Monday, September 15, 2008

New Real Estate Video Page

There is a new site which has just surfaced which specializes in presenting real estate videos only.
These apparently are for your entertainment and provide a data base for your continuing education.
The site breaks down videos associated with the state capitals to make it a little easier for searching.
I think the site would benefit from a better search engine as the real estate topics are quite varied considering there maybe upwards of 1000 video's on the site.
Check it out at your leisure and see what you think.

www.all-realestate.com.au/realestatevideo

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Property Investment

Property Investment

Traditional Property Investment

Common Strategies Employed

  • · Find cheapest house in best street
  • · Do a development, single or multiple and strata title
  • · Latest listings emailed to you from portal type websites
  • · Latest and greatest hyped developer advertised properties bought
  • · Local friendliest RE Agent best bargain presented to you for purchase now
  • · Paying for “insider reports” of which postcodes performed best last year in the hope they will do the same for the next 5 years
  • · Paying a monopolised data source for owner info, previous purchase price, estimated value and levering your offer to vendor off this info
  • · Searching newspapers, gov. Reports for localities targeted with big expenditure in the future by governments or big business
  • · Buying anywhere else the government is not in the business of setting land prices and profiting from sales.

Purchased properties are either, flipped, renovated/constructed or held with negative gearing in the hope that with a tax saving and capital growth they will achieve a positive outcome.

Non-Traditional Property Investment

Common Strategies Employed

  • · Searching for positive cash flow properties with some opportunity of capital growth
  • · Sub leasing properties for a monthly profit
  • · Finding Vendor financed properties for renovation/resale
  • · Buying properties with no money down in exchange for renovations
  • · Buying properties with very little money down and no mortgage
  • · Joint venture a property for sale and share profits
  • · Tying up suitable properties to immediately increase cash flow and add capital gain
  • · Vendor financing properties already held
  • · Finding good deals on property mortgage notes for holding or sale

Active or Passive Property Investing?

There is a gradient scale of property investing which goes something like this from active to passive

  • · Renovators
  • · Developers
  • · Business renovators [buy a business..build up it’s turnover..sell with lease or title]
  • · Vendor Financiers
  • · Rent to Own Operators
  • · Mum & dad purchase of 2nd property
  • · Mortgage note holder/dealings
  • · Investment in a property trust managed by others

You choose the type of investor you want to be depending on your skills sets, level of profit and risk you care to assume. Don’t assume you are minimizing your risks by taking the passive route and handing responsibilities over to others to make profit on your behalf as when you do this you take on a whole new set of risks which could be classed under the heading of “Business Ethics”. You don’t have these risk factors to worry about in others when you are taking full responsibility for you own investments.

For more info on property investing click here

Saturday, June 7, 2008

New Service for Home Buyers

New Service for Home Buyers

Hot-Properties has introduced a renovation quick quote service. After having expended considerable effort to narrow down a short list of suitable properties for purchase, the best value property purchase is tied up in the cost of renovations to bring the home to your acceptable or desired standards.

To help you find out the real costs of those renovations hot properties employs the services of licensed builders to provide you with a quick quote. Two types of quotes are available.

Quick Estimate Quotation

You Provide:

  • Property details such as a web listing ID number
  • Items of the property that you would like a quote on e.g. replace guttering, repair tile roof, add on a new bedroom etc

Cost: $50

Turn Around: 24 hrs

We provide you:

  • A licensed builder’s quick estimate of individual item costs for your property purchase or sale.

This type of quote is suitable for getting a quick price guide of completed work costs so that you can make an informed decision as to the actual value of one property compared to another and thereby ensuring confidence in your decision making.

Firm Price Builder’s Quotation

You Provide:

  • Access to property
  • Items of the property you would like a quote on

Cost: $200

Turn Around: Usually 72hrs

We provide you:

  • An actual licensed builder willing to do the work for the price quoted
  • Builder’s own list of items drawn from the inspection which he thinks, require structural rectification, are dangerous or are likely to cause trouble in the future, with their costs.
  • A builder’s firm price quotation itemized as you require.

This type of quotation is suitable when you need confidence in ascertaining any structural faults, safety issues, real rectification costs, questions answered and practical advice.

This quotation differs from a standard building inspection report in that real costs of work are quoted and is a far better investment in terms of cost benefits.

Friday, January 18, 2008

How am I going to Sell my House?

How to Sell a House.

When you consider the cost of selling a house is typically 10 – 20% of the asking price using traditional sale methods it is immediately apparent that care should be given to this process.

Selling costs are typically made up of a cash buyer’s discount 5-10% Cost of money to hold till settlement 2-5% , agents commission 2-3%, home holding costs of insurances maintanence etc 1%.

It is no wonder people trying to figure out how to sell a house consider a private sale in an attempt to abort these costs. There is some merit in this approach but you may be able to do better than a traditional private sale.

Here are some factors to consider in how to sell your house for a good price;

1. How desperate you are to sell it. The time frame you need to sell in

Do you need to sell your house by next week as the bank is foreclosing or if in 12 months time you havn’t sold it then no matter as you’ll just delay that holiday a bit. This is an indicator of how motivated you are to sell.

2. How hot the market is ie booming, recovering, flat, falling.

Speed of a sale is in direct proportion to the existing market. In a boom any bit of rubbish will sell in a flash for top dollar, and in a falling market the only thing that will sell is a dead set bargain

3. Level of desirability of the home ie it’s location (view, facilities near by) House construction type, Appearance internal & external(architectural features,quality of finishes, appliances, etc)

Desirability level varies from the bull doze, undesirable, renovator, acceptable to some people, me to homes, desirable to most people, to craved by all. [all these free reports given away by agents on”what to fix up to sell your home” are just telling people to get their homes from “acceptable to some” to “me-to” level of desirability].

4. Number of potential buyers exposed to your home

The more people exposed to your home & your sale terms obviously the greater probability it is that some buyer will like your offering. Local newspapers have been effective in this regard for some number of years now as they keep putting the advertisement under the local community nose each week, week in & week out. With computer technology this method is loosing it’s effectiveness as savvy buyers these days prefer to use Internet technology to spend a lot less time viewing more homes which suit their buying criteria. As there are a number of ways to maximize this marketing component it is worth giving serious consideration to.

5. The terms you are willing to sell the house on.

This can vary from 10% deposit 90% cash in 28 days, to some cash now and some cash later, to pay my mortgage now & give me my equity in cash later. The terms a vendor is willing to offer will significantly vary the achieved profit from the sale.

6. The length of time your home is on the market.

The longer the house is on the market the the greater the number of potential buyers your advertising has to reach, however another negative factor of scepticism comes in to play and that is “If this house hasn’t sold in this time period what is wrong with it?”This one is a balancing act & will vary according to local.

7. Your surrounding environment.

People like to live in certain locals for reasons of affordability, proximity of services, proximity to life style, social class. ethnic origins, religious beliefs. These factors are of varying importance for individuals. Identifying these is useful for targeting marketing.

8. The perceived affordability/benefit of buying as opposed to renting.

When the attention on the nation is on interest rate rises & it’s guessing game of ramifications buyer enthusiasm is certainly dampened for large sections of the populations [especially low to middle income bracket]. If your home is one of the “me to”houses then this talk will certainly lower the competition and hence achievable price now.

Your particular house will be affected by all these factors to varying degree. Your job is to decide how best to process these to maximize your sale price.

When you personally consider “How to sell a House” you may also wish to think about a personalized solution that a professional real estate buyer can afford you, Price is just one factor, the stress of beat down offers, forced to move at a specific contracted time not when you are ready are important factors which you will appreciate if you have sold real estate before.