It's time to learn how to use your brain, not your bank account, to take control of a property and make money from it without ever actually buying it. Options are a smart and simple way to control property--especially highpriced real estate--with little or no cash. Options can generate lump sum profits, longer-term cash flow, or both--it's all in how you structure the deal.

Using options is undoubtedly one of the most powerful ways available to investors today to gain control of real estate. Options give investors the legal right to purchase an asset at a predetermined price within a specified period of time. One of the primary reasons for using options stems from the high degree of leverage that can be obtained when purchasing stocks.

A lease option is similar to a purchase option in that it grants investors the right to purchase property at a predetermined price within a stipulated period of time. Lease options combine the basic lease or rental agreement with an option to purchase contract. The primary difference between these methods, however, is that lease options are typically used with property such as a single-family dwelling that might otherwise be rented to a tenant.

Why is real estate investing the best wealth builder in the universe? The answer is simple: Everyone needs a place to live, and their values usually go up over time.

I can assure you that, in the next 20 years, your real estate property will probably double, triple, perhaps even quadruple in value. If you are in a hot market, it might even go up 10 to 20 times.

Every one of you is absolutely different. You have different skills, different assets, different worries, and different goals. You need to decide what you really want to do, how much you really want to make, what you are good at, what you are scared of, and what you feel comfortable with, then start developing a business plan.

Whether you are going to own 1 piece of property or 1,000, you are going to have a business.

Do you have what it takes to succeed in rental property investing? By this, I don't mean financial assets like cash and credit. While these are important, what's absolutely essential is having the right psychological makeup, the intangible assets to make it.

Just as with any great business opportunity, real estate investing is not for everyone.

You need to know right from the get-go that, as a real estate option investor, you are not going to have option property deals served up to you on a silver platter by eager sellers and real estate brokers.

In this business, the most profitable option deals are usually the ones that investors create from scratch by identifying an unfulfilled need in their local real estate market and putting a property under option, which best fills the need, and then reselling the option to a buyer, who has a use for the property.