1– Not staging their home for sale. (With Professional Help)

2– Not really knowing the competition. (Knowing means seeing)

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3– Discounting the importance of coming on the market with a competitive price.

4– Selecting a listing agent that is too busy. (“I have 100 listings – I am the best”)

5– Selecting an agent that is part time in real estate.

6– Picking an agent by what they charge.

7– Picking an agent that lives a far distance from the home for sale.

8– Having too much stuff in the home (won’t pay for mini storage)

9– Sticking around when the prosepctive buyers are there.

10 Being grumpy to buyers agents that want to see the home.

1) Search bank websites.

Banks often list their foreclosed properties for sale online. At Bank of America, for example, about 800 residential listings are posted, including 156 in California. Prices, photos, and home descriptions are listed along with agents’ contact information. Willie Williams, a real estate agent in Inkster, Mich., says that it’s a useful resource but warns that listings are often limited. He recommends also checking the online listings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which purchase mortgages from banks.

2) Look up government-owned listings.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development lists the foreclosed homes that it owns on its website as well as through local real estate agents. Once you find a home you’re interested in, you can make an offer through the agent representing the property. The department warns that the homes are sold “as is” and that after the sale is made, it is not responsible for any repairs or problems.

3) Visit your county’s offices.

Foreclosure information is filed with county offices, some of which post it online. In Boulder County, Colo., for example, current foreclosure listings, as well as weekly sales, are published on the county website, where users can search by ZIP code or street address. Sheryl Del Rosario, a deputy public trustee in the office, says interested buyers can search from home or come into the office to use the public computers. They can then bid on available properties every Wednesday morning.

4) Pay for a foreclosure listing service.

Some companies, such as RealtyTrac, offer comprehensive foreclosure listings for a fee. At RealtyTrac, $49.95 a month gets users access to around a million listings that cover about 75 percent of the nation’s counties. They include homes already in foreclosure as well as those approaching it. (Website visitors can search a simplified version of the database free of charge.) Users can make offers online for many of the properties, which aren’t binding but get the process started, says spokesman Daren Blomquist. Users usually work with either the agent or owner listed in order to complete the purchase. The database also provides estimates of the property value based on comparable sales in the area, which Blomquist says helps buyers determine whether they are getting a good deal.

5) Work with a real estate agent.

Real estate agents often know about local properties that are nearing foreclosure because they network with other agents and are familiar with the local market, frequently working directly with banks and other lenders. Donna Dickson, an agent with Burgdorff Realtors in Maplewood, N.J., says that while online listings often include properties that are already under contract with new owners, real estate agents can help buyers find deals before it’s too late. She suggests developing a relationship with an agent who will quickly let you know about new foreclosed properties.

Via [Yahoo Real Estate] & [US News]

This is the first post on my new blog where I’m going to talk about how I became a real estate millionaire in only four years. I’m no Stanford or Harvard graduate with an MBA nor am I a professional realtor or accredited real estate investor. I’m just an ordinary guy who had a desire to own lots of real estate and create multiple streams of income so I don’t have to work the rest of my life.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and purchased my first property when I was 27 years old. Now San Francisco and the surrounding Silicon Valley is nowhere close to the cheap side for purchasing real estate. It was also a time when most people thought the market had already hit its peak and real estate prices were not going to go up much further. So when I started looking, the entry-level home price was around $400,000 to $450,000. Now I know you’re probably thinking “dang where’d you find a house at that low of a price”? Well, this was over five years ago and the housing market has since gone up.

At the time my current job was in San Mateo, California and the properties I was looking at in that price range pushed me all the way down to South San Jose. Now I’m not one for having to commute but I was dying to purchase my own house and the only way I could accomplish this was to do it in South San Jose.

After months of looking I finally found a house that had my name on it and I purchased it for $425,000 — back in 2002. Not only was this my first real estate investment — it just so happened to be my primary residence as well. From this point on I had an epiphany — all I could see were benefits in purchasing real estate.

Today I own several properties some in the United States and some internationally. The bottom line is they are all income producing cash flow positive assets that continue to build equity every single day. This blog is to help you understand how a normal Joe average with a basic college education can go from renting an apartment to owning several apartment buildings and vacation homes while he’s still under 35. I will also help explain the steps I took to get to where I am today in hopes you become just as (if not more) successful in real estate investing!

Via [Real Estate Blog]

It would restrict lenders from penalizing risky borrowers who pay loans off early, require lenders to make sure these borrowers set aside money to pay for taxes and insurance and bar lenders from making loans without proof of a borrower’s income. It also would prohibit lenders from engaging in a pattern or practice of lending without considering a borrower’s ability to repay a home loan from sources other than the home’s value.

In an extraordinary action, the Fed in March agreed to let investment houses go to the Fed — on a temporary basis — for a quick, overnight source of cash. Those loan privileges, which are supposed to last through mid-September, are similar to those permanently afforded to commercial banks for years.

“We are currently monitoring developments in financial markets closely and considering several options, including extending the duration of our facilities for primary dealers beyond year-end should the current unusual and exigent circumstances continue to prevail in dealer funding markets,” Bernanke said in prepared remarks to a mortgage-lending forum in Arlington, Va.

The Fed’s decision to act — temporarily at least — as a lender of last resort for Wall Street firms was made after a run on Bear Stearns pushed the investment bank to the brink of bankruptcy and raised fears that others might be in jeopardy. It was the broadest use of the Fed’s lending powers since the 1930s.

Bear Stearns was eventually taken over by JPMorgan Chase & Co., with the Fed providing $28.82 billion in financial backing.

Those controversial decisions have drawn criticism from Democrats in Congress and elsewhere that the Fed is bailing out Wall Street and putting billions of taxpayer dollars at risk.

Bernanke, in appearances on Capitol Hill has said he doesn’t believe taxpayers will suffer any losses.

In his speech Tuesday, the Fed chief defended those actions anew. If the Fed didn’t intervene, he said, problems in financial markets would have snowballed, imperiling the country.

“Allowing Bear Stearns to fail so abruptly at a time when the financial markets were already under considerable stress would likely have had extremely adverse implications for the financial system and for the broader economy,” Bernanke said to the mortgage forum, organized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The Fed’s consideration of giving Wall Street firms more time to tap the Fed’s emergency loan program is part of an ongoing effort by the central bank to bring back stability to fragile financial markets and help to bolster shaky confidence on the part of investors.

Policymakers — in the White House, in Congress and other federal agencies — will need to work together to come up with ways to make the U.S. financial system more resilient and stable and to prevent a repeat of the types of problems that brought about the end of Bear Stearns, an 85-year-old institution, Bernanke said.

Although those efforts are already under way, it will fall to the next president and next Congress to settle them.

The Bush administration has proposed revamping the nation’s financial regulatory structure. That plan would make the Fed an ubercop in charge of financial market stability. But the Fed would lose daily supervision of big banks. Bernanke said the Fed must maintain this power if it is to be an effective overseer of financial stability.

The Fed, which regulates banks, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees investment firms, announced an information-sharing agreement on Monday aimed at better detecting potential risks to the financial system.

Over the longer term, though, Congress may need to adopt legislation to bolster supervision of investment banks and other large securities dealers, Bernanke said.

Bernanke recommended that Congress give a regulator in the future the authority to set standards for capital, liquidity holdings and risk management practices for the holding companies of the major investment banks. Currently, the SEC’s oversight of these holding companies is based on a voluntary agreement between the SEC and those firms.

“Strong holding company oversight is essential,” he said.

Bernanke also said that a growing number of central banks in recent years have been given the statutory authority to oversee systems for processing financial transactions by securities firms as well as overseeing traditional banking transactions. “A strong case can be made for granting the Federal Reserve explicit oversight for systemically important payment and settlement systems,” he said.

And, the Fed chief favors looking into an idea — raised by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — to create formal procedures to make sure that if an investment firm fails it won’t wreak havoc on the broader economy. Such procedures, which allow for a more orderly liquidation, are in place for banks.

The housing, credit and financial crises have bruised the economy. Growth has slowed and employers have cut jobs every month so far this year.

Bernanke said that “it is unrealistic to hope” that financial crises can be entirely eliminated, while maintaining an innovative financial system. “Nonetheless, recent experience has illustrated once again that financial instability can have serious economic costs,” he said.

Buyer’s Market?

by Kenneth Neal Sr.

“Experts say we are in a ‘buyers market’. Well, I’m here to tell you that we are WAY past the traditional buyers market. Foreclosures all time high, home value all time low, and overall homes on the market at records.”

Via [Realtor.com Blog]

4) Buying houses in preforeclosure enables you to create unusually large equity spreads. Recent economic uncertainty has caused a lot of foreclosures, and rising rates will cause more in coming years. If banks had to take back all of the properties that went into foreclosure the FDIC would shut them down. They know this, so they try not to take properties back they don’t have to. By requesting the Lender discount what is owed on their payoff, large spreads of equity can be created on houses that are totally “maxed out” with loans. This can’t be done on loans not in default.

5) Because Lenders are under pressure to liquidate bad loans rather than take the property back, large discounts can be negotiated. After becoming familiar with the issues that cause Lenders to discount, larger and larger discounts can be achieved as you hone your negotiating skills.

6) If your plan is to buy and hold the property, having good enough credit and financials to get bank financing excludes a great many people from getting into real estate. On top of that, if you do get a bank loan, your financial exposure is at it’s maximum when everything is in your own name and personally guaranteed. Buying houses in preforeclosure allows you to simply take over the existing financing already in place. No qualifying needed. You can take title to the property in a Land Trust, begin making payments on the existing mortgage(s), and still get all the tax advantages, appreciation, depreciation without any of the risk of being personally liable for the mortgage and the property.

7) If you have ever bid at auction for property at the courthouse steps, you are only too aware of the competition breathing down your neck. Lots of mind games. The 40 thieves are talking trash to you trying to get you not to bid. If you are Larry Bird, no problem. Make sure you have $500K on your credit line though. However if you are not the ‘Bird’ and you don’t pack half a mil’ of credit, you can sneak in and avoid this NBA showdown by buying the house during the preforeclosure period… before the auction.

Don’t think that it would be a easy job because it wouldn’t but why pay that kind of money to a person for a maximum 4 week job, and why not do it myself with a little advertising and some preparations? I will tell you how to sell your house without a realtor in the next lines so stay concentrated because if you apply them correctly you can earn a bit of money and sell your house (the main objective).

What you must know before discussing how to sell your house without a realtor?
There will be a lot of work, that could require some time off your job or your daily activity.I mean that if a potential buyer calls and ask if they could see the house you mustn’t refuse the
proposal, because buyers don’t like to wait and they will search for a house in another place.
The feeling that you will have when you sell your house and keep that 6% will probably transform you into a real estate flipper. Real estate flipping is when you buy a house and sell it
for more, maybe with some improvements.Many people do this and they earn an average anual salary in one month or less. You do the maths for this one.

Source: sold in 21 days

If you search in google for the term “Sell House Free” you should see alot of websites that offers free listing of your property. If you think a realtor is better well atleast give this a try first, it may just work for you.

Here is a website you can try but it is aimed to users in the United States only.

Debra Gould, who owns the Six Elements home-staging firm in Toronto, says it’s important to avoid planting negative associations in buyers’ minds. When attending an open house she had to climb several steps to get to the front door. “I couldn’t help but think that this could be a nuisance with groceries,” says Gould. “Then, when I finally got to the top, the recycling bins were sitting right there on the porch. I immediately told myself, ‘Imagine carrying one of those bins full of newspapers, cans down several slippery steps.’ I couldn’t see myself doing that, so I left, knowing it wasn’t the house for me.”

2. Unclutter
Clutter eats equity, say stagers. So purge your closets, empty cupboards, box up small appliances. Rent a storage locker to keep what you want, then toss the rest. “I give storage boxes to my clients and tell them to edit, edit, edit,” says Theodore Babiak, a Toronto real estate agent with Royal LePage. “I suggest they take some of their books off the shelves, reduce the number of CDs or DVDs, pare everything down.”

3. Impersonal works
You want buyers to imagine themselves living in your home, not to feel like a guest in it. So stash anything connected to your family or personal interests. Hide your son’s hockey trophies, store family photos, remove all traces of day-to-day life. “If someone goes into the bathroom,” says home stager Gould, “and the rim of the tub is covered with shampoo bottles while people’s toothbrushes are lying around the sink, it’s hard for that person to imagine that this could be his or her bathroom. The buyer becomes very conscious of being in someone else’s environment. That won’t get you an offer.”

4. Keep it fresh
Barb Schwarz, president of StagedHomes.ca of Concord, Calif., has been staging homes for 30 years and she says a disturbing number of home sellers don’t realize that their home … um, smells. “There’s nothing worse than stepping into a house that smells of smoke and pet odors,” says Schwarz. The easy solution is to keep your windows open for 10 minutes a day. This strategy works better than deodorizers, says Schwarz, since a lot of people have allergies to artificial room fresheners. The oldest trick of all? Leave chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. Yes, it’s hokey, but the smell does do wonders to help buyers bond with your home.

5. Declare war on grime
Cleanliness helps put a buyer’s mind at ease since it suggests that you’ve probably taken good care of your residence in other ways as well. So clean everything: walls, door handles, light fixtures and pantry cupboards. At Carter’s suggestion, Jim Thompson, the Vancouver home seller, hired a professional cleaner to scour the inside of his home and a contractor to powerwash windows, walkways, eavestroughs and pathways.

Toronto home stager Gould recommends you pay special attention to the furnace room since every home buyer wonders what shape the furnace is in. “If the furnace looks clean, it looks newer,” says Gould. That goes for the fuse box and electrical panel, too.

6. Hire a handyman
Dripping faucets, cracked tiles and mouldy caulking around the bathtub can knock thousands of dollars off the price of your home. “I have a lot of clients who say, ‘Well, that’s a little problem, the buyer can deal with it,’ says Gould, who makes a practice of walking through sellers’ homes and compiling a list of what needs to be fixed. “And I say, ‘No, if it’s a little thing, then we should deal with it.’ ”

7. Color it up
Your single best investment may be a fresh coat of paint in key areas of your home. “Paint your front door and put some urns with brightly colored flowers on your front step or just inside the entryway,” says Jane Hall, a Toronto designer and owner of The Voice of Color in Toronto. “Those things make a house seem cared for, different and important.”

8. Reduce furniture

An easy way to create a sense of space is to get rid of some furniture. Moving a sofa and end tables into storage can give a small room some much-needed breathing space. So too can storing the table and chairs that normally sit in your kitchen, piled high with mail, magazines, books and groceries.

If your furniture dates from the Mulroney era, consider packing it away and renting a few modern, stylish pieces or borrowing a couple of well-chosen pieces of wall art. “Keep it clean and simple,” says Carter, “like a hotel room or the show room for a new house.”

9. Light me up

The brighter and sunnier a space, the easier it is to sell. Start by investing in a good window-cleaning service. Stagers say clean windows let in as much as 30% more light than grimy ones. Then thoroughly clean the shades on your light fixtures, change light bulbs and add floor lamps if an area seems dim. Dump those energy-saving 60-watt bulbs and go with higher wattage lights for maximum illumination. Finally, when it comes time to show your home, make sure all the lights are on. “Hallways especially should be lit,” says home stager Hall. “When those are dark, it gets depressing for buyers going from room to room.”

10. Add a touch of humanity

A couple of planters on your front porch, a vase of flowers on your dining room table, even a simple rose in a bud vase can warm up a room. This is where you can let some of your creativity show through. “You want to get away from making rooms feel dull and sterile,” says the home stager Gould. “Flowers and plants are good for that.” Candles help, too.

Apply all these tips and the final results can be stunning. “I could never have achieved anything as effective on my own,” says Thompson, the Vancouver home seller. “The stagers helped me turn it into a show home. And even though this might sound silly, all the changes made it so attractive that it sort of made me want to stay.”

Such feelings are common. Stagers say a few homeowners actually change their plans and take their residences off the market once they see how good their old places can look. Many decide to stage not just their old homes, but their new ones as well. “Home sellers will often ask me to come to their new home and work some of my magic there because they don’t want to go back to their old way of living,” says home stager Schwarz, who’s prepped more than 2,000 homes in the U.S. and Canada. In fact, Schwarz notes that a lot of home sellers don’t even want to see any of the stuff they’ve put into storage because they discover they’ve never missed it. “They want to live fresh, clean and clutter-free. It’s a wonderful thing. Because staging is, above all, a cleansing experience.”

Source: [Canadian Business]

The number one thing involved in selling your house fast is the price. The price of your home should not be what you personally think it is worth. Buyers simply don’t care about such things.
To sell your house fast, you have to find a price that is attractive to buyers. The best way to do this is to look for comparable houses in your neighborhood that sold fast. Find out how much they sold for and compare your price to the prices the other houses went for. If you are above those prices, you need to take a deep breath and lower your price. When it comes to pricing your house for a fast sale, do not try to recreate the wheel. Just follow the lead set by neighbors in your area.

The second thing you can do is deal with clutter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken a buyer to a home only to be shocked by the amount of junk stuffed in garage, basement and rooms of the home. Whether you like it or not, you are selling a product. Clear out the clutter and make it look as nice as possible. Buyers will be much more interested in buying a sharp looking property.

Another tip is to let go of your emotional attachments in the home. A friend of mine recently sold a home and nearly had the sale fall through over four high quality bar stools. They were hand made and one of a kind. The buyer wanted them thrown into the sale and my friend refused. The deal eventually went through without the bar stools included. When my friend moved into his new home, he realized there was no room for the bar stools and ended up putting them on consignment! Don’t fall into this trap!

To sell your house fast, the number one issue is always price.
Nail down the proper price and you should be able to move the property as quickly as your neighbors did.

Source: [Munising]