Home Sellers’ Biggest Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
People say the best days to own a boat are the day you buy the boat and the day you sell it. That’s not true when it comes to home ownership, unless, maybe, you live on a boat cyprus advertisement. The best days in home ownership are when you buy a home and all the way through until the day you decide to sell.
Lots of home owners cry when they sell. Before the ink is dry on the listing agreement, eyes often swell with tears, and we’re not talking about the listing agent. That’s because sellers have developed relationships with their homes. Homes hold treasured memories. It’s common for sellers to be very emotional about their home. Some are overcome by seller’s remorse. However, some sellers weep for a different reason. They sob because they can’t sell their home.
Home is Priced Too High
• By far, the worst home selling mistake a seller can make is hanging the wrong price tag on a home. If the home is priced too high, buyers won’t look at it. If it’s priced too low, sellers worry that they’ll give away profits.
• Pricing a home to sell is an art. Part of the market value is based on comparable sales, but other factors to consider include market movement, demand, the home’s location and its condition.
• If the home is overpriced, buyers might submit lowball offers, which tend to result in an immediate offer rejection. These extremely low offers tend to infuriate and insult sellers.
• Some agents deliberately overstate the value of a home and push a seller to sign an overpriced listing. There are many reasons why agents do this, but the bottom line is sellers lose a competitive edge when later reducing the price. The bottom line is sellers who “test the market” get stung.
The Home is in Bad Condition
• Getting your house cyprus apartment for rent ready for market goes beyond making the beds and washing dirty dishes. Although I’ve seen plenty of homes with toys scattered throughout and dishes piled in the sink; buyers can’t get out of those homes fast enough. There are at least 10 essential steps to take to preparing the home for sale.
• Some homes need updating and quick fixes. Doing repairs before resale can boost chances of quickly selling. If items are broken or buyers see deferred maintenance, they wonder what else is wrong. It’s more expensive, actually, not to fix the house.
• Dressing your home for showings is called staging a home. Think of the process like arranging flowers in an attractive vase. If you or your agent lack the vision or ability to stage, consider hiring a professional home stager.
Home is Marketed Wrong
• Whenever I see a badly shot photograph in MLS, and perhaps it’s the only photo, I want to shake the agent and scream, “What are you thinking?” But agents and sellers make plenty of marketing mistakes.
• The battle cry of frustrated sellers is: “Why isn’t my home selling?” These are likely sellers who are not employing marketing strategies designed to expose a home to the largest pool of buyers. Here are 10 good marketing tips that take the guesswork out of selling your home.
• Once a buyer has entered a home, the marketing continues. To increase the chances that a buyer will entertain an offer, here are 10 home showing tips.
Seller Hired an Inexperienced Agent
• You can hire a good listing agent or a mediocre agent. They all cost about the same. Here are 10 reasons to hire an agent.
• If you want full-service, then hire a full service agent. If you are fairly confident your home will sell without a full-service agent, then talk to a discount broker. Learn the difference between REALTORs® and real estate agents.
• Carefully read the listing agreement to make sure the agent who brings a buyer is fairly compensated because one surefire way to make sure an agent won’t show your home is to offer a silly commission percentage.
Article From: http://homebuying.about.com/od/sellingahouse/qt/0507SellMistake.htm
If you are looking for a great opportunity to get your hands on an Minnesota investment property, look no further than this beautiful home in the prestigious suburb of Woodbury, Minnesota. This house is ideal for the smart real estate entrepreneur.
First of all, this home is a great investment property minnesota because it has a long-term lease with tenants that are very cooperative and keep the house up nicely.
These tenants make up a family of five and take pride in their home. They are signed to a long-term lease that expires in May of 2010. The tenants do most of the maintenance on the property. They shovel snow, mow the lawn, and do general upkeep on the property. Because they are signed long-term, it is almost as good as having homeowners living there.
If you purchase the home, you will be buying it as an Minnesota investment property, because the lease must be honored by the buyer. That is good though, because the rent is steady and the property can show a positive cash flow with the right financing.
Another nice feature of this investment property is that it is managed by a professional real estate management company. This is very important for you as the investor because the management company takes care of all issues with the home. No need to be woken up at midnight to fix a broken toilet.
The fee for the management company is minimal and will not have a great impact on the cash flow of the property. Also, this service will be optional to the buyer. If you prefer to manage the property yourself, you are under no obligation to retain the services of the property management company.
The home itself is in a great location in the town of Woodbury. It is located in a safe and quiet neighborhood in a very good school district. Across the road from the home are farms and great scenery. The reason the other side of the road is undeveloped is that the city of Woodbury currently has a restriction on new housing developments south of Bailey Road.
What this means to the investor is that, when the real estate market recovers again (which should be real soon), property values in this area are going to go up faster, because there will be a limited number of new homes built nearby. Future rises in property values will justify larger future rent increases, increasing the positive cash flow of the property.
This Minnesota investment property has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a total of 2200 square feet with a 2 car garage. The home sits on a large .35 acre corner lot, with only one neighbor close by. The house was built in 1998 and is well maintained. The house has only been a rental property since April 2007. Before that time, it was occupied by 2 previous owners.
The opportunity to purchase this Minnesota investment property is sure not to last long, so, if you are interested, please don’t hesitate to call warren wessel Warren Wessel at 651-730-2585 to schedule a showing.
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A tenant background history info search is really crucial when it comes to locating reliable and honest tenants for your rental property. Find out how to do a search on your new tenants today.
Before you hand the keys of your well taken care of rental property to a new person, it’s crucial that you know as much as possible about him/her. So what are the affordable and simple ways of running a civil records check on your possible tenants?
Method 1: Ask Every Possible Tenant to Fill In Application Form
Asking your potential renters to fill in a tenant application form should be your first choice for a tenant background history info search on your potential tenant because it is both free and highly effective.
As long as your application form does not include irrelevant questions or invade your applicant’s privacy, don’t worry about it being too lengthy. If someone is serious in renting your property, he/she will definitely take the time to completely fill it out.
What’s more important is that your tenant application should ask the correct questions. The correct questions include their monthly income, job type, contacts of their previous landlord and their exact reason for moving away.
This application form is also very important in case you need to evict your tenants in the future. If the person lies in his/her application form, you will be able to remove them from your rental property as long as the courts feel that you were misguided by the lies.
Method 2: Search For Information In The Individual’s Credit Report
While most landlords know that a credit report is helpful for checking if someone is likely to pay his/her rent on time, do you know that it also contains a bunch of information on your tenant’s court and eviction history?
If your tenant has been arrested or charged in court before, his credit report will probably contain his criminal records. It is very important that you don’t have someone who is likely to commit crimes as your tenants. If they are caught carrying out illegal activities on your rental property, you may even risk having it being seized by the local authorities.
Method 3: Contact The Individuals Prior Landlord and Employer
For those tenants that pass your initial background check, there is one last step you may want to take before signing your rental agreement with them.
You can look for your tenant’s previous landlord and ask them for their experience and opinion. This will also give you a chance to double check the information that your possible tenant has written on the application form. If you find any blatant lies, then it’s a good idea to reject him/her.
Contacting your tenant’s employer will also give you a better idea of his/her character and sense of responsibility. You can expect someone with excellent work ethics and a pleasant personality to turn out as a better tenant.
Method 4: Run a public records information check using a people search website. For a small fee you can find out virtually everything about anybody from birth records to finding relatives.
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The Short Sale Process
Real Estate investors Need an understanding of the Short Sale process and how you can profit from it.
Short Sales are one of the best methods for getting a discounted loan in real estate. Short sales can create extremely lucrative investment opportunities and present a solid strategy for making money in this troubled real estate economy. Because of the depressed housing market it has been more difficult to make money wholesaling or flipping. Although they both offer real estate bird dogs good profit opportunities if you can get a tremendous discount and then sell the deal to an investor.
With Short Sales, you will need to have proven financing, either a pre-approved loan or money from private sources. The Banks that own the properties usually won’t even consider any purchase offers unless they are accompanied by proof of funds.
1. Getting Title
One of the most important steps in the short sales process is to get the deed signed over into your name. On many occasions, beginning investors will skip this important step. If you do not have the deed, the homeowners can back out of the potential short sale even after you have spent hours working on the short sale negotiations with the lender(s) on their behalf. This only has to happen once before you will decide you don’t want to get burned again. I recently lost a big chunk of money on a deal because I failed to get the deed. That was a costly mistake that I have not forgotten. When the homeowner signs the deed over to your name you now control the property and you can go to work by calling the lenders. (NOTE OF CAUTION: In some states you may be breaking the law by taking over the deed. In some state you may be classified as a Foreclosure Rescuer, which opens you up to litigation. Always know the laws and regulations in your state before dealing with homeowners facing foreclosure.)
2. Contacting the Mortgage Company(ies)
There are some things to know first before calling the lender when you’re doing short sales. Lenders can usually tell if you’re a rookie and you’ve never done this before. When you call the lender never tell them you are an investor or a foreclosure rescuer. This one of the worst mistakes rookies make and will almost always result in the lender not dealing with you on short sales. For a list of many of the loss mitigation departments go to http://internetrealestatecenter.com/81_lender_mitigation_phone_numbers.php – it may save you some time trying to find the Banks contact numbers.
So when you call the lender the first thing to do is to request a short sales packet. You can either tell them you are the buyer or you represent the homeowner. On occasion they may ask if you are a real estate attorney (don’t say yes unless you really are one). Just retell them what you told them before. You will want to request a “short sales packet” or “workout packet.” When you receive packet it will explain exactly what you need to do to make this short sale a successful deal. (Good luck if you end up dealing with Bank Of America or Countrywide – they’re a bunch of $#$^^ and are extremely difficult to deal with.)
3. Letters Proving Hardship
The lender will almost always request a hardship letter that explains to the lender why the homeowners are not making their mortgage payments. Sometimes they will request bank statement, pay stubs, income statements, a list of monthly expenses, etc. You must send them everything they ask for because if you don’t it will not be accepted. They will also ask for a HUD-1 (settlement statement) and a real estate purchase and sales agreement so they can see how much money they will have to settle for. Do not waste any time so send everything the lender asks for ASAP. It usually takes two to three weeks or more to get an answer back from the lender so be patient. If the foreclosure auction is coming up you can ask for them to extend the auction which, in most cases, they will if they know it is a legitimate offer.
4. Brokers Price Opinion. This is when a real estate agent will visit the property and give their opinion on what the house is worth. The BPO is critical. You want to try everything you can to influence the BPO to come in as low as you can – the lower the better. Make sure you point out everything wrong with the property to the BPO agent. It takes a few times to get good at this but, once you do, I believe you will try to get short sales on every potential real estate foreclosure you encounter.
For more information on short sales go to The Short Sale Process AND loan workout
Web technology keeps throwing up new innovations to make life easier to locate Real Estate Bargains! The property market is no exception. So say you are interested in French Properties then normally you surf to your favourite French Property website and check the new properties. This can be enjoyable but time-consuming! So clever alternatives soon became available …..
Today, property websites not only have to have interesting content, large selections of property, easy navigation but a raft of tools to retain the interest of potential clients. Timely reminders will retain interest in your site and prompt surfers to return to your site. Retaining loyal visitors is very important for a successful website.
Property Alerts
Websites were quick to react to keep potential customers in the loop via property newsletters or property alerts sent by email. Potential clients could add their property criteria and then receive daily email alerts about properties matching their criteria. Property Alerts still remains a popular service.
RSS Feeds
Along came RSS feeds and the advent of newsreaders such as the online Bloglines and FeedDemon (free downloadable software). With these applications, you can add a large number of rss feeds from property sites (and other sites which you are interested in) to the “Readers”. Then within your reader, you can view the latest information from a range of sites without having to visit the individual sites! Can be a great time saver!
What are RSS feeds?
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content — such as blog posts, news headlines, audio, and video — in a standardized universal format. An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”) includes full or summarized text, plus information such as publishing dates and authorship.
Refinement of this approach: Many sites will provide a variety of property feeds – depending on your interest. For example, you can choose a particular region of France, locality or perhaps a type of property – say, Villas! For example, French properties for sale.
Widgets / Gadgets
Real Estate Websites soon realised that providing content was a valuable tool to get more clients and in some cases more links! Dapper, Grazr among others allowed webmasters to create widgets using typically rss feeds. There are many ways to advertise and distribute the widgets via your own websites or via distribution websites. For example, iGoogle will used widgets to populate iGoogle home pages.
Twitter
Twitter has remained one of the most used microblogging and conversational tools. Twitter has become an almost an overnight sensation with rapid growth. More and more businesses have been recognising Twitter as a marketing tools. New ways of using Twitter are costantly emerging. For example, you can now elect to follow various Twitters such as http://twitter.com/1st4FrenchProp and your twitter account will receive a tweet whenever a new property is added to the main site database.
The choice is yours how you keep in touch with the property market!
What is all the fuss about?
A lot of people hear the chatter about the Dr. Phillips area in Orlando. What is the big deal? Who was Dr. Phillips anyway? The area of Dr. Phillips is named after Dr. Phillip Phillips. He was a doctor who pioneered the processing and packaging of orange juice. He was one of Orlando’s first millionaires. He also was a key real estate investor, and to this day his foundation still owns thousands of acres. He purchased land which stretched across almost 9 counties, and it runs from 535 and Apopka Vineland Road to about Apopka Vineland and Conroy Windermere Road.
The Dr. Phillips area offers a wide variety of home offerings.. People consider it to be a prestigious area, with large, expensive homes, townhomes, and villas. There are several large homes on the Butler Chain of Lakes, some of which reside on some of Orlando’s best golf courses.The Dr. Phillips area has two elementary schools, a middle school, and high school, which are all part the Orlando County Public Schools system.
Dr.Phillips is much closer to the main route of travel interstate I-4, than the city of Windermere, has great homes as well and you don’t have to deal with the two lane road that provides access in and out of the Windermere area. The exclusivity of the area does have its drawbacks when it comes to communting. During rush hours this is very frustrating. Even though technically Isleworth is located in Windermere, it is in close proximity to Dr.Phillips, and still adds to the allure of the area. Greats such as Grant Hill, Tiger Woods, Payne Stewart, Arnold Palmer, Tracy McGrady, Shaquille O’Neal, and others have made this area their home at one time or another.
The area also offers a multitude of desirable golf front homes and mansions along the Butler Chain of Lakes. Residents of Dr. Phillips enjoy a variety of exclusive gated communities and an excellent school system. Growth continues steadily in the area with the help of nearby businesses moving into the area and the allure of nearby upscale shopping. This beautiful community is an ideal spot to make your home.
Dr.Phillips is currently undergoing a massive expansion of restaurant offerings on Sand Lake road. In the next five to six years, it will rival Winter Park in desirability. One last important fact is that the famed Restaurant Row is conveniently located along Sand Lake road. Some of the offerings that are a treat are Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, MoonFish, Season’s 52, and many others. At the end of the day it is a great place to live, great schools, great family oriented neighborhoods, and great restaurants too!
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Written by: Steve Gillman
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It was a simple real estate formula. The ads ran in our small-town newspaper for years before I realized exactly what was going on. They were always the same: A house for sale with 5% down and payments of 1% of the purchase price. Maybe a three bedroom home for $90,000, for example, with $4,500 down and $900 per month payments.
When a friend started doing the same thing he explained the process to me. It was a way to get a great return on capital, and it was the opposite of buying with no money down. There is no down payment at all when you buy, because you buy for cash.
The Simple Real Estate Formula
You probably know that when you buy for cash, you can often get a much better price. With no financing contingencies in the offer, and the promise of a faster closing, sellers are willing to sell for less. You can offer $95,000, for example, on a house that might be worth $108,000. If you can’t get it for less than, say, $99,000, you walk away – there are always other opportunities.
Once you buy the house, you put few thousand into high-return repairs and improvements. These might include paint, carpet, and maybe asphalt for a dirt driveway. For our example, we’ll say you spend $5,000. Let’s suppose the house is worth $116,000 now. You’re ready for the next important step in this real estate formula.
You put it up for sale, targeting buyers who can’t get financing easily. You provide the financing. Because you are making it easy for the buyer, you can get more than the $116,000 value for the home – and do it without paying a realtor’s commission. Let’s say you sell it for 123,000. The buyer needs a down payment of just 5%, or $6,150, and makes monthly payments of $1230 per month. You charge higher interest than the going rates at the banks, of course.
This is a win-win situation. Your buyer is able to buy a home instead of renting, and you get a capital gain of perhaps $16,000 after expenses, plus good interest. Your total rate of return will often be over 20%!
In our town, the first to do this consistently were a father and son team of lawyers. They saved money by doing their own foreclosures when necessary. Once they foreclosed, they raised the price and sold the home all over again.
They made millions. Did you know that if you can get an average return of 18% on your money, you’ll turn $75,000 into more than one million dollars in about fifteen years? That’s the power of a good real estate formula.
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You may develop the greatest business strategy, but if you are unable to implement it as it’s too pricey, or because you do not have the resources to commit to it, then it’ll be doomed from the start. Here are 7 low-cost, no-cost, mortgage loan originator ideas you can put to use straight away:
First loan officer tip – Make Marketing a Subconscious Element of Everything You Do. Now, this does not imply you need to turn into an “in your face” mortgage loan originator, but you must develop the perspective that each conversation with somebody may be that “big break” for which you have been looking.
Second mortgage marketing tip – Supply a Low-cost, No-cost Way for Prospects to Experience You or Your Service. Offer something at no cost like an email mortgage newsletter, or a free mortgage loan review. By giving leads a no-cost option to meet and / or have interaction with you, you make it less complicated for them to think about selecting you over competition. Here’s helpful mortgage broker marketing ideas for sending email mortgage newsletters.
Third mortgage marketing tip – Ask for Referrals from Clients, Friends, Associates. Like anything in life, if you want something you have to ask for it. If you’re not attending your closings, you’re missing the biggest opportunity to get referrals from clients. Here’s a mortgage loan originator tip for getting referrals from realtors.
Fourth mortgage marketing tip – If you do nothing else. Start a free loan officer tip line. Offer a free daily, weekly, or monthly tip recorded on your voice mail. The mortgage marketing tips should be related to current home financing news. Include your mortgage web site at the start or end of your message to drive traffic and develop more familiarity with who you are.
Fifth mortgage marketing tip – Write a loan officer newsletter. This is a good way to let your clients know about your expertise. Don’t focus too highly on making it a sales letter. As an example, you can talk about current events but include extra articles on how they can protect their investment, use their mortgage to create wealth, or share which home improvements give them the biggest bang for the buck.
Sixth mortgage loan originator tip – Use your car as a mobile advertising promotion. Show your name and mortgage website clearly on all your cars. You may not need to have a big banner on the side of it but you might think about the likes of a fender sticker or a little sign in the back window.
Seventh mortgage marketing idea – Promote on your faxes and emails. A newsletter gives a general feel of your expertise, while a banner ad on your faxes and emails build your brand. Include a tagline that describes your service and the way to get in touch.
All the above have one main objective, to raise your credibility with all you come into contact with in your business life, patrons and providers alike. Try using some or all in your business and you may find that it’ll make a quantifiable difference.
Getting yourself to make a decision to buy a property overseas can be a dream in one respect but a nightmare in the other but for many people it is something that simply has to be done. The motives for buying a holiday home property can vary from simply wanting a holiday getaway through to an investment opportunity that can deliver an alternative income from letting the property out.
Many British have traditionally settled on such places as Spain and France for areas in buying their dream holiday homes but over the past years many have ventured further afield for their choice of holiday home investment. One such country is Egypt and in particular the incredible property in El Gouna. This beautiful town has been designed entirely for the purpose of delivering a holiday resort housing privately owned villas and apartments as well as a wide selection of luxury, yet affordable hotels.
Making El Gouna so special is the way it has been developed from scratch over the past fifteen years or so. During that time one Egyptian entrepreneur of this section of beach line on the Red Sea has built and developed one of Egypts most prestigious private resorts that is now a permanent home to some fifteen thousand residents and the number keeps climbing.
El Gouna is incredible for a number of reasons one is the way in which all the residential developments have been constructed with the Red Sea in mind. If the beach itself was not accessible then incredible sea water lagoons were made inland. These unique engineering feats assisted developers to offer prospective investors of El Gouna real estate the chance to have holiday homes with their own piece of the Red Sea outside their front doors.
Now a fully functioning Egyptian town El Gouna is a thriving town delivering a superb range of shops, restaurants and impressive marinas which are home to some of the worlds most expensive and high powered boats. With sensational Red Sea diving on your doorstep it is no surprise that El Gouna has now become one of the most best loved holiday destinations and popular overseas investment opportunities, not just in Egypt but across the world.
If the sea is not your cup of tea but you want all year round sun and other recreational sports such as golf then you can also enjoy this sport on El Gounas very own golf course and another bit of good news is that a new PGA golf course is also being constructed in the Upper Nubia area next to the new super marina that is also being constructed right next to the current and very popular Abu Tig marina.
Another gem El Gouna has to offer are the amazing golden beaches that drift into the warm and blue waters of the Red Sea, you don’t even have to go under the ocean to see the beautiful sea life El Gouna and Egypt has to offer to the world, you can simply go snorkelling to see a never ending display of beautiful multi coloured fish.
If you are looking for a holiday home in Egypt then you should really checkout El Gouna before the real estate costs go off the scale in value. Once the new super marina is completed next to the Abu Tig marina and the PGA golf course is completed then villas and apartments in the Upper Nubia area will rocket even further.
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More and more agents and brokers are beginning to recognize the importance and benefits that comes with real estate staging before putting the homes they represent on the market. But what they fail to realize can waste valuable time, create undue pressures and stress, and sink valuable resources into a black hole. There actually is a science to real estate staging.
Here are a few of the issues that cause many agents to stumble when trying to stage a house according to Barbara Jennings, director of the Academy of Staging and Redesign.
1) Inability to advise sellers of the benefits of staging – No seller looks forward to spending more cash to prepare their house to sell. Yet it is a rare home that requires little to no work. But if the proper tasks are done right, it is amazing how costs for redesign are reduced while making a dramatic improvement in the look and feeling of the property.
2) Inability to keep from insulting the sellers – No one likes to be told that their property is a mess, that their design efforts are dreary or dreadful, that their house is in disrepair, or that it smells terrible. So getting the truth across to a seller without totally insulting them is an art that few agents have mastered. This is one reason why it helps dramatically to bring in a qualified stager to give the bad news, keeping the seller/agent relationship in tact.
3) Ignorance of interior design concepts – One cannot hope to properly conduct a proper homestaging service if one does not know basic interior redesign concepts. How much furniture is kept in each room and where it is placed are crucial elements to successful presentation of the property.
4) Failure to go far enough in the design concepts – Knowing how much to do is as important as knowing what to do when it comes to real estate staging. Far too often untrained beginners are afraid. Fear immobilizes. You really only get one chance to launch a home for sale for the greatest impact. So if it is not handled properly the chance is lost, or at the very least, it is downgraded.
5) Failure to hire professionals to manage the staging – Reducing costs is always a concern and no one like the idea of spending money to make money. But when it comes to homestaging, spending money is often required. There are many tasks that will not involve money, such as rearranging furniture and accessories however. Professional stagers are the most reliable people to lean on when it comes to good redesign techniques.
Barbara Jennings has over 20 years experience in the interior redesign and home staging industry. Barbara’s Academy of Staging and Redesign is the world’s largest and most affordable home study interior redesign and home staging training center.
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