Importance of clean title in real estate investing

November 5th, 2011

I recently made a novice mistake that cost me over a thousand dollars even though it sounds very basic. Generally I only do a short sale if I see the potential of creating a lot of equity to justify spending all the time and effort involved in negotiating a short sale.

I am particularly fond of properties which have more than one mortgage, because the holder of the junior lien mostly stands to lose everything in the event of a foreclosure. For this reason, they can negotiate pennies on the dollar in a short sale.

It is not unusual to negotiate 20 cents on the dollar on a second lien. If you can also negotiate the first mortgage, it means you can end up creating a lot of equity and potential for a good profit in your deal.

This is the type of deal I got a few months ago, and instantly identified it as a having high potential. The first mortgage balance was low enough, almost 50% of the value of the house,  but there was also a small second mortgage. Even if I had to pay off both mortgages, I would still have had a good deal.

All the owner wanted was to get rid of the property without foreclosure. We did all the necessary paper work for both short sales and within a few weeks had both my offers accepted.

The house needed some repair, but no structural damage like foundation or roof. There was also a lot of junk to remove and touch-ups I had to clear before I could wholesale it to another real estate investor. The yard was overgrown; there was tons of trash to haul off, and general cleanup. I ended up spending over $1000 cleaning things up and got it ready for wholesale.

I was pretty sure I was going to flip it easily and quickly lined up a buyer with cash.

In the meantime my title company started the closing process including title work. It turned out there were two other liens the seller did not disclose!

Both were mechanic liens attached to the property. One of the liens was easy to track down, but the other one had been sold twice and none of the contact information on the lien was working. In short, we had no way of negotiating one of the liens.

This means I could not own the property free and clear unless contacted all lien holders and agreed on a pay-off. Those liens could only be wiped off through foreclosure.

I ended up giving up on the short sale after spending weeks negotiating both short sales and spending over $1000 getting the property more marketable.

This experience can serve as a word of caution if you buy houses directly from motivated sellers. Even though motivated sellers have probably the most profitable deals on the market, they are also more likely to have multiple liens and judgments on their properties or other title related issues.

Make a point of checking the title before spending money to make sure the property is marketable. In my business, I do not pay for any title work because I have closed many deals with my title company. Even if you have to pay for title work, it is likely it is not as expensive as the time and money you would lose without checking the title.

Simon Macharia is a real estate investor in Dallas Texas, and specializes in buying and selling houses. Learn how you can automate most aspects of your real estate business with a database-driven real estate investing website saving you time, money and effort, while closing more deals by increasing your efficiency.

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Real Estate Investing Websites With Integrated Social Media Marketing Released

October 25th, 2011

A real estate investing firm that also builds real estate investor websites, www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net, has rolled out an upgraded release of websites for real estate investing.

Real estate investors can now take advantage of the inbuilt social media features for marketing. Websites visitors can make comments through their facebook accounts directly on the websites, and share these comments with their friends without leaving the websites.

The visitors can also use the Like feature that has become quite popular with the social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

This release is an enhancement of previous releases that add to the marketing features built into the websites.

With superior search engine optimization, the websites are built to attract targeted visitors. A life-like video speaking model instantly attracts attention and delivers a down to earth, believable message that entices them to take action now.

Visitors can also request free pre-loaded Ebooks that deliver valuable information, and the websites  automatically follow up with them using in-built automation and pre-loaded autoresponder messages. The websites are therefore created to attract visitors and convert them into closed real estate deals.

Being controlled from a simple virtual back office, they are easy to manage even for real estate investors who are new to computers. They come loaded with numerous designs and features, and can be fully personalized and adapted to suit any real estate investing business model.

Most importantly, each website is delivered fully customized and personalized ready for business usually within one hour.

For more information, please visit www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net or call 214-227-8718.

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How To Identify A Good Deal For Real Estate Investing

October 18th, 2011

The current real estate market continues to deteriorate and house prices continue to go down.  More and more people need to sell their houses or lose them to an already saturated market.

We are likely to continue seeing this trend for a while, which means house prices will continue going down.

So how do you identify a good deal that will hold its value until you sell?

Most home owners looking to sell their houses now understand that the value of their house is quite unstable.

They understand that their houses are losing value every day, and that they cannot rely on prices just 2 months old.

They also know that they can no longer sell their house at market value any more.

Too many houses are sitting in the market that you can almost certainly negotiate the price down on most properties even if the asking price is well below market value.

Motivated sellers know that you must also give a discount when you sell your properties, so they do understand the discount they give you will be passed on.

If you buy, fix and sell for instances, you can end up holding your houses for as long as 6 months.

How much value will the house lose in this time?

If you do not answer this question before you buy, you are likely to end up paying too much for your investment properties.

Even if you wholesale houses, you still need to answer this question.   How much will your buyer need to discount the property when they sell?   As a general rule, you can only wholesale houses if you leave enough money for the wholesale buyer to make money also.

Lots of investors have previously been quite comfortable buying houses at 70 cents on the dollar less repairs.  Some real estate investors still use these numbers.   In this market, 60% minus repairs is barely enough.

If you buy properties to hold as rentals, then these numbers can work perfectly.

If you fix properties to sell them on retail, then your numbers must cater for long holding costs and associated price drop.  Naturally you should cater for the discount you will give when you sell!

These days, a discount of as much as 15% to 20% is not uncommon.   Is that enough to make you a profit?

Motivated sellers understand this quite perfectly, and I find it easy to use it to negotiate my prices.   Of course, the discounted dollar figures they give you might look big.  Any good real estate investor knows that we work with percentages, not dollar figures.

Once I explain my numbers in percentages, they can easily see how it small my margin really is.  Once they realize you are not taking advantage of them, they will sell their house to you at a price that makes you a profit.

Have you seen a drop in profits in the current market because you see to be out-priced by the drop in house prices?  Get more in-depth articles in our real estate blog and find out how you can run your business from an interactive real estate investor website that automates most of your business so you make more while spending less time, money and effort.

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How To Handle Second Mortgages When Doing Short Sales

October 2nd, 2011

Short sales can be complicated and sometimes frustrating. From convincing a home owner that a short sale may be the best way to go to collecting paperwork and endless phone calls, the process can become tiresome.

It gets even more complicated when there are junior liens, such as a second mortgage. So how do you deal with junior liens in a short sale? This article shows you how you can make lots of money negotiating junior liens.

As a real estate investor, you probably come across houses where the owner owes more than the value of the property. Actually these properties seem to have become more so common in the current real estate market they seem to be the majority of homes for sale.

If the owner has more than one mortgage, it is possible to negotiate a short sale for both liens separately. This presents a huge opportunity when you are able to negotiate these junior liens.

The owner of a junior lien mostly stands to walk away with nothing in foreclosure. They are therefore more than willing to accept a small fraction of their mortgage balance in a short sale negotiation. Do not be surprised if you pay $5000 for a $50,000 lien.

In the meantime, the holder of the first mortgage an negotiate as must as 15% to 20% of the mortgage balance. You end up creating a lot of equity by negotiating these two liens, creating an opportunity where none seemed to exist.

What challenges do you face in these negotiations?

1) Motivated sellers
The first challenge is convincing the seller that a short sale may be the best way to go. Even though every lender lets defaulting home owners know about foreclosure options, home owners may not have any idea how to do a short sale.

Secondly, short sales can take a lot of time, so the home owner must be willing to wait this long.

They must work with you to provide the tedious paper work required for a short sale, especially when they have to replicate this effort twice.

Of course, they also need to know that short sale may not get approved, and their home could go to foreclosure if negotiations fail.

2) Banks
You must be ready to submit two complete short sale packets. You must be ready to follow up and make sure the paper work has been received. You must be ready to make all the phone calls to each lien holder  and stay close to the process at all times.

If the property was already in foreclosure, you must make sure the lender will stop foreclosure process as you negotiate the short sale. It is not uncommon for a property to be foreclosed in the middle of  a short sale negotiation.

You have to remember that approval of just one of the liens may mean the deal cannot work as investment property.

3) Closing
Lenders usually give some time to allow for closing. Before a short sale can be approved, thy need to see proof of funds. This can be a pre-qualification letter from a lender.

You must have the money to close within the time allowed by the lenders or the property goes back into foreclosure.

Ultimately, you can create a lot of equity by negotiating junior liens which can in turn create big profits for you.

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How To Sell Your House Faster With Owner Financing

August 28th, 2011

In today’s real estate market, we are seeing more and more properties for sale flooding the market, but fewer and fewer buyers for these properties.  The result is that the house prices keep going down every month.

Real estate investors therefore find it harder and harder to sell their properties like they use to.
Likewise, if you are looking to sell your house even if you are not a real estate investor, you find yourself stuck with properties that generate little or no interest from buyers.

In this article, we look at how seller financing can generate interest from buyers resulting to a quick sale even at a higher price.

What is seller financing?
In seller financing, the seller agrees to carry part or whole of the financing for his property.   The seller probably has no mortgage, or probably owes a mortgage on it.

In either case, you may need advice on how to structure the deal and close it properly.   Make sure you talk to your CPA and real estate attorney.

When the seller accepts to owner finance the property, the buyer pays a down payment.   The seller then receives monthly payments just like a bank.

Why seller financing?
The days  when just staging your property was enough to sell it are long gone.   Why should a buyer choose your property when there are numerous other properties in the neighborhood  are selling for a lower price?

Before a buyer ever comes to see your house, they will have to be attracted to it by the terms you have set for the sale.  seller financing attracts a lot of attention for your properties.

With the banks tightening their lending procedures, most people can no longer qualify for a conventional mortgage.   Lots of people have also ended up with bruised credit.  These buyers can only own properties through owner financing.

As a seller, this makes owner financing a great way to generate a lot of interest and possibly even end up selling it at a higher price.

The best price is estimated from comparable sales in the area.

It is important to be careful which properties you use as comparable sales.  Properties that have been sold with seller financing carry a higher price than others sold in the conventional way.  Therefore, its price may not reflect the true value of similar properties.

With seller financing, you end up selling your house faster, even at a higher price.

In a market with so many properties for sale and few buyers, real estate investors that adapt to changing trends are the ones that continue to make profits.   seller financing allows them sell their properties faster where others cannot.

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Upgraded Websites For Real Estate Investing Released

August 24th, 2011

A real estate investing firm that also develops websites for real estate investing, www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net, has rolled out an upgraded version of their real estate investor websites.

Real estate investors can now pre-educate potential motivated sellers by providing educative Ebooks that benefit people looking to sell their houses. These leads can then automatically continue to receive daily follow-up messages that provide value to the motivated sellers’ needs with a goal of converting them from prospects to people that sell their houses.

A real estate investor will therefore convert more cold prospects to closed deals while using less money, time and effort.

The websites also come integrated with social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others so that they can reach more prospects through the social media. This is also quite effective when real estate investors are selling houses in their inventory, enabling them to be more exposed to the market through social media.

The websites come with numerous designs and time-tested, effective copy that converts cold leads to motivated sellers or private money lenders. This means that a real estate investor can have his website set up and ready for business within one hour.

In order to convert more visitors to motivated sellers or clients, the websites come equipped with a life-like video speaking spokesperson that commands instant attention and delivers a down to earth believable message that relates with website visitors.

With superior search engine optimization, real estate investors can attract more leads through the search engines and convert most of them to motivated sellers or clients using less time, money and effort.
For more information, visit www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net or call 214-227-8718.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Real Estate Investing

August 11th, 2011

Search engine optimization involves making changes to a website so that it ranks highly in the search results of all search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask. This means when someone goes to look for the services or product you offer, your website appears as among the top (or the top).

This can continue bringing you business and profits naturally for years to come.

In this article, we look at the techniques you can use to boost your search engine rankings.

On-site optimization
SEO starts with making sure your website contains the keywords that you target. Ideally the keywords should be included in

1) Title – Page title in found in the meta tags. You can see the page title on top of the browser. When you do a search in the search engines, the title is the one that comes out in bold. This is usually a short sentence that describes the content of the page in 250 words or less.

2) Description – this is also in the meta tags. The meta description can be longer than the title and provide more information.

3) Content – the keywords should be included naturally in the content for the human eye as well as the search engines. Do not over-exaggerate by putting the keyword too many times.

4) Domain name – if at all possible, if the domain name contains the keywords, you will rank better than a domain without those keywords.

Offsite optimization – link building
Offsite search engine optimization involves building links from third party websites to your website. A website with many websites linking to it is considered by the search engines as being more popular, and is ranked higher than less popular websites.

As much as you can, the anchor text you use to link to your website should be a keyword.

You should be careful not to build links too fast, or the search engines could sandbox (blacklist) your website as a spammer.

Building links involves several activities:

1. Articles
When you post content in article directories, they allow you to put a link back to your website. There are hundreds of article directories that can provide permanent links back to your website.

Writing articles will not only bring you lots of business, but will also boost your search engine rankings.

2. Profiles
Whenever you open accounts if websites, such we social networking media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, they allow you to provide a profile inclusing a link back to your website. There are hundreds of such sites available.

3. Web 2.0 properties
Always post your articles in web 2.0 properties and blog sites like WordPress, Squidoo, Blogger, etc with links back to your website.

4. Classified directories
There are thousands of directories that allow you to post short classified ads with a link back to your website.

5. RSS Directories
Whenever possible, if your websie allows an RSS feed, you should submit this feed to RSS directories. This allows your content to be re-distributed to other websites, with a link back to your website.

6. Videos
Video marketing has become very popular. Be sure to distribute your videos to all video sites for best results.

7. Bookmarks
There are hundreds of book mark sites that allow posting your link and a summary of your content. Search engines love these sites, and can boost your search engine rankings within a few days.

8. Blog and forum commenting
If done right, this can be very beneficial, providing drastic search engine benefits. Unfortunately this method is abused and can lead to most of your comments being deleted as spam if not done right.

These are the most popular search engine optimization techniques that are likely to boost your search engine rankings drastically. At the very least, your real estate investing website should be optimized so it continues bringing business for you naturally for years to come.

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Attracting Targeted Clients Through Search Engine Optimization in Real Estate Investing

August 6th, 2011

An effective website for real estate investing is necessary for the success of a real estate investing business. A website that receives few or no visitors brings little to no money. The secret to having a successful website is to receive targeted visitors who are interested in what you offer.

A website that attracts visitors through the search engines is therefore a big asset for a real estate investing business. In this article, we cover how to optimize a website to attract leads, and closed deals, through the search engines.

What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making a website popular in the search engines thereby achieving higher ranking for the keywords it is optimized for. A keyword or key phrase is the term a person looking for your services is likely to type in a search engine such as google.

Whether we are referring to a single word keyword or a long tail key phrase, we will refer to it as just keyword for our purposes.

Search engine optimization comes in two parts:

1) On-site search engine optimization
This involves making sure the content of the website talks about the keywords you wish to target. If you buy houses, this could be keywords like we buy houses, sell your home, sell my house, etc.

The keywords must be included in the title, meta description and the content. Keywords in the meta tags play little to no role. Keywords in the domain name can play a big part in achieving superior search engine ranking.

2) Off-site optimization
Off-site optimization involves creating one way links from third party websites to your website. Search engines consider websites with more links pointing to it as being more popular than those with few or no links and are ranked more highly.

There are lots of elements involved between these two, but your website must include these two to be highly ranked by search engines.

How do you target the right keywords?
Every business starts with market analysis to find out if it is worth investing your time and money in that niche. Once you have decided what you want to do, you then narrow down on the right keywords.
It is always a good idea to be as narrow and targeted in your keywords as possible. For example, the term real estate would be too broad and most likely, too competitive.

First, it would take a lot of effort and money to rank highly for this keyword. Secondly, most of the visitors you get are not likely to convert into clients. Likewise, the keyword we buy houses is likely to be too competitive.

In real estate investing, the best keywords are the ones that target a small (narrow) niche and possibly your geographical location. For example, the keyword sell my house in Dallas is much more effective than just sell my house.

This way, your website will attract very targeted visitors who are likely to be looking exactly for the services that you offer. It is also likely that you will rank much higher, more easily with less effort and money when your website has a targeted niche market.

Why is SEO important?
Obviously, getting high rankings in the search engines will bring you new clients, maybe for years to come. In real estate investing, most real estate investors do nothing after they get their websites. They never optimize them, and just hope people will somehow find them now that they have a website!

This puts you at an advantage – just a little input or some modest SEO on your website is likely to put you in a leading or top position for your keywords in your local market.

The competition is not too much in this niche, and you are likely to stick at the top for years with the right search engine optimization for your website. This can mean continued business and profits for years to come just with a one-time targeted search engine optimization.

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How To Keep Responsive Real Estate Investing Leads Coming

July 19th, 2011

In order to have a successful real estate investing business, it is necessary to have leads coming in to fuel your business. These leads convert into clients, motivated seller, buyers or private money lenders.

So how do you make sure you have a constant supply of leads for your business?

1)      Target your leads

This is the first thing to do. You must decide who you want to reach in your business. For example, if you are looking for wholesale deals, you are likely to target neighborhoods that are older, say with houses ten years old or more. The price range is likely to be medium range.

If you target owner financed properties, then you will probably target properties that have no mortgage. Similarly, if you target subject-to deals, you are likely to target newer properties that need few or no repairs.

Unless you narrow down your market, you are likely to waste a lot of time following the wrong leads,  and money marketing to the wrong people.

2)      Polish your marketing message

The message you send your leads must be powerful enough to convince them to sign up with you or call you.

No matter which marketing method you use, you must make sure the message has an instant appeal to the prospects and a call to action that makes them give you a call or sign up on your real estate investor website.

3)      Use multiple marketing systems

How do you reach your prospects? There is no single method that is all-ultimate when marketing to your prospects. The response to each method will vary from month to month.

You must therefore use all methods at your disposal – letters, post cards, online advertising  like Craigslist, bandit signs if they are allowed in your area, newspaper classifieds, TV, radio, etc.

This will keep the leads coming in from all directions; when one method may produce a lot of leads now, another one might do better tomorrow. Even though you might have a favorite method, it is a combination of your marketing methods that will keep the leads coming in all year round.

4)      Capture and manage your leads efficiently

So where does your call to action in your marketing message take your prospects? You must give them access to your real estate investor website and phone number.

The prospects that go to your real estate investor website are likely to be fully pre-educated for you and convert leads that are sitting on the fence to people that do business with you. If your website is well designed, once they sign up, you receive a fully pre-screened pre-negotiated deal that requires very little of your time to follow up or move on to the next one.

A good real estate investor website also has an inbuilt marketing system, that automatically follows up with people who have not converted into motivated sellers. This happens without any input from you and converts such leads into people that sell you their houses.

The ones that just pick up the phone are likely to have lots of questions that need answers to, because all they have come across if a short marketing message.

A good website for real estate investing is suggested at the end of this message.

5)      Analyze your marketing

Unless you know where the leads are coming from, you are likely to spend your money in the wrong marketing outlets, and waste a lot of time with marketing that yields poor or no results.

Analyze and measure your marketing and you will have leads coming in all year round with very little input from you.

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RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net Updates Real Estate Investor Websites

July 19th, 2011

A real estate investing  and real estate investor website firm,  www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net, has released a new upgraded and improved version of their feature-packed, automated real estate investing website.

Real estate investors looking to increase the efficiency of their business now have access to these upgraded websites starting immediately. The websites emphasize prominent capability to reduce the workload that overwhelms most real estate investors, opening up their time so they close more deals in less time, and spending less money.

The websites require no computer or internet expertise, and can be used by any real estate investors even if  they are new to computers. Most importantly, they can be used to manage all aspects of real estate investing from a simple virtual back office.

Using their inbuilt landing or squeeze pages, real estate investors can run targeted marketing campaigns. They can then set up automated emails marketing campaigns using the unlimited autoresponders in order to convert the  leads generated by their marketing to closed deals.

The websites also emphasize direct sales marketing and come with fully personalized sales copy written to convert website visitors to clients, motivated sellers, house buyers or private money lenders. Most importantly, real estate investors have full control of the content and all elements of the website so each website can be fully personalized and branded to suit the needs of the real estate investors business.

Each website comes loaded with over 140 effective designs so investors can change designs any time they want for free. With a video life-like speaking model , the websites command instant attention and deliver a down to earth message that relates with the website visitor converting them to people who are ready to do business.

Each website goes through the most advanced search engine optimization to make sure they get enhanced visibility in the search engines especially in their local market. In addition, they are submitted to all the major search engines before they are delivered so they start attracting business as soon as possible.

For more information, please visit www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net, or call 214-227-8718.

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