Finding a real estate agent
How do you choose a real estate agent? According to a recent industry survey, most home buyers ask friends, relatives, and business associates who have recently bought a house in the area under consideration for their recommendations. A small percentage of buyers use newspaper advertisements or simply go to a realty office. A smaller percentage yet find an agent at an open house. To help you make a fully informed choice, here are some other suggestions. Interview several real estate agents from different firms to find one you're comfortable with. (An agent won't mind the fact that you are doing comparison shopping as long as you are up-front about it.) Find out if the agents are familiar with the area you are interested in, how long they ....

Questions To Ask The Landlord Before Renting His Apartment
Apartment hunting is not the easiest thing around. You may find places not suited to your tastes or those which do are not to your budget. Eventually, you may have to settle for something a little less than perfect or if you’re lucky, you may just find a home you love. However, before you finalise on the apartment, there are a few questions you need to ask the landlord so that there is no reason for disagreement later on during the lease period. In fact, some of the points mentioned below may also be included in the agreement for your safety so that the landlord doesn’t go back on his word. When will the unit be available for occupation? If it’s ready to occupy and it’s impractical for you to move in immediately, you may have to negotiate with the landlord so that you don’t pay for unoccupied time. How much is the rent payable and when is it due every month? How much is the security deposit and is it fully refundable? Is there a penalty fee for late payment of the rent? What are the terms for renewing the lease? Are pets allowed and if not, would it be possible to have pets if you paid a pet deposit? If a pet-deposit policy is in place, is it refundable if there's...

Fraud in Real Estate, Are You Being Victimized? - Part II
The phone range and Peter was on the other end of the line. "Willard, I have a friend of mine that has a real estate problem." I said, "Send him over." Two hours later, Jerry sat in front of me terribly upset. Three years earlier, he had been talked into buying a 4 unit building in partnership with Smooth Talker, a knowledgeable, smooth talking real estate salesman. Smooth Talker offered to find the property, arrange the financing, manage the building and even put up the down payment. Jerry was told that all he had to do was use his perfect credit to qualify for the loan and then sit back, wait seven years and the money would come rolling in. Smooth Talker also promised that the two of them would do more deals and Jerry would make over $100,000. What Jerry did not know and he would not figure out until 3 years later was that Smooth Talker had no intention of splitting anything and Jerry could kiss his perfect credit goodbye. 3 years ago, Smooth Talker had Jerry and two other buyers, buy three buildings, located on one street. The buildings cost $150,000 each. Smooth Talker put up $1,500 down payment for each property, while at the same time, telling the buyers that he was putting in $12,000.00 for each. There...

Directionals Move Properties
One of the most effective and frequently overlooked methods of filling or selling a property is the use of directional arrow signs. I'm guilty of it myself, although usually I'm merely lazy instead of overlooking this great marketing technique. Being lazy usually costs me in terms of holding costs, especially if you happen to be in a buyer's market as I currently am. Even if you're in a hot market where everything is moving quickly, directionals will move your property that much quicker. Yes, there are numerous other methods you can use such as: flyers in the neighborhood and large stores and shopping malls, ads in the large and small papers, listings on the internet, listing with a real estate agent, calling real estate agents to inform them, mailouts to apartment complexes, yard signs with flyer boxes, open houses, calling loan officers, emailing your buyer list, etc., etc. (I have one friend use advertises her properties on the cable preview channel and she says it works great. Unfortunately, that option isn't...

Pay off debt and consolidate your position
The proper action when things are going well is to pay off debt and consolidate your position. Then you will be financially strong and can go for further expansion without fear of loosing what gains you already have. When you are not deep in debt you do not have to worry about your creditors getting paid. Since the usual history of a business is cyclic (boom and then every 7 years (plus or minus) bust) you can predict when it is time to consolidate. When the prices are “too good to be true, they are.” In the two years just before the top of the market is reached, prices are going up at very incredible rate. I have seen real estate go up 25%, per year, right at the top. This is incredible and I guarantee you it cannot sustain itself, at that rate. As hard as it is to give up a profit, it is harder still to sell an investment when it is going straight up. But, understand this is when you need to sell. If that is not what you want to do then you need to go to plan B: pay off your debt and get ready for the market drop. If you are debt free you can survive the drop and then be solvent and financially secure...

Important Information For Condo Buyers
Here is a step by step guide for buyers looking to buy a condo in any area. These are important tactics to make a solid and accurate judgement on the property you're looking to purchase. - When purchasing a condominium make sure that you ask for the last three to six months of the condominium minutes. This infomation will provide you with alot of insight into what is happening in the building. - Obtain a copy of the Declaration, the bylaws, and any rules and regulations from the Condo Association. - To make sure you are buying into a financially sound building, it is also advisable to find out if the building has any outstanding loans with a bank. Some buildings may take out loans instead of doing a special assessment as a way of doing major work such as new elevators or the exterior facade of the building. - Make sure you obtain a statement from the Condo Association of any capital expenditures anticapted by the Board within the current or succeeding two fiscal years. - Find out from the Condo Association...

The Rental Experience in South Florida
Readers: This is based on a true experience -- only slightly exaggerated -- part of my life of adventure. If I had read my own book, Making the Big Move, and followed my own advice, none of this would have happened! A word to the wise ... To: Cathy Goodwin From:Agony Arms Rental Homes Welcome to Agony by the Sea! We are so pleased you have chosen to rent from us. You will love our beautiful grounds, our fully-equipped fitness center and our sparkling swimming pools. The residents are a friendly group and we know you'll enjoy meeting them at our many social events. Enclosed are brochures proclaiming our commitment to Superior Service Quality. We are sure you'll be happy here. Before you move in, we need to have the following monies in certified funds. A few drops of blood on the contract wouldn't hurt either. Cathy Goodwin - Apt 501. Security deposit $750 Non-refundable pet fee $400... ...

Designer house in California
If you've just bought a house, you may be able to relate to a fascinating essay in Maya Angelou's book, Even the Stars Look Lonesome. When Ms. Angelou moved into a designer house in California, she says, nothing worked. Her pictures didn't look right on the walls. Cakes fell in the oven and curtains fell off the rods. The house, she concluded, hated her. And it wasn't much consolation to realize the house hated her husband, too. What I want to know is, how could she tell? Let's face it, most houses hate their new owners. They have adapted to the rhythm of one family and resent being sold. Like most cats that you rescue from the pound, your house probably believes, "If I'd waited awhile, a better owner would have come along. So I'm going to make this one's life miserable." When you move Those who are trained in modern research methods will be skeptical, but there's plenty of evidence. Everyone knows what happens when you move into a new house. "You'll see a lot of repair services in the first six months," I was warned. "When a house hasn't changed hands in five years or more, lots of little things will happen when you move in." Now, you'll notice this doesn't happen when you rent a house or apartment. Some friends of mine rented a house while they saved to buy their own property. For two years, the refrigerator purred and...

Home Equity Loans – Beware of Appraisal Fraud
A new report by the independent Demos group has revealed what may not be a surprise to many people – corruption is rampant in the home appraisal industry. The bust in the dot-com market of some five years ago has left would-be lenders with a surplus of cash to lend. This has led to a huge boom in both mortgage and home equity loan lending. That’s not a bad thing; a record 69% of Americans now own their own homes. Owning a home is easier than ever; in 2004 the average down payment was a record low of only three percent. So if everyone is buying a home, and loans are easier to obtain than ever, what is the problem? The problem is that nearly 55% of the appraisers polled in the survey said that they had been pressured by lenders to deliver appraisals that met a “target” value. The appraisers said that failure to meet the “target” value resulted in either their not being paid, or not being hired again. Since most appraisers want to keep working, they have had a tendency to meet the target value, even if it means that they have overestimated the value of the property. This drives prices artificially higher and leaves many homeowners with mortgages that may be worth more than the homes they were meant to finance. This problem becomes acute should the owner need to sell the home, only to discover that it isn’t worth as much as he or she owes on it. The worst-case scenario to result from this would be a burst in the current real estate “bubble” and a nationwide collapse in home values, leading to massive foreclosures...

Satisfying and lucrative real estate investment depends upon your correct assessment of profit potential
Satisfying and lucrative real estate investment depends upon your correct assessment of profit potential, of course, but your ultimate success depends on your ability to transform a fixer into a dollhouse. The renovation process involves physical work and choosing the best supplies, in order to create maximum positive emotional effect and profits. By incorporating the psychology of residential design, you can make wise choices in transforming your fixer house by using colors, textures, building materials, and decorations that will assure a future speedy and cost-effective sale. The psychology of residential design addresses the entire home, inside and out, but the techniques of Transformation Psychology are a bit different, because your ultimate goal is different. The use of Design Psychology in your personal home is much more individualized, while renovating a doghouse into a dollhouse integrates more generalized design ideas to create a home that will be appealing to a broader spectrum of people. Using Transformation Psychology...