Rehab Your Way to Wealth: The Quick Way to Fixer-Upper Success
December 31, 2007
Completely rebuilding a house is not necessary to make money in investment real estate. Most times, if you have bought smart, you won’t have to make a huge improvements on your investment property. Look for places that need only a small amount of work. For example, look for a property that appears to be run down from the outside, but does not need major repair. Here are a few tips for saving money and making quick improvements, in order to quickly sell your rehab property.
1. A house may need a coat of paint but have a nice roof. The paint might cost a few hundred dollars, while a new roof might cost $2,000 to 3,000. Plus, a fresh coat of paint makes almost any house look brand new.
2. Check the foundation very carefully. Foundation work is extremely expensive. I would stay away from any house with a questionable foundation.
3. Like exterior paint, landscaping goes very far in terms of curb appeal, one of the biggest factors in the sale of any kind of real estate. A house with uncut grass, weeds overrunning flowerbeds, and poorly trimmed bushes or trees is very difficult to sell. Conversely, a house with minor deficiencies in other areas may still have a buyer, who wants something that looks good from the outside.
What to Look for in a Real Estate Agent
December 31, 2007
Real Estate Agents play an essential, critical role in the process of buying and selling a home. You just simply cannot afford to work with an agent that does not exhibit top-scale professional values. We’re talking about your primary investment, and the happiness of you and your loved ones.
Here are the 3, most important things that I’ve encountered, that I believe contribute towards excellence in the profession of Real Estate agents.
1. To Serve
2. To Know
3. To Listen
1. To Serve:
Real Estate is a service business, and homeowners and buyers must be treated with the respect that they deserve. A Real Estate Agent must demonstrate that they care about you, and that their primary concern is to serve your needs, and not their own.
a) Look for agents that carry cell phones everywhere they go, and that have no problem taking late night calls, or being interrupted during a Saturday morning snooze. This isn’t a rib of steak you’re buying (or selling). It is more important than everything and anything, and it can be a stressful, anxious process to go through. Customers deserve a confidant, and to be treated with the utmost of care.
How To Best Negotiate A House Deal
December 30, 2007
Whether it’s selling your home or buying a home, more often than not you’ll come across a stage where you’d have to negotiate. Negotiation is the art of getting what you want at your terms and conditions. Of course, it isn’t that easy and it takes time and patience especially when it comes to real estate dealings.
So how do you negotiate a good deal for yourself and what are the points you can use to negotiate a deal to your favour. Well here below are some points you should consider:
Comparative market analysis of homes in the area. Ask your real estate agent or find out through other sources what other homes in the area are selling for and what they’ve sold for in the past. Having such figures can keep you in good stead during the negotiation process. It can be advantageous to either party. A seller may quote the price of a neighbourhood home to justify for his price or show that he’s selling for less while a buyer can use such facts and figures to justify for a lower price.
What You Can Do To Sell Your Home Fast
December 29, 2007
Yes, you want to sell your home and you want to sell it fast. It may be a seller’s market and every other home in your neighbourhood is selling and you think it’s going to be a cakewalk selling your home. You put your house up for sale, people come, a few offers pour in, negotiations take place and then something happens that the deal falls through. This happens more than not when it comes to selling homes. The critical stage is when someone’s given you an offer and when the negotiation starts. First thing, when you get an offer, which in your opinion is ridiculously low don’t just reject it outright. In most cases, the buyer’s just testing the waters to see the best he can get. Always give a counter-offer however disparate your figure may be with the buyer’s offer. Once that’s done, you want to make sure the deal doesn’t fall through. There are many ways in which you can close the deal fast and ensure that both you and the buyer are satisfied. What you can do is negotiate with some other items. Here below are a few examples:
Home Owners: Disclose the Facts!
December 28, 2007
One of the most common causes for disputes occurring after the sale of a home arise from the buyer finding defects in the property, defects which were not disclosed to him by the owner before the sale of the property. If you are the owner of a home that you are looking to sell, please be aware that you may be held liable for not disclosing any known defects in your home.
The statutes governing seller obligations vary with each state. Some states require a seller to complete a questionnaire about their property’s condition; in other states, disclosures can be made verbally. In some states, seller disclosures are voluntary. The only sellers excluded from disclosure laws are banks and mortgage companies with foreclosure properties. In addition to the state laws, there are certain federal laws as well which govern what needs to be disclosed. For instance, federal law requires sellers of homes built before 1978 to disclose any known lead hazards. Some real estate companies may also ask you to disclose all known material facts about your home before they decide to take up your home listing.
I Believe God Wants Me To Tell All In Real Estate
December 27, 2007
After years of experience in the real estate industry I felt that God wanted me to write about everything in real estate. There were young people that were not being protected by anyone, including buyer’s agents. Once I did a VA appraisal on a house that was unbelievable in the amount of repairs. It was listed by one of the most dishonest agents I have ever met. We had words on numerous ocassions. When the appraisal was completed it was “subject to repairs” and it was a big list. I was at the house when the buyer showed up, then came his agent. They wanted to know if everything was alright. I told them a lot of repairs would have to be done to meet VA minimum property standards. The agent called his partner who quickly showed up with the crooked selling agent on the cell phone. Not only the listing agent but the “buyer’s agents argued with me. They wanted me to let it go so the young man could just get the house. He was about 23 years old, had just gotten out of the navy and was going to college.
7 Marketing Methods for Real Estate Coaches
December 26, 2007
You shower, shampoo, dress your best, check to see if you have plenty of business cards, drive about an hour, introduce yourself by saying “Hi, I’m Mary and I’m a coach” and the other person says, “Hi, I’m Jack and I’m a coach, too!”. You meet more coaches than you knew existed. How do you get business when you are surrounded by what may be perceived as your competition?
Here’s a great strategy to create fantastic outcomes.
Time is precious and you can’t get it back, so it needs to be used wisely. For those of you who have limited time or don’t have much of a desire to network, but you know you have to, try Target Networking® for Real Estate coaches. As you target your work market for clients, you can target or focus your networking market using the same skills.
As an example, what if your target industry is real estate? Your target markets could include the bank, mortgage, real estate and insurance companies. Your target audience then becomes banking executives and mortgage brokers, real estate brokers and real estate and insurance sales people.
What do next? Follow these 7 methods to Target Networking® success for your Real Estate Coaching career.
As a Realtor, How Do I Attract Listings?
December 26, 2007
Have you ever noticed that despite the massive number of Realtors in your area, only a hand full are making a fortune selling real estate? Regardless of who these realtors work for; GMAC, Century 21, REMax, they are extremely successful where others in their office are barely scraping by. What is the secret to their success? First and foremost, it is their approach to marketing themselves and their customers.
So what techniques do they use to attract listings? Well, while the rest of us are placing door hangers and mailing out notepads, these super sales people have perfected marketing techniques that attract motivated buyers and sellers, and motivate them to take action. An example of one of the strategies that the best seller in my city uses is as follows:
1) Specialize: Despite the policy of never turning down a listing or qualified candidate, focus on specializing on the type of property that will best suit your performance goals. For the person in my area, single family attached homes provide the greatest return on investment and are turning over the fastest. This is where she is really making her money.
Real Estate Marketing, Do You Use Direct Mail?
December 25, 2007
Prospecting for leads is by far the most difficult part of being a Realtor or small business professional. In fact, lead development is by far the most expensive and time consuming aspect of your job. However, you level of success in lead development will determine if you succeed or fail as a real estate agent or small business professional.
So how do you develop leads? Well top selling professionals realize that they need to touch as many people as possible without spending a fortune or taking up a lot of their time. They also realize that they must make some form of contact with a prospect as many as eight times before that contact will even consider doing business with the professional. Many of these professionals use direct mail to recruit prospects, and direct mail tools to close their deals.
The fundamentals of direct mail are very simple. At is most basic level you are sending out message with an invitation for a prospect to contact you. The key is targeting your specific audience, and making your message stand out against all of the other junk mail that you prospects receive. In addition, you must expose your prospects to the message enough times to make them consider taking action.
Use Targeted Decorating To Get A Higher Price For Your House
December 24, 2007
This article will show you how to sell your home quicker, get a higher price for it by using smart decorating techniques.
The secret is to make your home feel like “my home”, for the buyer.
When a potential buyer walks into your house, she is wondering if this house will “feel” like home after they are settled in.
The problem is that If you are going to decorate your house so it will “feel like home” for someone else, what kind of people will you aim to please? Arranging your house to create a specific feeling is a communication issue.
In order to communicate effectively, you have to know who you are talking to. Since you don’t know who is going to walk through the door to look at your house, you have to make some assumptions.
Think about what kind of family would be ideal for the house. Consider what their occupation would be. How big is their family? How old are the children? What kind of lifestyle would they lead?
People who live in an area often have a similar lifestyle. They have similar values, income, family circumstances etc., so they feel attracted to the area.
