Ryan O’Neill, from the Minnesota Real Estate Team, is our guest writer today.

Here in the Minneapolis real estate market, agents on our team have seen a number of real estate investors over the years who have purchased condos or lofts as investment properties. Though there is no “one size fits all” approach to buying investment property, I wanted to briefly touch on some of the benefits to you as the buyer with this type of property.

First of all, a loft or a condo generally speaking has a much lower level of maintenance. My wife and I have owned a number of single family homes in Bloomington since 2001. Though I am certainly not displeased with this type of investment property choice on our part, I have had to spend a sizable amount of capital on roofs, siding, and windows over the years. As an investor in today’s market, I certainly do not discourage investors from a single family home. However, if you do buy a single family home, it will definitely save you money long term by buying homes that do not require these sorts of updates.

Secondly, a loft or a condo does not require the normal sort of lawn and snow care maintenance that a single family home does require. Last week I received a call that one of my tenants was moving out of his rental home here in Bloomington. And course we received about a foot of snow since he has left. As the owner of the home, it is my responsibility now to remove the snow myself or hire a company to do so. Again, if this tenant was renting a loft or condo, there would be no such maintenance on my part as the owner.

Obviously, a condo will have a monthly association fee that will affect your monthly cash flow. However, with the current state of the market here in the Twin Cities, even condos and lofts cash flow after the association fees. And there are a ton of them for sale on the MLS.

Lastly, our team is excited to have put together a collection of the various Minneapolis condos for sale. We spent a lot of time putting together this loft and condo guide for all of our investors and owner occupied buyers alike. It is full of pictures of the myriad projects available here in our Minneapolis real estate market.

Incidentally, I wanted to congratulate Scott Ficek for being voted The 2008 Agent of The Year for The Minnesota Real Estate Team! Scott won award through the votes of his peers, our team of 40 real estate agents. Congratulations and thank you for providing such an awesome blog for Minnesota real estate investors!

Happy Real Estate Investing to all of you in 2009!