October 2nd, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate |
Many people mistakenly believe that a real estate agent and a broker are the same, but this is actually untrue. While both an agent and a broker must undergo schooling and must pass a state real estate exam, there are some very significant differences between the two.
Considering Licensing
From a technical standpoint, the difference between an agent and a real estate broker is the fact that they hold different licenses. In order to obtain the different licensing, a broker must actually complete additional coursework beyond what an agent must complete.
Although many people use the terms real estate agent and broker interchangeably, a broker actually has more schooling and bears more responsibilities throughout the transaction.
Since a broker has more education and experience, real estate agents work beneath the broker. Therefore, a person that works as an independent Realtor must be a broker as well. A real estate agency with multiple agents, however, may have only one licensed broker and several agents (and associate brokers.) While the agents will perform many of the same functions as the broker, the broker is the one that is ultimately responsible for ensuring the transaction is completed properly. In exchange for taking on this added responsibility, the broker receives a percentage of the commission the agent earns when selling a home. continue reading »
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August 25th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate, Selling Real Estate |
Once you decide to get into real estate the first thing you have to do is find a property to buy. But wait! Before you trot along to your local realtor, where else can you find a great bargain?
The first place that comes to mind is the Internet. But it’s a big wide cyber world and you don’t want to purchase an investment property in China if you live in the USA, or vice versa. (Unless you love flying). So make your search very specific. Go by postal code/suburb/price to see what comes up in your preferred area.
The local newspaper is a good bet too, but look especially for those properties that are advertised as For Sale by Owner. Why? This owner is most likely highly motivated to sell for one reason or another. Another place to watch in the paper is the foreclosure notices. If the bank has foreclosed on a property it will soon be up for sale at a good price. The court proceedings section could also turn up a few good leads for investments. Probate notices could mean that there is a property ripe for the picking. Trustees of an estate may come from afar and be anxious to settle up and get back to their own lives.
Another way to find a good investment property is to simply go for a drive. What to look for? Keep a look out for long grass, unkempt grounds and a deserted look. It will indicate a good price at least for you and with a little TLC and elbow grease you’ll transform your ugly duckling into a golden swan, both physically and financially. If you don’t have time to go driving yourself, think about bribing the local paperboy/girl with a few dollars to let you know if they see something you might be interested in. Give them a small notebook with pencil attached to make it easy for them to jot down the addresses, otherwise they are likely to forget.
You could incorporate your search into your daily activities. Off to work? Choose a different route each day. Picking up the kids? Take a detour and see what gem you might find. In fact, the kids will probably love to go house spotting with you. Keep your ears open at work and play. People talk about people and if you hear of a transfer or even an impending divorce this could provide you with the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. People who have been transferred overseas, interstate, or even just to another city are usually in a hurry to sell and leave. They often have a due date to be in their new place so may be open to accepting a lower price if it means a quick, hassle-free sale. Divorcees are often in a similar condition. They just want to get rid of all their problems, settle up and go their separate ways. Don’t get embroiled in any emotional situation, just offer to solve one of their problems for them, the sale of the house.
Oh, and don’t forget your local realtor. They will often have the inside information on why a house is being sold. So no matter where you source your real estate deal from, just make sure it really is a bargain before you buy it.
July 28th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate |
Buying rent to own house is a very beneficial process for the individuals having restrictions on making down payments, limited earnings, and or poor credit scores. This process allows such individuals to purchase homes prior to the fixation of restrictions.
At present, for several U.S. citizens, the dream of home ownership appears to be far beyond imagination. The real estate prices have skyrocketed over the last several years, and currently it’s almost impractical to acquire a home without good finance and mega incomes for compensating a down payment. This is a demoralizing truth for individuals who reside with big or joint families.
Though, in past few years, increasingly popular and equally advantageous alternatives have come up for individuals facing all the difficulties pertaining with home-buying. Hence, buying rent to own house is a viable solution for all these difficulties. This technique of rent to own is also known as lease option or a lease purchase.
The encouraging factor in the process of buying rent to own house is the non-requirement of the eligibility conditions of loan brokers and banks for buying houses. This is because, in such cases, the sellers are real estate investors and hence, more interested in working with the buyers rather than the traditional homeowners selling their house through a realtor and having the buyers use traditional financial institutions.
Due to this, the seller real estate investor mostly accepts a lower down payment then what is required in dealing with a traditional bank or financial institution. These positive aspects of rent to own houses are very tempting for the people who are not able to catch up with the high costs of real estate, or who have encountered events resulting in the temporary lowering of credit scores.
In return, of these benefits, the tenant buyers of the rent to own house have to show flexibility in some other manners. Normally, such buyers are expected of paying costs which are close to, or sometimes even more than the market value of the concerned real estate. There are two reasons for this, they are,
1. The seller real estate investor of the rent to own homes requires rents that are above the market value for covering mortgage on the house.
2. The sellers can give rent credits to the buyers in return of a high monthly rent.
Consider the instance of an individual buying a home worth $300,000 with a monthly mortgage of $2,200, and the owner desires to sell it. However, many other houses are also on sale in the same vicinity with a few priced at comparatively lower prices. At such times, the home seller real estate investor decides to sell the property rent to own to a tenant buyer quickly, instead of selling it much slower traditionally waiting for buyer with a pre approval for a mortgage and realtor in hand .
The creative procedure of buying rent to own house is day by day becoming more popular. This is due to the “Win-Win” factors present in such procedures. Here, the buyers are able to acquire a home with restricted money and finance, and the sellers are able to attain a fair price for their residence with a swift transaction.
May 9th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate Marketing |
Reports abound about there being too many real estate agents for too few buyers and sellers, but I still believe that no matter how crowded the field is a focused agent can succeed, with the right combination of knowledge, tools and strategies.
Not surprisingly, some of the lowest paid agents are first year agents. The median income for people who had been in the field for two years or less in 2004 was only $13,000.
Does this describe you?
If so, don’t despair…yet. With a good plan you can catapult your career to another level of professionalism and financial prosperity.
One way to do so is through the gift of giving. Here’s what I mean.
Giving Leads to Increased Business
An amazing thing happens when you give away stuff – it attracts people to you. And what do real estate agents need more than anything else? People.
People are leads. Without them you have no business and no potential to make money – period. So, the more you give away the more leads you’ll develop.
Some agents don’t give because they think that it means they have to buy something in order to give it away. But that’s not necessarily so.
An alternative to buying stuff is to search the Internet for information that might be of Interest to buyers and sellers that you can turn around and give away. There is plenty of stuff to be found – you just have to have the patience to find it.
Here’s a s specific idea; go online, search for article directories, and look for real estate articles that you can reprint.
You’ll have to agree to leave the resource box on them when you use them showing who the authors are, but that’s a fair exchange given that they’ve saved you the time and effort of having to write them.
Group them together as special reports for buyers, sellers and investors and find ways to give as many away as you can; via email, direct mail, advertise them by flyers that you place on cars parked in shopping centers and grocery store parking lots, etc.
I’m not talking about giving them the way you ration out cards, I’m talking about giving them away as if your career depended on it – and it does. I’m talking about giving out hundreds to thousands of them.
Create an avalanche of new business opportunities by pushing your self to find a conduit to give like you’ve never done before. If you have 100 hundred homes in your neighborhood give them to 100 homes. Or, if you live in an apartment complex give them to all of the residents in the complex.
The point is that there’s no limit to the number of people you can give to and the manner in which you give.
Make sure to include your personal information in them when you compile them so that the recipients will know who to contact for more information.
Summarily, giving can be profitable – plus it feels good to put the knowledge you have within reach of potential prospects.
The more you give away the faster you’ll create a brand for yourself that identifies to all that you’re an active licensed real estate agent open for business.
So, go ahead and give, give…give your way to increased earnings.
April 18th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate Investment |
Real estate leads generation is serious business. Just how serious? Well, if you get it right you can have a successful and rewarding career in real estate sales and investments. Get it wrong and you could be facing yet another career change.
It begs the question. “what is the best way to generate leads?” Well, the truth of the matter is that there is no one right way.
Possible ways to generate leads include farming expired listings, real estate leads generation through email marketing, newsletters, direct mail campaigns, networking and on and on.
There really is no limit to the many ways you can generate leads, both buyers and sellers, and convert them to paying customers.
Lets take a closer look at three of these lead generating strategies.
Real Estate Lead Generation via Expired Listings.
If you’re looking for a cost effective way to generate leads you should consider farming expired listings.
Why? Because in many instances owners of expired listings are realtor friendly, are easy to find and are often very motivated to sell their properties after having had at least one listing period where their properties didn’t sell.
That’s where you come in. With a good expired listing system you stand as good a chance as anybody else getting the property relisted. Sometimes just having a good expired listing letter is all you’ll need to convert expireds to new listings.
Personally, I think expireds are one of the worst kept secrets in the business. Most agents know about them, but few pursue them, and fewer still market them consistently and over long periods of time.
Real Estate Lead Generation via Real Estate Web Site Content.
Imagine this. It’s 3:00 AM and an Internet surfer has just found your web site, stays on it long enough to read 3 or 4 pages then requests via your web subscription a special report on buying a home with low money down. Bam! That’s the power of web site content as a lead generator.
Web sites work around the clock promoting you and the services you provide and the bait that attracts visitors is good content.
If you don’t have time to create your own and devote time to everything else that you need to be doing, and who does, you can use pre-written content. However, a good rule of thumb is to always personalize it to make it uniquely yours.
There’s an abundance of pre-written real estate marketing content on the Internet that is easily found and can be used in a variety of ways. Specifically, it can be used as real estate marketing reports, articles, web site content, etc.
In fact, you may be surprised at the amount and diversity of information you find and the many ways you can use it to generate leads. But above all content offers a way to provide useful information and gain the trust of your readers and site visitors.
Real Estate Lead Generation via List Building.
List building is the most important aspect of any online business, including real estate sales.
And no matter which business model you follow your top priority should be to build a list of prospects to send information to on a regular basis.
One key to your success will be over delivering valuable, useful information. Treat your list members well and you’ll have a pool of candidates that will convert to paying customers at some point in time.
Give them free reports once a month or every other week as an enticement to stay on your list. This will give you a reason to contact them and them in turn a good reason to open your emails when they see them in their inbox because they never know when you may send them another useful piece of information.
Finally, the biggest key to profiting from your lists is to not hard sell them.
Do not bombard them sales pitches and advertising, as it will lead to them unsubscribing faster than you can write your next sales pitch. Instead, gently plug your services and know that they’ll contact you when they’re ready to make a real estate transaction.
There you have it, 3 solid low to no cost Real Estate Leads Generation strategies that are guaranteed to fill up your leads pipeling – starting today.
April 2nd, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate |
Investing in real estate is one of the best long-term investments available. It is also one of the easiest investments to understand in comparison to mutual funds and stocks. There are so many ways in which real estate can bring money, apart from the initial investment. So if you invest to let the property on rent or to fix it up and sell for a higher price, it is still considered an investment and there are simple ways in which you can earn more from such investments.
A simple way by which you can increase the value of your property is by painting. You can paint the fence and the rest of the exteriors and interiors. A painted house will make a lot of difference to the buyer. An old building with a worn out look will not appeal to anyone. So get a good paint job done, as this will increase not only the value but also the demand for the property. When making the decision to paint you must also decide on the type and color of paint, depending on the use of the property. If the property is for residential use then you should stick to colors that are neutral or warm and inviting. In this way the tenants or buyers feel an instant attraction towards the new home making them more likely to make the purchase. So not only do you get a sale, but also raise the value to make a profit.
Fixing up the windows or the front door is another way by which you can increase the value of real estate. This is because when the prospective customers, either to rent the place or purchase it, have the tendency to look out of the windows. So the nice new windows will add to the value and also complement the property.
If the property is located in an area where the crime rate is high, then it would be wise to install grills on the front door and where necessary. This will distinguish your property from that of others and at the same time show the customers that you are concerned about their safety. But when installing the grills, check with the customers if they want the improvement to the house, unless of course they were already there when you made the purchase. Many may not like the idea, but you can offer to install it.
If the property is in an area where the neighborhood is untidy and unkempt, no matter what improvements you make to your property, the value will increase only marginally. On the other hand if the neighborhood is well maintained and your property is in a slightly bad shape, then yes improvements will raise the stakes here. Before making your purchase, check if the foundation of the building is good. If so, then you can take this property and give it a new look by spending time and effort mowing the lawn and landscaping. This will help you make more money out of your investment.