Archive for May 13th, 2009

Condominium, House, or Rental Apartment - Should you Buy or Lease? Posted By : Joe Mac Millan
What is best? Buy a condominium, a house, or lease and apartment. What should you do? While the house or condo may look like a great investment that will pay a profit in the long run, the person who rents an apartment and banks the difference will eventually come out ahead. Be certain to understand this before signing the bottom line.

Common Mistakes Of First-Time Buyers Posted By : Stefan Hyross
You have spent the last few years saving your money, driving around and looking at homes for sale on the Internet. Today, you decided to go for it and started looking for your first home. You have mixed emotions - part of you is really excited about the prospect of owning a home and the other is terrified. No need to be. Here are a few common mistakes first-time home buyers make and how to prevent them.

The Top 5 Reasons to Use Real Estate Flyer Templates
In difficult real estate markets (such as today’s market), it’s crucial for agents to lean out their marketing costs, yet at the same time, improve their brand identity and become efficient and well-known as an agent.

One of the best ways to do this is by utilizing real estate flyer templates when creating marketing for their property listings.

Real estate flyer templates are pre-designed marketing flyers, which agents open in an editing program like Microsoft Publisher or Adobe Photoshop, insert their property’s photos and description, then save and print for use in open houses and for various marketing efforts.

Here are the top five advantages to using real estate flyer and brochure templates:

1. Unlimited Use — A successful top producing agent is constantly looking to promote their “just listed” or “just sold” listings.  What better way to create marketing material then to have your own flyer template?

As soon as you list a property, just load up the template, drop in the photos and description text, and you’re set.

Then, after you sell the property, simply load up the “just listed” template, change it to “just sold,” and change the price to the sale price.

Now you have an excellent marketing flyer that you can distribute to your farm area to gain credibility and show off your latest sale.

2. Consistent Brand Image — A key characteristic of a top producing agent is familiarity.  All of the top agent’s marketing material has a consistent design theme, a certain “look” that differentiates them from other agents in the area.

Agents that use plain flyers don’t create that signature brand image that the well known agents have.

Consistently using a specific high-quality flyer template that is unique can help prospects in your area associate that look with you and allow you to cultivate a strong and recognizable brand image.

3.  Lower Marketing Cost — Many agents invest large amounts of money each month for marketing services and programs only to end up not using them because they are just too complicated or time consuming.

Other agents end up hiring designers or marketing assistants to help them organize and implement their marketing campaigns, which is also very costly.

Using flyer templates, agents pay a one time upfront fee for the templates (often less than the price of one hour or work by a designer) and are able to use that template for the rest of their real estate career without incurring anymore design fees.

4.  Easy Printing — Printing can be a major source of headaches for an agent, especially if they are trying to do it all themselves.

Worrying about bleed lines, file formats, and document sizes is not an agent’s specialty.

The good thing about professionally created real estate templates is that the printing specifications are built into the template and are, therefore, already taken care of.

Simply update the template with new photos and text each time you use it, and send it off to your print shop (or your own printer).

By using the same template each time you print, you can get any print discrepancies taken care of the first time you use that template, then just save it and re-use it over and over again.

This helps you maintain consistent print settings which allows for easy and hassle free printing.

5. Fast Speed of Implementation — Another key characteristic of a top producer is speed.

Agents that consistently get new listing are fast with everything they do.

Many times these top producers have a team that they delegate marketing and administrative work to, which allows them to get more things done quicker.

If you don’t have your own team to help you, you can still match these top producers in speed by creating your own efficient marketing system using pre-made flyer templates.

Once you get a new listing, take the photos and load them into your brochure template, and get them printed.

Having a routine down can allow you to focus your efforts where it matters most and using professionally designed real estate flyer templates is a key component in becoming a successful and efficient top producing agent.

To download a professional real estate flyer template package, visit TurnKeyFlyers.com

Reuben Fine is the creator of TurnkeyFlyers.com, an online resource that helps real estate agents with their marketing by providing downloadable real estate flyer templates, easy-to-understand video tutorials, and useful sales and marketing articles.

Categories of Real Estate Investment
The current boom in real estate market has made real estate a safe and viable investment option for many people. If you invest wisely, you can easily double the amount of your investments in a period of five to six years.

Avoid These Mistakes Of Beginning Investors - 2 Posted By : Herb C. Jahnke
In the first part of the article on “Avoid These Mistakes Of Beginning Investors” we had discussed some of the steps you must undertake while investing in Austin Real Estate Market. In this concluding article, we will discuss the rest of the things to remember before making any property investment in Austin, Texas.

Loan Fraud
Each year uninformed homebuyers, usually first time purchasers or seniors fall victim to predatory lending known as loan fraud. True, there are many lenders, appraisers, brokers and other real estate professional that legit ably want to assist you in obtaining a nice comfortable home with a great loan but always remember that trite phrase buyer beware. Buying or refinancing a home is one of the most important financial decisions that we make, it is vital to learn as much as we can about the home loan process. That is why I decided to list the most important steps you can take so you won’t become the next victim of loan fraud. Step one is to Beware of false appraisals. You should have a good idea of what houses appraise for. Step two is to take your time and shop around. Competition is great for consumers. If you don’t appreciate one lender’s offer, there is always another one waiting. Step three is be certain that the costs and loan terms at closing are what you originally agreed to. Step four is do not be talked into lying about lie about your income, expenses, or cash available for downpayments in order to get a loan. Step five is get several quotes from multiple brokers or lenders so you know you’re being charged a fair interest rate based on your credit history, not your race or national origin. Step six is watch out for higher-risk loans such as balloon loans, interest only payments, and steep pre-payment penalties. Step seven is be careful about disclosing things like your need of cash due to medical, unemployment or debt problems. You are very vulnerable in these cases. Step eight is do not sign a sales contract or loan documents that are blank or that contain information which is not true. Step nine is don’t strip your home’s equity by refinancing again and again when there is no benefit to you. The Final step is do not let anyone convince you to borrow more money than you know you can afford to repay. If you get behind on your payments, you risk losing your house and all of the money you put into your property.

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Flipping Houses in 2009 Posted By : Gen Wright
Just a couple of years ago, if you are in the business of flipping houses, it would have been near impossible to find great properties that you can buy and sell off quickly. Flipping houses is not a new business model. Many investors and real estate brokers have been involved in flipping houses to make a quick profit. In brief, here is how it works.