Real Estate Deal

Way to Sell Home Yourself Within 3 Weeks - Sold in 21 Days

2011-05-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Jack Ingles

I recently came across an internet resource called "Sold In 21 Days", which is basically a complete sales strategy to sell home yourself within 21 days for maximum profit. Since the current financial crisis has slowed the housing market down quite a bit, home owners can use all the help they can get, hence this review.

The Basic Premise
Sold In 21 Days was created by a guy called Pete Iannelli. Now, he's not a real estate agent, but he has managed to come up with a totally unique idea to sell houses fast. He claims to have come up with this miracle method whilst trying to sell his own house. Apparently he reduced his price by $30,000 before putting it back up again, implementing his new strategy, and eventually walking away with a $76,000 net profit!

The "Secret" Strategies
There are basically 2 main areas where this sales strategy differs from any other I've ever seen. The main secret is the totally unique and possibly genius way of placing ads for your house. I'm not sure how this guy came up with it, but it sure makes sense, and it's apparently working for the people who follow the plan. Very fresh thinking.
Apart from the advertising technique, there is also a lot of tips on how to present your property to prospective buyers. Pete claims that by pairing up the advertising method with some of the original presentation ideas, you'll sell faster than you could have believed. I guess one has to try it to find out!

Criticism
Even though the sales strategy is completely unique and surely extremely powerful, Sold In 21 Days is quite a quick read. That's not to say it won't help you sell your home faster and for a good profit, it's just that I was expecting to need a whole day to get it all into my head, and it only took just over an hour!

Guide To Sell Your Home

Selling House Fast In A Weak Economy

2011-05-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

Selling House Fast In A Weak Economy-

"In a weak economy, it is often difficult to sell a house fast. However, it is possible to sell your property quickly even in a weakening economic conditions. Most homeowners are worried about getting the reasonable price for their house. There are a few basic rules of selling a property, which you can follow to achieve your target.

In the first place, you need to be honest about your expectations according to the condition and location of your house. What you say about your house will certainly affect important things such as effort, energy and most importantly, money on the later stages of the sale.

You might be considering selling your house on your own without any professional help. One important fact you need to understand is selling a property is not easy even in the best market conditions if you stride on your own; you need to have professional services. It is beneficial to hire the services of a good realtor who can give you advice about the market risks, setting a price, local market conditions and other necessary details that may help you sell your house fast.

When negotiating with buyers, keep irrelevant aspects about your house off the negotiating table. For instance, buyers can use your reasons (if you are desperate to sell quickly) to sell your house to negotiate further down. Disclose only as much information that is legally or contractually necessary. This is not being dishonest, but being smart seller.

If you are really keen to sell your house fast, make your house ready in every aspect; improve its condition to attract the prospective buyers, set a realistic asking price and keep its legal papers ready. These things go long way to help you achieve success in your house sale project.

Like in other types of sales, marketing and networking is important for house sale also. There are several ways to market your house such as placing a 'House for sale' board outside your home, advertising in newspapers, magazines and of course, at internet.

If you do not have time and patience to sell your house in market, you can sell your house to cash house buyers. Cash house buyers companies are legitimate ones and deliver cash fast once agreement is signed. You can search online for finding reliable cash house buyers company.

Resources: How To Sell A House In A Slow Real Estate Market

How to Buy a Foreclosure

2011-05-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

The price may be right, but be prepared for the hassles.

Buying a foreclosure involves homework, patience, and often a good measure of luck.
Michael Lappano knows a home bargain when he sees one. In 2007, the Bellevue, Wash., real estate agent purchased a condominium for only $255,000 (including an outstanding lien). That's $65,000 less than what comparable units were selling for, he says. To get the steep discount, he bid on the home at an auction for foreclosures. "The location was perfect, just two traffic lights from my office," says Lappano. And the property was still worth about $315,000 a year later, even in the face of a nationwide slump in home prices.

Though many buyers now begin their home search with a request to look at foreclosures and bank-owned properties, there's no guarantee that buying a foreclosure will save money compared with buying the traditional way. Discounts vary tremendously depending on where you live. In fact, many foreclosed homes are priced higher than their true value because sellers are trying to pay off the mortgage and cover taxes and transaction costs.
Plus, buying a foreclosure involves homework, patience and often a good measure of luck. If you're buying at auction, you usually need to pay cash. You may face long waiting periods to take possession of the property and move in, and the property could require extensive repairs. Sometimes the former occupants strip the house of all appliances and vandalize the property.
You may also have problems getting accurate information before you buy, says Seattle real estate attorney Richard Llewelyn Jones. "There could be judgments and liens attached to the property or more than one note or deed of trust being foreclosed." In the end, most buyers are turned off by the risks. "If you don't know what you're doing, you could lose your shirt," says Jones.

Getting a Discount

If you're game, find an agent who deals with foreclosures. Your agent can locate properties and establish their market value -- which could be very different from the asking price. You will have to pay for any repairs, so build in a generous estimate of what they could cost. Also, you may need a lot of cash because traditional financing may not be an option.
Each state has its own rules governing foreclosures: whether the transaction goes through the court system, what taxes you pay and how much cash you need upfront. To get a summary of your state's law, you can search online using your state's name and "foreclosure laws."
Also, you generally cannot get title insurance until you take ownership, nor can you expect the title warranties that usually kick in during a traditional home purchase. You need to inspect the title thoroughly, which means paying several hundred dollars for a title search and combing through it to ferret out all outstanding debts. Even so, says Jones, there may be title problems that aren't of record or that appear on the record between the time of your title search and the public sale. Be prepared to pay off old tax liens attached to the home -- and to buy title insurance as soon as you take ownership.

Three Ways to Buy

Wherever you live, there are three ways to buy a foreclosure: in a presale (before the lender forecloses), at auction or directly from the bank. In a presale, you negotiate with homeowners directly, before their home goes into foreclosure. Although the discount can be as much as 20% to 40% off the property's value, a presale is the riskiest way to buy because deals frequently fall through and title problems are rife. And pre-foreclosure buyers have to add in the cost of an inspection and fork over real estate excise tax, as do those who buy bank-owned property. (Buyers at auction may avoid these costs in some states.)
Buying at a public auction is the most common type of foreclosure purchase. Buyers can expect a discount of 10% to 25% compared with buying a home through traditional channels, says Dean Street, an agent and 30-year veteran of foreclosure buying in the western U.S. But the road to auction can be bumpy, too. For starters, you often cannot inspect the interior of the home. Street says it's vital to see the property even if you can't gain entry. "If there is 300 pounds of garbage in the front yard, there is probably 600 pounds inside," he says. One way to research the interior is to check the local building department's permit records, or have your agent see if a recent listing has information on appearance, layout and previous remodelings.

Another Hassle

Most foreclosures that go to auction get postponed, usually due to bankruptcy or loss mitigation.
The winning bidder will pay for the property and take ownership within a set period of time, which varies according to state law. But you're not out of the woods yet. Some states, such as North Carolina, give former homeowners a chance to buy the property back. Sometimes foreclosure buyers have to start eviction proceedings; once the house is vacant, you usually have to schedule repairs.
Work with the lender? If no one buys a property at the auction, it usually ends up back with the bank. Banks have a lot of these real estate owned, or REO, properties in their portfolios and are actively trying to sell them through agents. And unlike buying at auction, you can usually get a traditional mortgage for an REO. Unfortunately, lenders often list the property at or near market value to recover the outstanding loan amount along with legal fees, property taxes and maintenance costs.
But an experienced foreclosure broker can negotiate aggressively with a bank, especially when the property has been listed for a year or more. Plus, banks trying to sell foreclosures sometimes offer highly competitive financing packages to buyers, including low down payments and attractive rates. As home values decline, some lenders are willing to negotiate a "short sale," in which the property is sold for less than the debt owed on the house. That's one way foreclosure buyers can profit. In some markets, the discount is as much as 25%; but where there's less inventory, the discount can be smaller.
You can find REOs through real estate agents. Or approach local banks or mortgage brokers directly and let them know you are prepared to buy a property "as is" with cash and request a discount from the asking price. Banks sometimes pay to remodel properties to improve their value. But with so much inventory on their books right now, most lenders want to unload foreclosed homes quickly, without having to refurbish them.

Resources: How To Buy Foreclosures With Private Money

Best Times to Buy

2011-05-02T17:57:00.001-07:00

A Conventional wisdom says that you need to stay in a home a minimum of five years to ensure that you recoup your purchasing costs. But with some markets soaring, this advice doesn't always apply.

It's All About the Market

Market conditions play a huge part in any decision about when to buy. Housing market values have varied widely from region to region in recent years. While the Florida market has seen meteoric rises in home values, Ohio has seen its real estate prices go into negative territory in the last year.
Do not buy high and sell low - if your market is softening or has hit its peak and is heading south, you may want to wait on your purchase.
The magazine Smart Money has created a worksheet to compare the costs of renting vs. buying using market appreciation calculations to determine at what point you come out ahead. Plugging in the price, down payment, your income bracket, interest rate, and current market appreciation rates, the worksheet will break out what you will gain.
For example, say you were to buy a $400,000 house in Boulder, Colorado and you estimate the market will soften from the current 11% appreciation to about 9 percent annually. If you stayed in the house three years, you would recover $88,750 in equity at the end of that period; if you stayed five years, you'd realize $120,360.

It's All About You

The top three reasons people file for bankruptcy are change of job status, divorce, and unforeseen health expenses. If you face any of these challenges and don't have a financial cushion, this may negatively impact your ability to pay a mortgage. Big life events dictate your readiness to buy now or to wait for a little more stability.

Signs you should not buy right now:

Will you be moving within the next five years?
Will you be having kids soon?
Will you be making a job change?
Have you recently filed for bankruptcy or is your credit score below 630?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, or you are experiencing other life-changing events like illness, marriage, divorce, or breakup, you may want to wait.

Your Financial Future

Aside from life events contributing to your decision, getting your financial house in order before you begin your home search is key. Even with all the programs available for buyers with a low-or-no down payment, if your debts are growing steadily and you don't foresee an increase in your income, you are putting yourself in greater financial risk by taking on a mortgage.
With only a few exceptions, many loans for people who are still repairing their credit or recovering from bankruptcy carry higher rates than those available once your credit is in better shape. So the question comes down to this: Do you buy now, before prices appreciate higher than you can afford, but do so with an expensive loan? Or do you wait and repair your credit, then get a favorable loan, and pay more for your home?
That's the sort of analysis you need to go over with a financial counselor or mortgage broker before you start hitting open houses.

Ways to Cushion the Blow

On the other hand, if you are willing to buy a home that needs a bit of work and, over time, you can afford to get it done, your home could appreciate faster, strengthening your financial position. If you are willing to take on a roommate or renter, you can also soften the expense of a mortgage, which almost always costs more than rent. Buying a home is a risk, and it's worth asking yourself hard questions about what you're willing to do to protect yourself from getting in over your head.
If you answered "no" the life-change questions, and have the down payment or equity from your current home, you still need to look at interest rates and at how buying affects your taxes. You can't time the stock market, but you can time interest rate hikes, as they are a little easier to predict. If they are going up fast, you can jump in before they rise too far; if they are already high, you will have to calculate how refinancing in the future affects your budget.

What to Do First

If you are anxious to get moving, be patient. You have a few things to do first:

Go to open houses - get the lay of the land
Talk to a mortgage broker to get pre-approved
Interview agents (You may want to find an agent at the same time as you look for a mortgage broker - a good agent can recommend reputable brokers and help you make sense of the terms of the loan)
Review credit report and scores with mortgage broker to determine if any repairs are needed
Use Zillow.com to find info on neighborhoods that interest you and then use the Home QandA feature to ask current homeowners

Philippine property giant Ayala starts housing project in north China city

2011-05-02T09:45:00.001-07:00

Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), the Philippines' largest real estate company, has started construction on its first ever project in China in the northern city of Tianjin.

A foundation laying ceremony was held Thursday for the housing project, covering an area of 97,600 square meters, in the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city in the port city of Tianjin.

The residential complex is scheduled to be built with an investment of 220 million U.S. dollars by ALI and the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Investment and Development Co., Ltd. (SSTEC).

The project marks the start of ALI's business in China and is expected to become an example of a livable apartment project in the eco-city, said Fernando Zobel de Ayala, president of ALI.

The complex features a variety of environmentally-friendly technologies, including hot water heated with solar power and "smart" energy-use monitoring systems, among features.

The residential complex is designed to accommodate more than 1,200 households. The project's first phase is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

The Tianjin eco-city development project is the second collaboration of its kind between the Chinese and Singaporean governments, preceded by the China-Singapore Suzhou Industry Park.

Located in the Tianjin Binhai New Area, the 30-square kilometer Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City lies 150 kilometers east of Beijing.

Source: Xinhua