Mark Twain famously said "Buy land. They're not making it anymore." The Balance says that buying real estate is a good way to round out your investment portfolio, especially for the long term. One of the reasons is because you can build equity in it from the moment you take ownership in most cases. How does that work? Is it possible to boost it even more? The answers to these questions and more can be found below.
How Does Equity Work?
What Is It?
First of all, it helps to know what it is. Basically, experts define equity as the difference between what you owe on your mortgage and your property's current market value. When you originally purchased your property, you included a down payment. That ranges anywhere from 3% to 20%. Let's say you paid $120,000, with 10% as your downpayment. At the time, you bought your Lake Havasu home for the fair market value of $120,000. That means that your equity at that time was $12,000.
As time went on, your mortgage balance went down as your fai. ...