An Approach To Stably Upgrade Your Real Estate Investment
By Galeb | January 29, 2008
It is very common to hear about people getting an upgrade. This could mean anything from upgrading a new cell phone to upgrading to a new operating system for your computer. Were you aware that you can upgrade your real estate investment as well?
Every now and then, you will find a real estate deal that definately must be purchased at market value. A seasoned investor would be in disbelief if he were to hear this. However, there are reasons for doing this. The most common reason is planning to upgrade your investments.
This could be a little complex, but if you have the correct tools, your time and effort can definitely pay off. Every district has a regional planning board. Every project planned for a location for the following five or ten years will be listed at this office. A veteran investor will check this list commonly.
Hopefully you will detect a relatively unknown plan to develop a neglected area when reviewing these proposals. People who are informed with real estate are certain that the property values will increase whenever a development project happens. An astute investor will begin searching the area for available properties immediately. If you only find vacant land, don’t be alarmed. Your investment upgrade will be successful if you buy and rezone the land for the coming development.
Renovating a property that was bought at market value is another procedure for upgrading your real estate investment. This may require buying a two bedroom home right in the middle of a neighborhood with three and four bedroom homes and renovating it. These renovations can be a means to increase the value of the home to rival the market value of other homes in that neighborhood. Homeowners who want a larger home but cannot afford to sell often take this route.
If you want to create equity in the property, upgrading your investments will do so. This is among the most helpful aspects of the system. Furthermore, the property can be sold for more than you paid for it. On the other hand, this system also has it’s problems.
A tentative investor will know when enough is enough. You must be careful not to upgrade your real estate investment past what the market can support. Keep in mind, the target of this is to make a profit. Putting thousands of dollars of renovations into a property is not always in your best interest. More often than not, the more money you invest in a property the less profit you will create.
You must use this method with caution, for there are instances where development plans can change or fail completely. There may be a change in the market before you ever develop the renovations on your property. Things can always go wrong, therefore, you must produce a plan of action before you ever attempt this type of investment strategy.
It is of the utmost importance that you check out the properties an additional time to determine whether or not this investment strategy is feasible. Many investors have done this successfully. The primary concept is proceeding with caution when trying to upgrade your investment.
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Tom Beaty offers Wyoming Real Estate information for buyers and sellers. Don’t buy or sell without visiting this Blog or it could cost you: Wyoming real estate |
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Tips For New Realtors
By Galeb | January 29, 2008
Starting a career in Real Estate? Need to Generate leads? Although unexperienced, entering the market with the right tools and knowledge will take your jump-start career and take you to the next level. With over 90% of buyers and sellers, starting the process online, it is no secret that every Realtor have an online marketing strategy to obtain potential clients.
1. Market Research - for a Realtor this is an easier task - you know your product. However, you must think of a way to distinguish your product from the competition. This industry is very saturated, and if you don’t stand out you are bound to be average, or out of business. So think of your target market, get specific. Realtors now specialize in areas, sub-areas, type of dwelling etc. For example to survive in the Manhattan market, to really stand out you have to brand yourself. If you were really creative you might brand yourself in a certain area (Greenwich Village), and even more you might be a loft specialist. When any Buyer or Seller is thinking of buying or selling in Greenwich Village you want to be one of the first people that comes to mind, especially when dealing with a loft - you are the authority on the subject. So online, you need to come up with key phrases that target this niche, so when a Buyer or Seller (90% of them) is searching online, your website is at the top of the list!
2. Product Development - you need a product that will lead to traffic coming to your site, and ultimately converting that traffic into a lead, then a deal. Of course many Realtors have blogs and personal websites which are great for personal branding and web presence, but is your name or your company’s name usually typed into a search engine? Most of the time the answer is no. For example, if I want to buy a loft condo in Greenwich Village unless I already have a Realtor (we are not looking for these people) I would type in “Greenwich Village Lofts” or something like this. So to capture the potential clients we are looking for, we need to have that key phrase (our niche) to be a prominent result in search engines. It is the phrase not your name, or your companies name that will produce results.
3. Traffic - here comes your marketing skills. As a Realtor you MUST have them or you are doomed. Niche marketing is likely the most effective and efficient tool for Realtors marketing online. Having niche targeted websites is becoming the future of online marketing for Realtors! Having a personal branded site is important but you also need a website that gets top page rankings for Buyers, and another website that gets top page ranking for Sellers. To obtain this, you need websites that are Search Engine Optimized (SEO) and tailored to your target market. AgentStealth is a company that specializes in this.
4. Conversion - this is what truly matters. All of the traffic in the world means nothing unless you can convert. After some Realtors obtain an online lead, they will offer a free Buyer’s or Seller’s eBook as a way to introduce themselves. When you have reached this point, it’s time to do your job as a Real Estate Professional and provide them with your expertise.
As a Realtor myself I know that the competition is fierce out there, and you always need to be looking to get a leg up on the competition especially if you are a new Realtor. I hope you have found this article informative and wish you all the best in your Real Estate Career.
Visit www.AgentStealth.com for a free video on how our Lead Systems work!
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Top Three Real Estate Secrets
By Galeb | January 29, 2008
Some real estate secrets are right out there in the open for everyone to see. The second secret below, for example, is simply to make low offers. Real estate agents and others will argue that you just waste everyone’s time because low offers just aren’t accepted, but common sense and experience say that they do sometimes work. Other secrets are not so obvious, as this first one demonstrates: The Value Is In More Than The Property
Real estate prices are determined by the market. If buyers are paying $200,000 for similar homes in your area, that’s probably about what you’ll get, unless you make your property better in some way. If buyers will pay $10,000 more for a finished basement, for example, then it makes sense to finish that basement if the cost is say, $5,000. When you think “better” however, don’t limit your thinking to the property itself. How else can you raise the price?
You can raise your price by making the property easier to buy. This is one of the most overlooked real estate secrets. I once bought property for cash and sold it for 30% more a few weeks later simply because I sold it with easy payments. No cash? You might refinance your home to raise the cash. A $18,000 lot, for example, paid for with money borrowed on your home at 6%, might be sold for $24,000, with 9% interest, if you make the down payment and monthly payments low enough for the buyer.
The other way to make it easier for the buyer and so raise your price, is to sell on a lease-option. The buyer pays higher than normal rent, with part of that rent applying towards the down payment if he chooses to exercise his option to buy. The price is typically set according to what the house will be worth at the end of the option period (two years is common). With a non-refundable deposit or “option fee” and high rent, you do well whether or not the house is bought.
How much more can you ask when you make buying easy? It depends on a lot of factors, of course. Here is an example: a couple years ago, we wanted to sell a mobile home (with a lot) that we owned. Because these are difficult to finance, we figured we could get about $36,000 cash. We sold it for $45,000 however, by letting the buyer make a reasonable down payment and then making payments to us directly. We also are making thousands from the interest over the years.
The Secrets Of Low Offers
Making low offers can be a great way to get cheap real estate. But don’t expect to make a few really low offers and snag a great piece of real estate at half-price. Be realistic in your offering prices, and use this two-step plan to make this strategy effective:
1. Find sellers likely to accept a low offer.
2. Make a lot of offers.
Start by identifying “motivated sellers.” This can mean looking in areas that are temporarily slow markets, but primarily you are looking for sellers that need to or want to sell fast for some good reason. These reasons can range from needing to move for a job to just being tired of owning a rental.
Make a lot of offers. Most sellers - even motivated ones - will say no to an offer that is 15% to 20% below their asking price. This is what you’ll often have to aim for, though, if you intend to flip the property for a profit, because transaction costs (commissions, taxes, closing, etc.) can eat up 10% of the value. This strategy will annoy real estate agents, by the way, and may even embarrass you. That is the price you pay for getting a great deal.
On the other hand, if you don’t have a property in your hands by the time you’ve made 100 offers, you may be going too low on your offers, or targeting the wrong properties.
Counting Backwards
When doing fixer upper for a quick profit, you have to start at the end and figure backwards. The “end” is the sales price you are likely to get when you sell. Subtract all costs and your desired profit from this figure to determine how much you can offer.
For example, decide what a potential fixer-upper needs and then - with help if necessary - determine what it will sell for once you do the planned improvements and repairs. Let’s suppose that this is $225,000. Now you have to figure as carefully as you can what every single costs will be. These costs include buying costs, repair and improvement costs, utilities, taxes, interest on loans, sale’s commission, advertising costs, selling costs, and anything else you can think of.
All of those costs AND the profit you want for your effort have to be subtracted from the projected sales price. This is how you arrive at the maximum price you can offer. This procedure is often ignored by investors even though it is one of the simplest and most important real estate secrets.
Writen by:
Steve Gillman. To see a photo of the house we bought for $17,500, get a Free Real Estate Investing Course, and a free ebook on how to buy cheap homes, visit: http://www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com
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Real Estate in Costa Rica
By Galeb | January 29, 2008
In the last years, an increasing number of American, Canadian and European investors have turned their eyes toward Costa Rica growing Real Estate Market. Forced by their restrictively expensive domestic property markets plus the volatility and insecurity of existing equity markets, investors have found in our country an outstanding alternative for investment.
Costa Rica has been by tradition a democratic and peaceful Central America country. Costa Rica is famous for its neutrality over past and present conflicts in the area, recognized by the world community when the President Oscar Arias received the Nobel Peace Price in 1987 and mentioned in the CIA World Fact Book as “a Central America success story”.
Costa Ricans, also known as “ticos” happily boasts that Costa Rica is so peaceful that it does not need an army, and has more teachers than police officers!
Since it is a stable country with extreme natural beauty, more and more people are looking into Costa Rica for a new home or a second home abroad on the growing Costa Rican property market.
Even though Costa Rica current boom on real estate has caused for an inflation of prices, land and house prices in the country are very affordable with prices not even close to those in the United States, Canada or the United Kingdom. Up and above the country strong resale market, currently luxury beachfront developments can start as low as US$80,000 or prices starting just from US$250,000 for detached homes on sizeable plots.
Currently, over 50,000 United States’ citizens live in Costa Rica. Besides, Unites States brokers can easily arrange finance for property purchase in Costa Rica, since the United States government considers this country to be a politically and economically stable country.
Foreigners may find in Costa Rica a way of life very similar to the Western or American standards, which strive on a good quality lifestyle. The people moving into our country enjoy the benefit of good infrastructure, excellent communications and good standard of services. Other advantages for those interested on relocating in Costa Rica are the relatively low cost of living, the excellent health care services up to par with American standards, a high education and literacy standards, very good command of English language by most Costa Ricans and a strong and stable economy based on agriculture, science and technology, and tourism.
An added benefit for investors in real estate in Costa Rica or for those looking to move to the country is the favorable low tax regime the country has adopted, and the fact that property ownership rights in Costa Rica for non-residents or foreigners are unrivalled to those in the rest of the countries of Central and Latin America region.
The boom that Costa Rica is experiencing on the real estate market has not upset the overall picture of the country, as its economy is not reliant exclusively on real state, meaning that it will remain stable and property prices are not artificially talked up.
For additional information and guidance on wisely investing on Costa Rica Real Estate, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@costaricaontrack.com.
Emilio Villiers S. President / COO CostaRicaOnTrack.com
http://www.costaricaontrack.com
Ph.(506) 256-0121
Fx.(506) 256-0120
email: emilio@greenheritagetours.com
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