Many property owners that would like to sell now find they have to hold and manage. If you own far from where you live or you simply aren’t interested in managing a second business, you should consider a professional property management.

Does One Size Fit All?

No. Property Management companies come in all sizes, some manage 20,000 units and others 500. Many property management companies are a small or family business’s. A large management company should have more resources available, but service may not be personal and it’s easy to get lost there unless you have a large portfolio. That’s the first point to consider; which size management company will give you personal service.

Interview smaller companies that would bend over backwards for your business. You may get better service and price leverage.  If you choose this route, try to assess whether the company can absorb new business quickly, it’s a litigious business and they must be responsive day one.

If you have a single family home or a smaller rental property it’s just not that attractive to many companies. Not much income and although a larger company may welcome you, they may not give you much service. You may find that suddenly, you have many more little maintenance items than ever before as they maximize income within house maintenance and repairs.

How Do You Find Them?

Word of mouth is best. If you don’t have a personal resource then: Continue reading this post

Surrounded by plummeting prices, bankrupting banks, fickle financiers, sagging stocks, cantankerous consumers … It’s time for some frivolity.

If you, like I, show a decent number of properties and, in the process, read the displayed MLS remarks, you’ll quickly discover that the art of good fiction writing is alive and well. With the current onslaught of foreclosures and distressed properties, listing agents have become, by necessity, “creative” with their carefully crafted comments. As I read their information, designed to convey the important aspects of the home, I’d swear some of them are gunning for a Pulitzer.

And then you visit the property, read the comments again and ask, “How did we get there from here?”

As an example, a property I recently visited had remarks stating, “Needs cosmetic work.”

Translation? “Throw in a stick of dynamite and start over!” The carpets were decimated, strips of wallpaper hung peeling from the walls, all the baseboards were missing and there was SUBSTANTIAL water damage to an upstairs bathroom floor and the ceiling underneath. Read, “gaping hole.” And that was just the beginning.

A REALTOR’S job is to sell property, and what they pen is designed to get you and your homebuyer to visit. Continue reading this post

1. Big Discount – Home buyers want a big discount from list price. If the market value of a home is $400,000 and you price it at $375,000 to sell it quickly, buyers still want a large discount from list price.

2. Sellers Pain – If the home seller does not appear to be in pain many buyers won’t feel like they are getting a good enough deal. Even, if they are getting a heck of a price for the home.

3. Foreclosures – Buyers tend to think that all foreclosures are a sweet deal. That is not always the case. 

4. Short Sales – Many banks still stink at getting a short sale approved quickly. A friend of mine recently had a short sale close and said the bank had 17 different people touch the file. No wonder the banks are in trouble.

5. Bad News – Sellers are quick to ignore the bad real estate news but very quick to latch on to the good news.

6. Good News – Buyers are quick to ignore the good real estate news but very quick to latch on to the bad news.

7. Time to spare – Many home buyers feel like they have all of the time in the world. Continue reading this post

Michael Gwynn is a student of real estate. Although he holds a California Real Estate License and multiple investment properties, Michael is currently immersed in the world of online marketing solutions that connect real estate agents and brokers with home buyers and sellers as the Sales Director at www.HomeGain.com.

In today’s world there are many financial casualties associated with the failing real estate market. There are many homeowners who purchased properties and had little knowledge, experience, or insights into the real estate market. But, there were also a number of real estate investors that could have and should have known better. These good investors had experienced bad outcomes with their property purchases because of the lures, pitfalls, and hazards associated with the world of real estate. These lessons are important to learn because there are many new and experienced investors jumping back into real estate in 2009.

Those who do not learn history are destined to repeat it.

There were several factors and causes for these bad outcomes for these good investors. Some were lured by the gains reported in many publications. Others succumbed to the attractive sirens of the real estate Guru’s.

There were those who did not understand the order of purchasing investment property because they purchase equity growth properties before income properties.  Many purchased at the peak of the price points. Other wanted only to stay in their local markets. Miscalculations were made on the costs for holding properties.

The potential issues of holding property were never realistically expected or prepared for by the property purchasers. Methods to truly analyze a real estate market and economy were not effective.  Technology and available information was not used to its best potential. Real estate professionals were seen as the enemy and not used appropriately in the transactions. Many did not understand the cycles involved in real estate. Continue reading this post

If you go back to your high school or college economics class you may remember that the price of anything is determined by supply and demand. The law of demand states that when a market demands a high quantity of a good or service, the price of the good or service will be high. When the market demands a low quantity the prices will be low.

This model holds true in the real estate market as well. So to set a bottom in the market we need more demand or lower supplies. Realtors do their best to increase demand but one thing that we can do for sure is to get rid of our overpriced listings.

Get rid of your overpriced listings.

We won’t see the real estate market bottom out until the number of properties currently for sale is reduced. The biggest thing that we can do as Realtors is to not renew our overpriced listings and don’t take any more.

One of the biggest challenges when working with a buyer is not only finding them a property they like but finding one that they like with a realistic seller. After all of the horrible news about the real estate market and the recession there are still so many overpriced properties out there.

I haven’t done any formal analysis but I would bet that in any particular neighborhood you will find 25% to 50% of the homes for sale have no chance of selling because of their asking price. If we could get rid of a good portion of these overpriced listings we will be that much closer to finding a bottom.

Why do Realtors take overpriced listings? Continue reading this post

Market update provided by Mario Greco of the Mario Greco Group, Rubloff Residential Properties, in Chicago, Illinois.

It’s no surprise that the last four tumultuous weeks on Wall Street have changed the entire landscape of the residential real estate market. Unfortunately, the hysteria surrounding the plummeting stock market has spread to and infected the Chicago housing market.

Simply put, it’s been a whole new (mental) ball game since Sept. 15.

I think it’s important for home sellers to understand how the turmoil on Wall Street has affected the Chicago real estate market. In a word, the uncertainty has caused a paralysis in our local market. The traditional three – or, depending on how you look at it, four – groups of buyers still exist today, as they always have.

The first group is made up of those home buyers who have the cash or credit to buy, but are scared to make a move. The members of this group are sitting on their hands, much like the banks are. The second group is made up of buyers who were on the fence either in desire or ability and are not buying now. They, instead, are waiting to see what happens before they make any move. The third group includes those buyers who couldn’t or didn’t want to buy. Well, they’re still on the sidelines, either by force or by choice. Even the fourth group, the vultures, can’t buy because banks aren’t lending money for most deals, let alone those that are risky.

As a result, deals are slow to materialize and those that already have been struck are being renegotiated or Continue reading this post