Real Estate Blog

July 31, 2010

Know the Difference between Short Sale and Short Pay

Filed under: Short Sale — John @ 1:14 pm

Are you going through foreclosure of your property? You might be getting many suggestions and advices such as short sale is better than foreclosure or you should try short pay rather than foreclosure. However, what is the real difference between a short sale and a short pay. Short sale can be defined as situation where lender is ready to give you discount to the existing mortgage(s) and further sell to an investor for a hard cash transaction. Lender can also sell it to the end buyer who does financing. Lender will finance a buyer only in the case of he/she has excellent credit scores and can qualify for another loan with an impression that the buyer will live in the house. Otherwise lenders don’t consider buyer to finance the property.

If lender agrees to short sale, a strict policy gets followed according to which a homeowner might not receive ant proceeds from the sale of property. In case of short, procedure will be quite similar. Lender will discount the mortgage same as that of short sale however, the difference lies in the fact that lender would be still interested in selling the property back to the homeowner. There is no gesture of sympathy or empathy in case of short pay from lender’s side. It is completely based on financial manipulation. The lender believes it is in their best interest to get rid of the property and they will be receiving the same amount in the final analysis.

For instance, lender sells the home back to the current owner.  In case, there are liens on the property. They could IRS or Tax liens. If the liens or judgments won’t be extinguished at the foreclosure auction then lender would need to assume these liens on order to sell the home. However, if lender sells home back to the current owner, homeowner will need to face the issues with extinguishing these lines. This allows lender to make more money even with taking a discount on the mortgage.     Now you must be wondering, from where homeowner is going to get the money to buy the home again? The lender doesn’t have an issue or concern with homeowner’s finances. He/she can arrange finances by lending it from a relative, another lender or can look out for an investor to buy the mortgage. The new mortgage amount would be around 80% or less than the old mortgage amount which is an instant equity to the property owner. This is because he is still on the deed. Biggest advantage of the short pay is that the owner of the property retains possession and title and majority of homeowners wish to retain this.

July 27, 2010

Looking to Achieve Success in Real Estate Sales

Filed under: Real Estate Sales — John @ 12:59 pm

Have you completed the real estate sales training? You must have attained the technical knowledge which is mandatory to know what all it takes to be a real estate agent. However, technical knowledge is not the only thing that can help you in touching the top spot of the field. While getting trained for real estate sales training, you would have learned about real estate marketing and what all should be there in real estate sales contract and other related things. However, key to success is not only your knowledge; you should also know how to use your soft skills. There are several other factors as well that are required to achieve success in real estate sales.

Communication skills

During every walk of life, communication is the most important thing. Communication becomes the point of survival if you are dealing directly with your clients. Being a real estate agent you would be interacting with the clients everyday: face to face, over the phone or through mails. Therefore, you must possess good written, oral and listening skills. Effective communication is the soul of real estate business. It brings mutual understanding and make sure everyone involved in the deal is in-sync.

Relationship building skills

Professional relationship lays the foundation of your business venture. Therefore, meeting new people and then ignoring them would not do any good for you and your real estate business. Once you have made a contact communicate regularly.

Interpersonal Skills

There are people who think interpersonal skills automatically come with good communication skills. However, interpersonal skills make you likable unlike communication skills that only help you in communicating. Effective communication is blend of good communication skills and great interpersonal skills. Your politeness, listening skills, honesty and respectful and helpful nature would add a likeability factor. Honest, empathetic and trustworthy are other things that are included in interpersonal skills.

Organizational Skills

While handling a real estate business, you should have organized structures and systems in place. Good organizational skills allow you to know what you need to do; how it can be done; when it should be done and above all why it should be done. Organization provides efficiency, effectiveness, mental clarity and productivity. It also saves your precious time and energy. If you want to take a glimpse of best of organizational skills, you should get in touch with some Los Angeles real estate agents.

Patience and Persistence

While dealing with short sales, complex real estate transactions and foreclosures need a lot of patience because these are very time consuming and labor intensive. If you can’t give time to these things, you are more likely to loose your real estate business. Real estate is not consistent at all. You would come across various ups and downs while handling real estate business. Therefore, you should plan your business strategies in a way that you can maintain an adequate level of business in every phase of the business.

July 24, 2010

Real Estate Constructions – Hiring Contractors is Best Thing

Filed under: Real Estate Construction — John @ 1:38 pm

Have you invested in real estate? If it is an old property you would need to rebuild it and if you are looking to add a unique factor to it, you must renovate it and make some modifications to match with the ambience. There could be several property construction projects such as commercial building renovation or home improvement. You cannot handle them all alone especially when you need to handle other things as well. Therefore, you should look out for a contractor who can look after all the construction work and can take care of every aspect associated with it.

Even if you have not decided the nature of the project yet or have detailed plan, you should consider hiring a contractor who will have all the service providers in his contact to provide you the best results. This kind of contractor is known as General contractor. You can also go for individual contractors who are engaged in different trades. No matter what your choice is, hiring an experienced and qualified contractor is must for best outcome. While looking out for a contractor, first thing that you should check is the qualification of the contractor.

If you start finding a contractor through newspapers and other means within a day or two, you will find proposals in your mailbox. Now picking the best one out of them is critical. A good selection procedure is the best thing to save your time and money. To get reliable options, you should get some referrals. Try your personal contacts such as friends and relatives. You can also approach your industry associations for some referrals. For some better options, get in touch with some building material suppliers as they closely work with contractors. But make sure, you enquiring everything about the contractors before hiring him as building material suppliers have their share in contractor’s profit.

After getting proposals from prospective contractors, you analyze and assess before making your final decision. Some of the factors that would allow you to shortlist the contractors are:

  • Check if they can meet all your requirements. To check this thing, the proposal needs a thorough look. While going through the proposal, check the services they specialized in.
  • There should a value added factor in the proposal. In other words, contractor would suggest few things to improve the efficiencies of the project. This would also show the expertise of the contractor.
  • Experience in handling your kind of project is the most important thing. The expertise and experience in handling the particular type of project makes the contractor fit for the job.
  • A genuine contractor would provide you with some references so that you can confirm the projects they have handled previously. Their previous client would give you feedback and it would influence your decision of hiring a contractor.

After finalizing the contractor, you should get all the expectations and commitments get signed on a legal paper. The agreement with the contractor must have price and payment terms, project requirements, quality controls, dispute resolution plan and Liability & Insurance Responsibilities.

July 22, 2010

Real Estate Auction – What You Should Know

Filed under: Real Estate Sales — John @ 12:51 pm

These days real estate auctions are on the rise. This is happening because of the growing number of physical and online inventories from where investors, bidders and buyers can easily get the information about the real estate which is being auctioned and terms and conditions that you need to abide by. Therefore, now you don’t need to get in touch with brokers and pay them commission, you can check online or contact your real estate agent. For example, you are planning to represent a bid to buy a property in Los Angeles; you should look out reputed Los Angeles real estate agents. You can find them online as well.

More and more buyers and sellers have started investing in real estate through real estate auctions because they are more open and transparent and seldom get influenced by market cycle and trends. If real estate auction is properly conducted it will attract good amount of buyers and will motivate them to act at the earliest. If you trying to buy property using traditional methods such as getting in touch with the broker and surf through several properties  in and around your town. In this case, you always have an insecurity of overpaying at the back of your mind. However, if you are investing in real estate through auction, you can easily get rid of the fear of overpaying as you can analyze and see what other bidders are willing to pay.

In case, market demand is high but inventories are low selling price will be much more than what the willing seller has accepted in negotiated private treaty sale. To establish top market price, real estate auctions takes place during up markets. If you think that auction would be a better option to earn more profit out of your property then you should be aware that not all the properties and sellers are good contender for auction. There are sellers who put their property on auction with a motto of get rid of problems caused due to the financial crisis in the market which has affected the market value of the property. In this case, possibility is there that the amount the willing buyer is going to pay cannot meet the expenses what you owe.

If you want that your property would do well in the real estate auction, your property must have a unique factor that can entice the buyers. So, before putting your home in an auction, try to figure out what specialties your property has and how you can improve the quality of your home. In case, you don’t find a unique factor in your property, best alternate to gain good amount of profit is to offer the most competitive price available in the market. Qualified Real Estate Auctioneer is very much required so that your real estate auction can be conducted in professional manner. To find the best auctioneer, you must check with National Auctioneers Association.

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