While this isn’t a scientific poll or survey, I often wonder what makes some real estate professionals choose one property over another. Is it the location? Or maybe the house itself? What are some of the reasons you choose? Here are a few that come to mind:
• There is brand new paint on this wall and it looks like a major repair has been done underneath it. • The telltale cracks in the block walls, and there have been sinkholes in this zip code. • 2 five gallon buckets of KILZ in the garage, and they are both empty. • It took 20 minutes on a bumpy, pot-hole filled road to get here. • The power has been turned off-for 6 months, and the seller is still living there.
Let’s hear some of your reasons. I am sure that everyone has a horror story or two. This should be interesting, even if it isn’t scientific!
Even in a depressed real estate market, house flipping is still an excellent source of income if you know how to do it right. The best way to achieve profit through flipping houses is with fixer-uppers. These are houses that are owned by homeowners in financial distress and that need cosmetic repairs, either major or minor. Because of the need for repairs that the homeowner often can not afford to make, you can often easily purchase these homes for pennies on the dollar, fix them up yourself, and sell them at a premium price.
House flipping is like finding a diamond in the rough, polishing it and setting it in a ring or pendant, and selling it for big bucks. Everyone wins! The homeowner gets out of the home with his credit more or less intact and you make a pretty profit.
Plenty of real estate investors have gone on to become quite wealthy using the house flipping model. On the outside, it seems pretty basic, but ther ARE some risks you should be aware of before jumpting in. You’ll have to pay to make any necessary repairs to the property, whether you do them yourself or hire others to do them for you. You’re also taking a risk that the fixed up property will sell at the price you want. You’ll need to do some serious market research ahead of time and make sure that you have the financial resources available to make the repairs.
Doing appropriate research and planning ahead greatly reduces your risk and increases your chances of success. If you know that houses in a certain area usually sell for a certain price if they’re fixed up, you can be reasonably sure of making a profit. You can also look into hard money loans that will give you the short term cash you need to fix the property up without cutting into your profit too much when you pay it back. If the house only needs minor repairs and is in a good neighborhood, your chances of making a success out of your house flipping venture are very high indeed, even in a down real estate market. After all, people are always looking for bargains on good houses in good neighborhoods,and you can give them that.
But the end to this ride is right around the next turn
When we look back at the past 18 months, we see one common thread-falling home prices. But we also see inventories rise and fall, and with them the prices are fluctuating as well. Now we are seeing an upturn of sales but the prices are dropping again. What is the cause?
Not enough houses being sold in the same neighborhoods to keep the comparable pricing sustained. When one house sells for $100,000 and another across the street sells for $105,000, the trend is for an increasing sale price. This isn’t happening right now. Short sales and foreclosures are keeping the median pricing lower than it could be.
Many builders are also adding to the issue with market-driven lower prices as well. When all of the 3-bedroom houses in any given community sell for the same price, the prices never increase. Add to this the fact that fewer people are as trusting of real estate as they were 2 years ago, and we have lower prices. Builders are doing there best to sell off their inventories so they can be liquid, or simply be able to borrow more money from their lenders.
But what we aren’t seeing right now is what really lies ahead. The market is gaining strength, much like a baby does, a little at a time. But the amount of strength and the time it takes to get back going are uncertain. Many analysts and professionals say it could be late 2010 before the recession is truly done. I think in some cases, that is feasible. But it will differ from market to market.
Los Angeles and Tampa Bay will see 2 very different results from the ‘end of the recession’. Los Angeles is a market that is fragile by itself without having falling prices thrown into the mix. Tampa Bay’s real estate sector will recover quicker because of the prices themselves beginning lower anyway. As long as the trend to sell more properties continues, both markets will emerge better and stronger.
These are just 2 examples of what the housing slump has done to each and every market. There aren’t many cities or towns that have been insulated from this crisis. But in each case, the professionals pull together and help to shore up the local landscape as it were to keep each other viable. The strong will survive this recession. The real estate market is no place for the weak at heart anyhow.
Regardless of how many more times the market rises and falls and rises and falls, one thing is for certain…the stability will be back and it will be better. Fair prices and closer scrutiny of the buyers and sellers will be of the utmost importance. Ethical business practices and better trained professionals will result in a better overall experience for all parties concerned.
The bottom line in this up and down market is fundamentally simple. Be fair and trustworthy and you will be busier than ever before. Word of mouth will be your best friend. Stay focused and be diligent in all endeavors. And keep a positive attitude at all times. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Better times are on the way.
Despite the effects of recession the real estate mortgage rates have been following a continuous rising trend. In fact recently the home mortgage rates augmented for three weeks continuously striking an eight month high.
30 year mortgage rates averaged 6.42% and 15 year mortgage rates rose from 6.06% to 6.12%. Each of them carried an add-on fee of 0.4 points. 5 year adjustable mortgage rates rose from 6.02% to 6.19%. Its add-on fee is 0.5 points.
The rising mortgage rates have changed the real estate market from a sellers or buyers market into a renters market. Home owners are finding it difficult to meet mortgage payments. To prevent defaults and foreclosures their only option is to sell the house.
The slump in the economy has triggered a downward spiral in the home sale prices. Home owners would always like to sell their homes at a price that matches the actual worth of their homes. Since that price is not forthcoming at present they are deferring sales of real estate in the hope that prices will level out soon and they will get a better deal in a sale transaction. Sales have fallen by 2.6 %- 5.99 million units annually.
Meanwhile they rent their homes so as to recover the high mortgage payments at least partially. Hence more and more homes are available for rent for the renters at very low rent rates.
Renting a home is turning out to be cheaper than buying it in today’s market conditions. This explains the huge spate in the number of renters in the market. They are able to save up to half of the monthly mortgage rates they would have had to pay had they bought the house rather than rented it.
Renters are able to obtain like or better homes for rent for the same amount of money they spend on buying the home with a mortgage loan. Hence they are suspending decisions to buy homes in favor of renting homes.
It is also more advantageous to be a renter than a buyer in the scenario of rising mortgage interest rates, because the home prices are expected to drop further and buying in future will lead to bigger savings and profits for purchasers. It is also better to resort to buying homes after the tornado season that can damage your home and prove expensive if you are not well insured. Renting is thus a cheaper proposition than buying at present.
When no one is buying homes, the real estate agent will not be faltered. There are many ways to promote that parcel from rental buses to free lunches and each offer a different look at how easy it can be to sell a house that just won’t sell.
The Rental Bus
Do you live near a metro area? Why not nix the next open house and jump into a rental bus. The bus can don a picture of the home on the side, thanks to vehicle skins available today, and take the riders on a tour of the metro or rural area of your choice. Then, as a last stop, the bud will pause at the home being marketed. This is not only a great way to get people to the home, but it also shows the potential buyers how much there is to do within a driving distance of the home.
The Free Lunch
There are plenty of businesses willing to lend a helping in hand in return for an equal pat on the back. If you promote your real estate with flyers, why not sell out spaces on those flyers to local businesses. The space could be a barter tactic where a local restaurant offers a free lunch to some potential buyers in exchange for advertising space. Again, this serves a dual purpose. The potential buyer thinks that are getting lunch for free and they are learning how great the business choices are in the community.
The Family Fun Time
Again, the local businesses are hurting just as much as the real estate agent. While one may not have the advertising funds to throw a family fun day, together, several of them might. The idea is to get as many people together as possible and promote local business and local real estate. The more community the potential buyer sees, the more they will be able to envision themselves being a part of that community and the family fun night could be free if there are enough willing patrons.
The days of leaving flyers in a box outside of the home are long gone. People driving by stop to read the flyers and them throw them out when they clean out the car next. In order to sell that real estate we all have to think through a kaleidoscope of ideas.
When most people commence in the investment of real estate, they do so with lots of fervor, but they become disheartened after failing to achieve their instant fortune. After discovering that they cannot acquire riches easily and quickly, they move to a different investment scheme. A common mistake such investor make is learning several tricks and assuming success is granted. Another mistake that is commonly made is seeing a different person’s instant success and assuming you will achieve the same results. This hardly happens in reality. Despite having good plans, people fail due to lack of the required effort for achieving their goals. There is so much work required in achieving real-estate success in the long-term, and that is why only few people accomplish it.
The Starting Goals Can be Lofty but Reasonable
It is great to think big, but most people cannot help cringing whenever they overhear someone saying that in their first year of real estate business, their mission is to acquire one million dollars. Although everyone loves dreamers, there exists a line between delusions and dreams. Someone with a yearly income of 50,000 dollars but with no previous experience in the business of real estate can hardly make this sort of money in a year’s time.
What sort of expectations would beginners find realistic? The ideal approach is setting long-term, intermediate and short-term goals. It is important to ensure that these goals are attainable, specific and realistic. This is an outline of how these goals may appear:
• Fifteen years goal: Retirement benefit of a monthly passive income of 10,000 dollars. This requires between three and four million dollars in a free and clear real estate rental.
• Five years goal: Acquire 3 or 4 million dollars of real estate in areas that are steadily appreciating. Flip, fix and buy fiver properties every year at 20,000 dollars average profit to replace the current income.
• One-year goal: Wholesale 2 or 3 properties, flip, fix and buy 2 properties at retail and acquire 3 rental properties for keeps.
• Six-month goal: Do 2 or 3 wholesale flips and buy 1 rental property.
To avoid personal setups where disappointment is certain and financial disaster imminent, the dream of being a millionaire overnight must be forgotten. It is better to focus on the route that is slow but steady while aiming at wealth accumulation systematically with a single deal at any particular time. Assistance should obviously be sought from experts who are qualified and active in this business. Avoiding most of the mistakes on the road to riches ensures that the destination is reached much faster.
Countess self-acclaimed agents for real estate specialists say that people should leave their workstations and right away start a permanent job in real estate. They always have amazing outcomes from inexperienced students. Our concern is that life-altering decisions are normally easy and permanent investing is done by a few people.
The Permanent Investor
Venturing into real estate has many pros and cons. Winning demands that you build up awareness in various fields of real estate. Extra time spent on the real estate ventures leads to better awareness. More learning results in increased earning. As a permanent investor, you have your individual working hours. If you always find deals faster, ‘permanent’ may stand for twenty hours weekly. The rest of the time is set aside for family and friends. Then if you get motivated, you can go for long hours to get additional money. However, you should expand the present venture before you invest on any other business. Being a boss to ‘you’ is interesting although others say it is not amazing! However, when you discover how you can manage your time, run your business and account for it, it will surely be exciting!
Part – Time Real Estate Agents
Real estate agents always have a different job either by default or by choice. When the estate ventures have increased cash in flow, most agents then give the other job up. If it is part time, you can keep up the flow of money while you get to know more about the business. Sometimes, it may take a long time for you to strike a good deal and the deal in turn, might take long to resurface particularly if you are fixing and selling in retail. The moment you have the experience in real estate business, you will then change careers so never resign until you are certain about job security.
Presently, employers retrench employees because of unpredictable situations so you should save to have an additional source to bank on, just in case anything happens. This way, you will be able to get compensation when the primary source of money is lost. Anyone having a permanent occupation has less time to concentrate on the real estate business. Therefore, you should get to know how to manage businesses under this field from those doing it permanently. Rewards will be there of course after a successful and knowledgeable consultation. For those with families, informing their spouse is very important.
Real Estate is also Business
We get to venture in the real estate business owing to the promising cash it offers. Patience is very important because it takes from three to five years. Many people always give it a halt after the first five months because they are not patient enough so they end up giving up easily. Patience is a tip to investors inclined in this field.
Late night news is constantly airing shows with stories of ‘nothing down.’ Could they really be true? If the answer were yes, would it be possible to purchase real estate without ‘money down’? Many people opt to acquire real estate when they have no ‘money down’ often when they are broke, since it is a good way of gaining access to credit. However, it should be noted there is nothing special about this way of buying property. In spite of this, if one can buy real estate at a lower rate without ‘money down’, then one will have made a good deal.
One shortcoming of buying at below market rates is that lenders usually impose strict regulations on loans. Most guidelines for loans require one to invest 20% of their own money as down payment. This still applies even in instances when the buying price is half of the property’s assessed value. In effect, the loan–value rules are pegged on assessed value or buying price depending on which one has less value. A common illegal procedure is one where the purchaser gives a down payment but the seller gives it back later without any legal bearing. Even worse is when the property goes through a faulty assessment leading to full financing of the asset at its value. Many often escape prosecution but under the law, it is considered fraud and could get one jailed.
It is clear that there is a proper and wrong way of buying without ‘‘money down’. A real life example is that of a buyer interested in buying a house but does not have enough money. One might be having a new business, which disqualifies him from getting a FHA loan with low down payment .One should look for a property for sale which has low equity and whose seller has a loan with low interest. One can lease the house at a rate of $1200 per month with an option of making a purchase at $162000 while the house is valued at 179,000. The person selling the house agrees on a lowered price as he saves on commission charged on real estate thus, settling all financial entitlements amicably.
The deal ensures that the seller will give $300 or 25% credit on the buying price for every payment of rent that one makes. One can also advance $1200 as a security deposit that is to be credited on the buying price when the decision to buy the house is reached. After one year, the house has increased its value to $189000. If this is not the case, one may have done some renovations that increased the property’s value. One’s ‘equity’ will go up because of the monthly $300 rent credit. After one year, the equity value will be $ 31,000. It is always advisable to make the choice of buying a house at its initial price minus the credits.
One of the components a lender uses to help determine what loan amount to approve is your down payment. A down payment not only serves as a commitment on a borrower.s behalf to make good on a loan, but acts as a lender.s guarantee to minimize risk in case a borrower defaults on a loan. The more of your own cash that you can put down for a loan, the easier it is to qualify for a higher loan amount or a lower mortgage payment.
Since most borrowers do not have large cash reserves on-hand for a down payment, there are other alternative sources for funding. Besides tapping into your own savings accounts, other resources may include friends, relatives, 401(k) plans, proceeds from stock sales, appraised assets, even a co-signer.
Many cities, looking to expand their communities, even offer their own down payment subsidy programs for cash-strapped buyers. It.s not uncommon to be gifted $5,000 to $10,000 without expectation of re-payment.
A down payment is always expressed as a percent of the sales price and often referred to by lenders at the .loan-to-value ratio. or LTV. For instance, a $250,000 mortgage with an LTV of 80 percent would require 20 percent down or $50,000. Using a down payment calculator can help you see what influence a different down payment can have on your monthly mortgage.
Some banks even offer zero-down percentage loans which require no down payment. These types of loans are typically directed at first-time buyers with good credit who are qualified to make the monthly payment but cannot come up with a down payment. However, without a down payment the buyer has no equity in the house and the lender is at greater risk, so the interest rate could be higher.
Another alternative to buying a home without committing to a down payment is to consider a lease option to buy. As a renter, you have an option anytime during the term of the lease, to buy the property at an agreed upon price from the owner. In some instances, the money you’ve put toward rent can be fully or partially applied toward the down payment.
Sellers can also assist buyers with their down payment. By offering a carry-back mortgage, sellers can sell their house faster in a competitive market and buyers can purchase a home they otherwise might not be able to afford.
The $7,500 tax credit that qualifying first-time homebuyers who bought after April 8, 2008 but before January 1, 2009 are eligible to take when they file their 2008 taxes is part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, a piece of legislation that was enacted last summer due to the housing crisis.
However, it’s not so much a tax credit as an interest-free government loan because you’ve got to repay it. You don’t have to begin making payments until 2010 and you can be spread out the payments over 15 years. Essentially, you would pay an additional $500 in tax each of those years.
If you stop using the home as a principal residence or sell it, all the payments become due on the tax return for the year that happens… although there are a few exceptions and also some conditions and twists.
The $8,000 first-time homebuyer’s credit that’s in the stimulus package requires you to jump through a number of hurdles and hoops to qualify for it. But if you do, it’s a much more lucrative benefit for a number of reasons.
It’s bigger — $8,000 vs. $7,500. It’s a real tax credit, not a loan. You don’t have to repay it as long as you remain in your home for at least 36 months after the purchase date.
And the $8,000 credit has another significant advantage: Even though you must purchase the house between January 1 and November 30 of this year, the IRS recently announced that you can claim the credit on your 2008 tax return if you wish. So you don’t even have to wait until you file your 2009 taxes to take advantage of it.
The IRS announcement I mentioned earlier specifically says that the new $8,000 credit doesn’t apply to first-time homebuyers “who purchased a home after April 8, 2008, and on or before Dec. 31, 2008.” So you’re pretty much stuck with the $7,500 tax credit-that’s-really-an-interest-free-loan, unless a law is passed that allows you to take the $8,000 credit.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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