How To Maximize Your Home As An Investment Asset

Is your home a valuable asset or a liability?



With the present economic crunch, many homeowners are left thinking if their house is a wise investment or merely place to stay. Is your home a valuable asset or a liability? Here are some of the major concerns of homeowners and tips on what they can do with the property given the present economic situation.

Is my home more of an investment or a liability?

Although your home can be considered your most valuable asset, it is unlikely to deliver greater gains in the long run as compared to investing in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. This has been held true even before the drop of real estate values. Over the past two decades – including the period of the real estate investment growth—the average gains of home prices are just about 3.6% per annum as compared to stocks, despite their recent drops, were up 8.4% about the same period.

The Long-Term Advantages

There are, however, other important financial benefits of owning a home. A homeowner can benefit from tax breaks. These are deductions for property taxes and mortgage interests (plus, the first 500,000 that couples make after selling is tax-free). Owning a home could also be counted as an ideal savings tool— with every mortgage payment, you are forced to set aside money, thus keeping your savings intact in form of a tangible asset. This is also the key reason why most homeowners have a higher net worth than renters. Throughout history, real estate has been considered a good hedge against inflation.

Additional Tips

If you plan to resell your home in the future, don’t overspend in renovations, you might recoup when you sell. Instead, focus on fixing its problems and invest in projects that add functionality to the home.

Be realistic about your gains. In the long run, the value of your home can have an expected rise of about one to two percentage points over inflation.

Zillow Android App - Mobile Real Estate

Real Estate Data by Voice and at Your Fingertips!
As the leader in mobile real estate, Zillow now provides real estate data and info for all U.S. homes on the free Zillow Android App. See Zestimate home values, homes for sale, homes for rent, and more. Use Android's voice search feature, plus built-in GPS technology, to search for homes as you talk, walk or drive through neighborhoods.

To get the free Zillow Android App, visit the Android Market or scan this QR Code with your Android phone.



Zillow Android App Features:
- See Zestimate value of any home

- Search filters:
For sale, for rent, Make Me Move homes, and recently sold
Price, beds, baths, and more
Map view (high-resolution satellite and street view), list view

- Search location:
From where you are (via GPS locater)
Type in an address
Voice search (speak an address)

- Full-screen color photos (in portrait or landscape mode)
- E-mail homes to a friend
- View homes curbside with a Google Street View of homes
- Save favorite homes and searches
- Get driving directions to a home with Google Maps

A Real Estate Broker's Tips To The Summer Rental Market

Summer is high season in the New York City rental market, and this past weekend I was reminded of that. I had two guys and their mother in from California, and on Saturday afternoon we put in application for a two bedroom apartment. We even had a back up unit with the same management company. By Monday afternoon, however, we were told that someone else beat us to the punch in the application process for both units, and by only a few hours. After two more days of looking and a little low-grade stalking on my part, they ended up finding something else.

That said, as I enter yet another summer rental season, I thought I may offer some realistic advice for tenants out there. While other outlets may try to offer guidance, unless you work in the field there really is no way to understand exactly how this business it works.

Look for An Apartment In The Middle of The Week: This is the best piece of advice I could give anyone. Everyone looks for an apartment on a weekend, and in peak times like summer you're more likely to lose one you saw on a weekend than if you saw it in the middle of the week. Monday mornings are crazy in the real estate business, because everyone who looked over the weekend and put in an application, or considered putting in an offer to buy a place, is waiting for approvals and feedback. Also, inventory lists are more likely to be accurate in the middle of the week, once the ebb and flow on Monday morning has passed.

Brokers are also not as busy on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and will have time to devote to your cause. I can easily book two or three appointments on a Saturday, and if you're not one of the first in the queue you may actually get rescheduled.


You'll Probably Have To Use A Broker In Manhattan Every time I'm at a cocktail party there's always that sanctimonious twit in the corner who claims he's found every apartment he ever had on Craigslist or through word of mouth. That's great. When you need something specific, however, such as a good share apartment for a couple of new college grads or a one bedroom within walking distance to Grand Central, a broker will make good use of your time.

Just be careful who you choose. When you answer a random Craigslist Ad from a hole in the wall brokerage called something like #1BestNYCLivingSpace.com, don't be surprised if the guy you meet is a little sketchy, pushy or at the very least, smells bad. Ask around to people who have had good experiences. If you need a high end, Upper East Side Classic Six, a marquee name brokerage will most likely be able to get it for you.

You Don't Have to Work With 12 Different Brokers. Thanks to the guidelines set up by Real Estate Board of New York, every broker in Manhattan has access to every listing out there. Unless someone has something in their pocket that they're not sharing, chances are your one genius broker can find it. Remember, this is a business relationship. If you're running around town with different brokers, it won't inspire anyone to make an effort try to find something for you. It's a waste of their time. Fidelity will get you what you want.

What's The Deal With The Broker Fee, Anyhow? The broker fee, which is generally 15% of the annual rent, is how the broker gets paid. Some people think it goes to the landlord, but it's a service charge for the broker who found you the place. Most landlords in Manhattan don't deal with the general public, which is why a job like mine exists. We also have access to the whole gamut of available apartments, from your standard rentals buildings to private owners who just have one or two units to offer.

When you ask a broker to lower their fee, you're asking them to work for less, which never makes us happy. Even if we only showed you one apartment, and you took it, it doesn't mean we did any less of a job.

If you have a slow week at your desk job, doing little but surfing Facebook and shopping online, does your boss ask you to take a cut in your pay? Nope. There is more to being a broker than just opening a door. A good one spends their week previewing, managing their marketing and scoping out new listings. We also have to be ad-hoc therapists, tour guides and financial advisors. It's less passive of a job than you think.

from huffingtonpost.com

Maryland Town Covenant Bans “Negroes & Chinamen” From Owning Property

Cape St. Claire Improvement Association board members are working to remove racially discriminatory language from covenants that date back to the 1940s.

The paragraph in question reads: “At no time shall any lot or any part thereof be sold, leased, transferred to or permitted to be occupied by any Negro, Chinaman, Japanese, or person of Negro, Chinese, or Japanese descent. This restriction is not intended to include servants or employees of the owner or occupant of said lot.”

read full article here!

A Step-by-Step Guide To Non-Internet Real Estate Marketing

from biggerpockets.com

Last week I wrote a controversial post about why you should stop doing Internet marketing and instead use direct mail if you want to become a highly successful real estate investor.

And today I’m going to show you the exact direct mail steps I use in my own business which make me over six-figures a year. Anyone can follow these steps and there are only two reasons why these steps couldn’t make you six figures too.

The first reason is that you don’t follow what I say and you don’t send out letters. This is the reason 99% of people aren’t successful. The second reason is because you send out a terribly written letter that doesn’t get any response. Luckily, if you network properly you can find investors who will share their profitable letters with you.

Here we go…

First and most importantly you have to choose the area you invest in. I like bread and butter locations with a lower-than-average housing value. One of the areas I personally invest in is Stafford, VA zip code 22554.

Once you’ve picked your area you have to get a list. The people that I prefer to mail to are absentee landlords. I could write 20 pages on why I love going after landlords, but let’s just say they’re often motivated sellers. So now that you’re going after landlords you call a list broker and order 1,000 or 2,000 names in your zip code of choice. (I like to use Melissadata). They email you the names in an excel spreadsheet.

Now you have to create your letter.

But how? Well… first always personalize. Use a person’s first name. Mention their city and state where you want to invest and mention how you specialize in working with landlords who want to get rid of nightmare rental properties. (Pile on the benefits of working with you.)

Also, include a free offer in your letter. For example, I include a free special report called “The 5 little-known ways to eliminate tenant hassles forever.” Another thing I do is offer a free lunch. I tell the person that once I evaluate the deal over the phone and see that it meets my criteria I’d like to take them out to a free lunch to discuss things.

Be creative…

You can offer a number of things, but make sure they realize there is no-obligation for calling you and getting your free report or free consultation.

Once the letter is done you simply send it off to your letter shop along with the excel spreadsheet and they take care of the rest. Or, you can of course do it yourself. Just make sure that whoever does your mailing knows to use a white #10 envelope and to hand write all addresses in blue ink.

Once the letters go in the mail, you’ll get calls from motivated landlords in the zip code you specialize in. If you follow the steps I just outlined you can see this isn’t tough, and once again, this method will crush the nerds who love internet marketing any day of the week and make you a heck of a lot more money.

10 Real Estate Investing Secrets Every Investor Should Know

Business success is the result of what you know. In every industry there are key elements—secrets—that if known will help to insure success, but if not known will certainly lead to failure. Real Estate investing is no different. Success begins with knowledge. What are some of the critical lessons that every real estate investor should know? Here are ten of them for starters…

Secret #1 - Use Other People's Knowledge
The first secret is probably the most important of all the others—using other people’s knowledge. There are only two ways to gain knowledge. Either you gain it from other people's mistakes or make the mistakes yourself. If you refuse to learn from other people’s mistakes—you are destined to learn from your own mistakes. The secret is to learn from others and avoid the pain of learning the hard way. Here is the secret—you can jump start your investing success by getting a good mentor and constantly reading and listening to CDs by successful real estate investors.

Secret #2 - Consistency and Quantity of Quality Offers
The second secret is also very important—it is the power of consistently making a lot of quality offers. In order to become a successful real estate investor, it is absolutely necessary to place many offers that, if accepted, will result in great deals. Without offers there can be no good deals and good deals are the basis of success in real estate investing. If you do not ask you will not receive.


Secrets #3-7 - Skills to Develop
Secrets three through seven are the skills that will have to be developed in order to run a successful real estate investing business. These skills are:

•#3 - Finding Good Deals
•#4 - Obtaining the Money to purchase the good deals you find
•#5 - Fixing up the property so that it is marketable
•#6 - Effectively marketing the property
•#7 - Property management
Master each of these skills and real estate investing becomes much easier. However, fail to develop them and you are in for a rough ride.

Secret #8 - Prepare Quality Offers with a Chance of Being Accepted
Secret number eight is that you must prepare quality offers that have a chance of being accepted. These offers must be high enough so that some of them will be successful. But they must be low enough so that, when one is accepted, it will result in a substantial return on your investment of time and money. This can be easily accomplished by using some of the effective software on the market today such as TurboBidder2 or similar real estate analysis software.

Secret #9 - The Ability to Determine True Property Value
The ninth real estate investing secret is that you must be able to determine the true value of property. True value is the amount that the property can be sold for in a reasonable period of time. The quickest way of determining true value is by paying a professional appraiser to work their magic. But that is not necessarily the best way. It doesn’t make sense to be paying an appraiser to look at thirty properties when you only expect to purchase one of those deals. That means that you must find an inexpensive way to determine true value. There are professional realtors who work with investors. These realtors can provide accurate comparable sales (comps) of similar properties. These comps can give you a very good idea of what a property is worth.

#10 - Have a Burning Desire to Succeed
And finally Secret Number 10 is that you need to have a burning desire to become successful. Your attitude and drive can make up for lots of early mistakes and pitfalls that might sink a lesser person. As Calvin Coolidge once said, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence”.

I hope this article will help you in your quest to build wealth through real estate investing. For more articles on real estate investor training, visit my website at www.dennisjhenson.com. Also on that site, you may sign up for free reports, articles, and e-books and find free forms, documents, MP3 downloads and much more. Also visit www.turbobidder2.com for a great real estate investing tool.

Thank you,
Dennis J. Henson

Learn other secrets of success like this: 10 Real Estate Investing Secrets.

7 Things To Do With a Real Estate License Besides Sell Houses

Sometimes after obtaining a real estate license the harsh reality sets in that life as a real estate agent is not quite as glamourous as it’s cracked up to be. Other times personal circumstances might change where a steady salary or work hours are necessary. If you find yourself thinking that being a real estate agent might not be quite the right career fit for you, there are many other things you can do with a real estate license besides selling homes.

1. Apartment leasing agents: Many landlords and agencies need someone who can show property to prospective tenants, write lease agreements, and take care of other details. Rather than hiring an outside broker to perform this work they will manage this process in-house and hire their own leasing agent as an employee.

2. Licensed Assistant: This can have its perks as you will probably have set hours, steady paychecks, and not get the complaint calls from clients. Become friends with the top producers in your area or watch for ads to see if any are needing extra help with their workload. You can also consider becoming a virtual assistant.

3. Writer: The internet is an open market for writers, especially those who can offer a viewpoint in a specialized field such as real estate. You can start your own website or publish articles on sites such as AssociatedContent.com. You can also search for paying writing jobs on sites such as sologig.com.

4. Real Estate Scout: Many companies often need someone to scout out properties for new locations or developments. There are also many investors who can benefit from having a full time employee on hand who can help find houses that have good future profitability.

5. Marketing Assistant: After having my daughter I just couldn’t see myself going back into real estate full time. I partnered with a few high profile agents and became their marketing assistant by helping them with mailing campaigns, brochure designs, newsletters, and other marketing related activities.

6. Home Stager: While you may need additional professional designations this can be a profitable business by meeting with potential sellers and helping them decide what changes are necessary to sell their home as quickly as possible and for the highest price. Bonus: You might even be able to earn some referral dollars by referring your clients to agents to sell their home.

7. Title and Closing: There are many title and closing companies that can offer jobs in gathering and coordinating the necessary documents and procedures for closings. As more and more banks depend on larger companies to do this for them, many job opportunities are available.

These are just a few of the many possibilities available in finding a new career where your real estate license won’t go to waste! If you have any other ideas, feel free to share them in the comments below.

from upstartagent.com

3 Real Estate Investing Tenets That Many Experts Don't Fully Know

When you think of virtual real estate investing, a number of things may come to mind. You may think of real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans and hard money lenders, or you might focus on short sales, bulk reo investing and virtual real estate investing. You likely also are wondering how these things factor into real estate investors roles in the current economy.

There is a lot of information out there on real estate investing. Knowing the basics of real estate investing education is a good way to get the most out of every lesson. Short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate and general real estate investor abilities all are improved by knowing some basics of real estate investing. Check out these three real estate investing tenets that many experts do not fully know:

1. You will always end up with a positive yield when you invest in real estate investing education. Every real estate deal has the potential to create thousands of dollars in potential wealth. The knowledge of how to get that wealth is the key to your success. Learning as much as possible about real estate will increase your odds of success whenever you do a real estate deal. Small investments yield big results when you invest in learning and then implement what you learn.

2. You can succeed in real estate investing regardless of the state of the economy. Lots of people believe that real estate success is only possible in a booming economy. Actually a poor economy is not a bad economy for real estate investors. Likely you will be able to find properties at deep discounts. Also, you might find deals that simply could not exist in a booming economy. Real estate investing often is what turns the tide for poor economies. Short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate all can thrive when the economy is not. You will be able to save yourself and others from serious financial difficulties if you know how to do these deals.

3. A lot of money is not vital to your success as a real estate investor. You can succeed in real estate investing no matter how much money you have. There are lots of types of deals that you can perform with the money of other people. Private lenders will lend you their money if they think you are a good investment. The best way to look like a solid investment is to have an in-depth knowledge of real estate investing. This will help you show private lenders that you are a good investment if they do not know about real estate investing themselves.

A good deal of wealth can be generated with real estate investing. You will be able to create an income no matter what the economy. You can create success for yourself using knowledge of real estate investing, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate. Knowing the basics of real estate investing will help you succeed as a real estate investor. Knowing some real estate investing basics and applying them will help you succeed as a real estate investor.