Posts Tagged ‘real estate investing website’

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4 things you must know before talking to motivated sellers

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Most of the best deals in real estate investing come from people who are motivated to sell their houses.   Even though the market has so many houses sitting there without buyers, not all sellers are motivated enough to leave enough room for you to make a profit.

Even the ones who are motivated may not have deals that could make you a profit.

It is therefore necessary when you talk to sellers that you weed out potential time wasters without turning off potentially good deals.

Here are 5 things you must know before you talk to the next motivated seller.

1) Do not waste your time
You must be the one to lead the direction of the conversation. You must direct it in the direction that provides answers to all the vital questions you need to determine if you have a deal or not.

Most buyers start talking about their beautiful house, updates they have done, nice neighborhood, and so on. Most of them are attached to their house and can continue for hours if you do not lead the conversation.

None of this information is of any value to you unless you can buy their house at a price that makes you a profit.

I make sure that I always have a script with a list of questions they must answer in the conversation.  the questions can be answered in any order, but I must know if I can make the deal happen or not within 2 minutes.

First, you must deal only with motivated sellers.  If they cannot tell you the mortgage balance, they are not motivated enough.  Most motivated sellers have no problem talking about their mortgage balance; they talk about it as casually as the number of rooms.

In my business, by the time I talk to motivated sellers, they have already been pre-screened and pre-negotiated with by my real estate investor website. A few of them will still prefer to call, and they usually have to be motivated enough to leave a voice message.

My virtual assistant then calls them and fills all the information on my website.   By the time I get to talk to them, I already know if it’s a deal or not.

This way, I avoid wasting my time or the sellers time with houses I might never buy.

2) Develop rapport
Do not  represent yourself  as Mr. Big Corporate House Buying Company.  You are just a regular guy that wants to buy their house as an investment property. Their house seems to meet your needs.

Build rapport with them as you talk, especially when you establish you can make the deal happen.

3) Listen, listen, listen
Listen, listen, listen – and since you are leading the conversation, learn how they got into the predicament, what repairs are needed, etc.

You mainly need the information that you need to determine the level of motivation, asking price, equity and repairs.
4) Negotiate
Always negotiate lower even though the asking price might look low.  Most people might feel like they got a raw deal if you do not negotiate.

You can negotiate on appliances, closing costs or even furniture, not just the price.

And always make an appointment to go see the house if the deal looks good at the first glance.

This will stop them from shopping your competition.  You can always cancel the appointment if you later think the numbers are not good for you.

As long as you remember to treat them nice, with respect and with sensitivity, they will be as keen to sell you their house as you are to buy it.

When your real estate investing business is run from an interactive real estate investing website, the website tells your story for you, pre-educating motivated sellers how you buy houses. It also automates most aspects of real estate investing, so you close more deals using less time, money and effort. Learn how you can employ such a website so you receive pre-screened and pre-negotiated deals ready for you to make an offer in just a few minutes.

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How To Buy Houses With Equity In Real Estate Investing

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

To be successful in real estate investing, you must but low and sell high in your real estate deals. Specifically, you need to buy houses with equity. Generally this applies to all real estate investing business models.

So how do you know that a house has enough equity to make a profit for you?

When I bought my very first real estate investing deal, I simply gambled with numbers. At the time, the real estate market was such that all properties appreciated with time, so you could still make a profit even with marginal deals.

I did not think my effort justified the little money I made at the end of the day, so I almost gave up pursuing more deals. The numbers had looked so good I did not think there was any way I could lose.

Let us take an example:

Suppose you are buying a $200,000 house for $160,000. At first glance, it may seem to you like you have an equity of $40,000.

Let us take a deeper look at these numbers.

We will assume the house just needs a new carpet and paint plus a few touch-ups before you can sell it. Your monthly mortgage payment will be $1300.

We will assume that you will complete repairs within 30 days, and that houses are sitting an average of 90 days on the market before you can sell them.

Your numbers will look something like this:

1) Holding costs for 4 months: $5200
2) 2% closing costs when buying at $160,000: $3200
3) 2% closing costs when selling at $200,000: $4000
4) 6% Realtor’s commissions when selling the house: $12,000
5) Carpet, paint and minor touch-ups: $10,000
6) Property taxes prorated for 4 months (approximate): $1050

This is a total of $35,450 assuming nothing goes wrong.

In other words, your total expense in this deal is $160,000 plus $35,450, or $195,450.

This is a meager profit of $4550!

If anything goes wrong and you end up spending more in repairs, or it takes two more months before you can sell it, you are end up making a loss in the deal.

Scenarios like these are very common with real estate investors.

You should only work with numbers are PERCENTAGES not dollar figures.

As a wholesale rear estate investor, I acquire my properties at 65% minus repairs or lower.

Remember you also need to sell your properties at a discount to get them sold.

In order to get noticed, your house also needs to be quite attractive both in the asking price and overall condition. Buyers today are more picky because they have more houses to choose from.

You might therefore have to spend more on repairs to make them more appealing.

You must also remember that the holding costs could be much higher because it can take as much as 6 months or more to sell a perfect looking house.

You are more likely to remain profitable in your real estate investing business if you work with percentages that give you a good return on investment for your business model.

Successful investing in real estate requires that you acquire your deals cheaply and sustain a continuos flow of good deals that make you a profit. Learn how an automated, interactive real estate investing website can help you acquire more deals using less time, money and effort.

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How To Buy Houses At The Right Price For Real Estate Investing

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

In real estate investing, buy low sell high is a very common expression.   Though it sounds quite obvious, it is not always easy to buy houses at the right price.

Your buying price must be low enough to make you profits whether you sell them right away or keep them as cash flow properties.

So how do you determine the best price for your property?

A few years ago, it was not un-usual to buy a house at 80 cents on the dollar and wholesale it for a tidy profit because the market supported it.  In fact, you always expected the price of the house to go up within a few months.

In the current market, when you buy a house, you expect the price to go down.   Almost every home owner has lost some equity in the home in the last one year.

When buying a house, you must consider this fact.  Today, the regular price for wholesale properties is 60 to 65 cents on the dollar minus repairs.

Also, tenants have become more choosy since there are more houses to chose from, and are likely to go for a house with a pristine rehab job.

This has made rental prices more competitive.

When you are buying houses, it is necessary to make sure you let the seller know these facts.

So I always let a seller know that even though it seems like they are giving me a deep discount on their property, I have to fix it, then sell it, probably hold it for months and eventually sell it at a deep discount.

And probably I’ll not be able to sell it at all!

I explain that I might lose most of my profits when I hold it.  When most sellers understand these facts, most  of them relax.

I like to make this clear before I can make an offer.  I have come to learn that even though motivated sellers really need to get rid of their properties, they do not like to feel like they are being taken advantage of.

Once they understand the current market conditions, then I can make my offer – and it offer does not look too low-ball and the seller is likely to accept it.

Why do you need to explain all this?

In the current market, it means you must buy houses much cheaper than we used to just a few years ago since you also must sell low in order to sell it at all.

If you buy properties on terms such as lease options, it is also necessary to do this. You must remember that even though the price for properties that you buy on terms is usually higher, it must still be low enough to cater for the facts above.

This way, in a year or two when you try to sell it, the price at that price will support the sale.

When buying houses, it is necessary to to pre-educate motivated sellers so they understand how you buy houses. It is also important to generate leads and follow up with them automatically to convert them to motivated sellers automatically. Find out how an automated real estate investing website can attract, pre-educate and deliver motivated sellers fully pre-screened and pre-negotiated so you close more deals using less time, money and effort.

 

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How To Overcome Objections By Motivated Sellers In Real Estate Investing

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

In real estate investing, having all the numbers is crucial to evaluating a deal and making a good offer that gets accepted and makes you a profit.  Most often when I talk to motivated sellers, I find they are not willing to provide some of the information I need to evaluate the deal accurately. Usually they do not want to discuss the mortgage balance among other issues.

So how do you overcome these objections and get all the information you need?

In my real estate investing business, I only deal with sellers who are motivated. By being motivated, they must be willing to provide most of the information I need without pressure. Generally I am not interested with sellers who are luke-warm and are just shopping to see if they can let you buy their house.

Most of my motivated sellers submit their information through my real estate investor website. In this case, the website does the job of pre-screening them and pre-negotiating with them, so I just need a few minutes to tell whether it is a deal or not.

Here are a few common objections and how to overcome them:

Mortgage balance:
Once in a while when you talk to motivated sellers and ask them their mortgage balance, they might tell you it’s none of your business, or if they are polite “why do you need to know?”. So I have come up with a simple statement:

“In order for me to able to evaluate the deal and make a fair offer that makes sense both to you and me and pay off the outstanding mortgage when I buy it, I must know the mortgage balance owed on it.”

Then I go completely silent… say nothing!

Usually they will consider it and give the information.

You must let them know that without mortgage balance, you will be unable to make any offer. If they are really motivated, they will provide this information. If they do not provide it, you have no business talking to them.
A motivated seller will tell you anything in the world to sell you their house.

Repairs:
Do not be surprised that their estimation of repairs is always on the lower side. In my business, I always assume that I will need to do paint, carpet, bathrooms and kitchen.

Before I ask for repairs my conversation goes something like this:

“How long have you lived in the house?”

“Have you done any remodeling on it?”

“So what repairs does the house need?”

Usually I will ask about carpet, paint, kitchen and bathrooms. When you take your conversation like this, you are likely to get more accurate answers that you can rely on.

Asking price:
This is usually the toughest part to negotiate. Of course, you must know the mortgage balance before you can ask this question, or even make an offer.

My question goes something like this:

“If I can buy your house all cash and close quickly, what is the least you can take for it?”

Once they give an answer, I usually just say, “Hmm…”.

Then I go silent.

Not a word until they speak.  In most cases, they will talk themselves down without me saying another word. Sometimes I will still follow up with “Is that the best you can do?”.

In most cases, this technique works like a charm. Good luck in your next real estate investing deal.

Simon Macharia is a real estate investor in Dallas Texas, and uses the an interactive real estate investor website to pre-screen and pre-negotiate with motivated sellers.  Learn how you can close more deals using less money, time and effort with a real estate investing website.

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New Designs For Real Estate Investing Websites Released

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

A real estate investing company, www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net has unveiled new designs for real estate investor websites. These new designs give real estate investors numerous options to customize their websites to fully adapt to their business models.

Real estate investors can run their business without any restrictions as to what they can do with the websites whether they buy houses, sell, rent or wholesale houses, or even if they are looking for private money. The websites can also be adapted to support any real estate business models.

The websites are run from a simple virtual back office that controls all aspects of the real estate investing. They come pre-loaded with over 140 designs. Any design can be loaded at any time with a single click of the mouse, while preserving the content.

They also come equipped with pre-loaded sales oriented content written to convert visitors to closed deals. A life-like video speaking model instantly captures attention delivering a down to earth, believable message that relates to the visitors needs, increasing conversion.

With pre-loaded follow-up autoresponder messages, the websites automatically follow up with leads delivering pre-timed helpful information that they find useful. These messages are written to convert cold leads to motivated sellers who are ready to sell their houses.

A real estate investing business must be fuelled by a constant supply of responsive leads. That is why the websites are delivered optimized for search engines targeting the local market. Real estate investors therefore get leads right where they do business.

For more information, visit http://www.realestateinvestorswebsites.net/ or call 214-227-8718.

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How To Identify Motivated Sellers For Real Estate Investing

Monday, November 21st, 2011

One of the most important things that determine the success of real estate investing business is availability of good deals. Unless you can buy properties cheaply, you are unlikely to make profits with most real estate investing business models.

Motivated sellers are my best source of great deals. When you are buying houses, you will come across all types of sellers. You must be able to identify the motivated sellers who drive your business.
Of course the more targeted your marketing is, the more motivated sellers you will attract in your business. I am particularly fond of targeting people with legal trouble who own real estate. These are most likely to be motivated sellers.

If you also do general advertising such a classified ads, bandit signs, and so on, you are likely to attract all kinds of people looking to sell their houses.

So how do you identify the motivated sellers? The easiest way to do this is to divide them into categories.

1) Unmotivated seller
This is the person that thinks their house is the best in the sub-division. They have taken great trouble to make sure it’s perfect for the next owner occupier.

They have probably tried to list it with their Realtor, or even for sale by owner, but have not been successful. In most cases they are looking the the full market price.

They will not be willing to discuss details and numbers, such as their mortgage balance.

Of course, you will never make money from these type of deal, so you are better off forgetting it.

2) Luke-warm seller
This is the type of person who calls you and says he might be willing to let you buy his house, and asks you to explain how you work.

He will listen keenly, maybe ask questions, but again is not very forth-coming with necessary information such as mortgage balance.

He will probably tell you he has been trying to sell it for say, $150,000 and ask you to make him an offer. He will probably ask you to go see the house first before you even know the numbers.

Even though he will show the interest to be flexible enough to negotiate, you are unlikely to get a good deal from him.

Of course if you are a savvy real estate investor, you never make an offer unless you have all the numbers such as the fair market value, repairs, mortgage balance and so on.

You could end up wasting a lot of time driving to see many such properties and not get any deals out of it.

Usually I ask him to give me a call with all the numbers before I can make him an offer.

3) Motivated seller
This is the person who really needs to sell their house. Maybe they are behind on their mortgage payments or even facing foreclosure.

Probably they have tried to sell and see no other way out. They will give you all the information you need without hesitation. Most of them just want to get out of the mortgage.

In my business, most motivated sellers submit their information through my real estate investor website, so by the time I call them, I already know whether I can make the deal happen or not.

If I pre-screen such a seller on the phone, the conversation is likely to take less than 5 minutes and they provide all the information I need.

This is the only type of seller I deal with in my business. This is the only type of seller where you are likely to get great deals that can make you a lot of money.

Successful real estate investing requires that you pre-educate potential motivated sellers about how you do business to close more deals. Learn how an interactive real estate investor website can pre-educated motivated sellers for you, pre-screen them and pre-negotiate deals for you saving you time, money and effort allowing you to close more deals.

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How To Identify A Good Deal For Real Estate Investing

Tuesday, 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 Sell Your House Faster With Owner Financing

Sunday, 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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Posted in House Flipping Website, Private Money Websites, real estate investing, Real Estate Investing web sites, Search Engine Optimization | 3 Comments »

Upgraded Websites For Real Estate Investing Released

Wednesday, 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

Thursday, 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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