozens of other publishers.
Most of all, Brian loves showing others how they too can create their ideal lives through real estate investing and lifestyle design.
Underworld: How to Spot Professional Tenants Before They Bite
The Big Picture On How To Spot Professional Tenants: Professional tenants are people who game the system in order to illegally stay on a rental property without paying rent. Landlords should be vigilant when spotting professional tenants. A strong tenant screening...
Housing Market Corrections: How to Invest Throughout the Real Estate Cycle
The Big Picture On The Real Estate Cycle: Understanding the real estate market cycle is an important guide for informed investment decisions. Investors should focus on generating positive cash flow during recessions or uncertainties as a safer strategy, rather than...
BRRRR Method With No Money: With Infographic
The Big Picture On The BRRRR Method With No Money: The BRRRR method (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) is an effective strategy used for building real estate portfolio rapidly. Like with anything, the BRRRR method comes with its own set of risks and advantages....
How Much Money Do You Need to Retire Early in 2024 (and How Real Estate Changes the Math)
The Big Picture On How Much You Need To Retire Early: Retiring early is difficult, but very possible. It takes knowledge and discipline to achieve. There are several strategies that you can use to figure out how much money you need to retire early. These depend on...
Cheap Real Estate in the U.S.: Here’s Where To Find It
The Big Picture On Cheap Real Estate In The United States: West Virginia tops the list of where the cheapest houses in the United States, same as the in Q1 2025 The rankings were also unchanged quarter-on-quarter. Real estate investors have a lot of reasons why they...
Fair Housing Lawsuits on the Rise Nationwide
The Big Picture On Fair Housing Lawsuits: There's a notable increase in fair housing lawsuits across the nation, reflecting heightened vigilance and readiness to challenge discriminatory practices within the housing sector through legal avenues. Recent legislative...
Understanding CapEx For Landlords – “It’s Not Rocket Surgery”
The Big Picture On CapEx For Landlords: Capital expenditures are significant investments for maintaining and improving your rental property's long-term value. Disregarding capex in your forecasting and budgeting can lead to some very ugly consequences, the chief of...
Should Landlords Rent to College Students? Student Housing 101
The Big Picture On Should You Rent To College Students: Renting properties to college students near universities is an attractive real estate investment. Advantages of renting to college students include higher potential income, higher occupancy rates, co-signer...
Self Directed IRA Rental Property: A Real Estate Case Study
The Big Picture On How To Invest In Real Estate With Self-Directed IRA: You can invest in almost any type of real estate by opening a self-directed IRA with a custodian. It's much easier to invest in passive real estate investments (such as real estate syndications or...