October « 2009 « Why Pay Realtor

Guide to Buying Real Estate

October 26th, 2009

Buying real estate has never been easier. There are certainly real estate agents and brokers that can help you find great property to invest in, but you can also do a lot of the work yourself. With all of the information that is easily available to anyone over the Internet, you have access to the things that only real estate companies had access to decades, even years ago. In this sense, the Internet is a great equalizer and can help you with buying real estate.

Buying real estate could be the best investment that you could possibly make for your personal financial future. The stock market is a known gamble; if anyone tells you that they have a “can’t miss” stock or a “secret investing strategy” – run away. Those people are lying to you; there is no such thing as a sure thing in the stock market. And yes, buying real estate is speculative, but much less so. True, there was a housing bubble, and it burst, but few investments accumulates value over the middle to long term better than real estate.

The key to buying real estate is no secret – in fact, there is an old saying about it. The key to buying real estate is location, location, location. There are literally dozens of ways to change and improve the real estate value, but nothing can change where your land actually is. A good location is worth more than practically anything else; nothing is as much of a determinate of value than the location. So, when buying real estate, you really want to look not just at where it is located now, but what might be located around it in the future. A classic example: a friend of mine, his grandparents bought a bunch of land south of Chicago a couple of decades ago. It spiked in value recently when the government bought it up for the third airport development. These are the sorts of things you need to think of when buying real estate.

Now is a great time for buying real estate if you can manage it. On the wake of the global recession and the burst housing bubble, land values are at steal of a price. You will probably not see such value again, making now the time to be buying real estate, if you can. If you have the money to invest long term, you should be buying real estate.

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For Sale By Owner? Or Lose a Sale By Owner?

October 24th, 2009

Many people tend to think that by hiring a real estate agent, they are losing out on money that they could have saved if they sold their own home. This couldn’t be further from the truth. To often, people put their own houses up for sale and then wait until the right buyer comes along. But how long does that home stay on the market until THAT happens?

The general public is often mistaken about the role of a real estate agent. The agent doesn’t just earn a commission off a purchase or sell of a property, but instead, it is in the best interest of the real estate professional to do everything possible for their client. What this translates to, is the ability of the real estate agent to tap into sales and marketing channels that the average home owner or purchaser could not use.

People who buy or sell properties do not have access to the multi listing services, weekly advertisements in major news outlets (paper, television and radio), and an extended lead network that provides fresh referrals. Instead, a for sale by owner situation hopes for newspaper ads and word of mouth to sell their property.

What’s more persuasive and readily accessible to an immediate buyer?

In my opinion, for sale by owners are doing themselves a disservice by handling the transaction themselves. As I gave the aforementioned reasons, a person will be in a much better position to sell their home if they avail themselves all of the possible resources to do so. These resources are all at the touch of a willing and knowledgeable real estate agent.

So how does a fsbo find the right agent? They should ask their friends and coworkers on who they know that can handle a solid real estate transaction. Word of mouth carries a lot of weight in the real estate world so the fsbo should do their own due diligence and find out which agency and which particular agent to use. Female or male, it all goes to personal preference. Ask for the agent’s background to see how many sales last month they successfully brokered. Ask them what their plan of attack is to sell the property and what various angles they are going to take. And most of all, determine how much of a personality they have. Determination and personality go a long way!