| Adventures In The Real Estate Maze |
Buying a house can be quite an adventure. This is what I realized when my wife and I went out to buy our own first house. We started with our own ideas of what we wanted in a house. We then consulted some real estate brokers to help us find the perfect house. Most of the houses that we saw were nice in their own way. However, they did not match up to the perfect house that we had in mind. Moreover, we were in no hurry to spend that kind of money on a house that was not up to the standards that we had set for it. So we looked around some more, and finally found the perfect house. And that was just the beginning of our adventure.
Buying the house without external help was out of the question. So we went to a loan provider to check out the available home loan deals. Then we went to another loan provider, and then to another and another. After making innumerable rounds of loan providers, we finally found one who would give us a great deal. After all, we did not want to end up stone broke and live in an empty house with no furniture or electricity for all eternity. It felt great to finally find a loan that would suit our budget and which would also enable us to buy our ideal house.
While on our house buying journey, we learnt a lot of things. One was that real estate agents often quote really high prices. A lot of hard bargaining has to be conducted between you and the agent, and finally between you and the owner before everyone involved can be satisfied with the deal that was made.
Once you have finished haggling on the price, finding the best home loan for your needs can be quite troublesome. In fact, these days, the problematic nature of getting at the right loan has been multiplied several times. The sheer numbers of home loans available make it difficult for someone who is new to the house buying business to make a smart and objective decision. A great deal of patience has to be cultivated by you if you want to sheaf through the scores of potential home loans that you could avail of. The Internet makes a lot of great home loan providers available at your fingertips. It is also not a bad idea to consult a broker who will have access to even more loans. Ultimately, just do whatever works best for you.
Property Management Advice For Landlords
The most important decision any landlord makes is deciding who can live in their property. Who will you, as the owner, allow to live in your investment? This decision is so vital to the profitability of any property investment business and affects the business on so many levels that it’s amazing that some landlord don’t have a formalised procedure to protect themselves from making bad decision.
Let’s think about what we’re actually doing when we rent a property. Instead of thinking of the property as a monthly income generator think of it as a pile of cash. Cash you have tied up in the deposit and purchasing costs. Cash you hope to gain a regular income from through renting and more cash that you’ll receive if you sell the property and realise your capital gains. (Assuming house prices have risen since you purchased). If you include in this the value you place on your time spend finding the property, buying and arranging the rental then we have a very serious investment on our hands indeed.
Now, imagine all that money in real, tangible terms, stacked up in a room in the house and then consider we hand over the keys to someone and say, “See you next year”. Now we can begin to see how important it is to select the right tenant. Of course, I’m being dramatic and we do have legal safe guards but I hope that by considering your investment in terms of hard cash (like a professional investor) then you’ll treat the question of occupancy very seriously.
There’s more to it than just financials. Not only are we trusting the tenant to look after our investment but we’re also investing our free time with them. What do I mean? If we are managing the property ourselves and not using a letting agent then we have made a serious commitment in time to look after that tenant. If you have a tenant who does not appreciate your property or does not treat it with care and respect then you run the risk of losing your evening and weekends in maintenance and management tasks. What about rent collection? An unreliable tenant who does not pay on time creates stress and worry. Legal protection lets us all sleep better at night but the practicalities of recouping money and legal costs are a headache we do not need and one that’s very avoidable.
Once we know how seriously we need to take the task of finding the correct tenant we can start looking for the very best people. In this case ‘best’ has two simple criteria. 1) They pay on time and in full 2) They look after the property as if it were their own.
I’m going to discuss three tools we can use to help find good tenants. The first is a long and very comprehensive application form. I ask for as much detail as possible from the tenant. I need all their contact details, ID, proof of current address such as telephone or electric bills, previous addresses and, perhaps most importantly, references from their employer, previous landlord (if they’re moving out of home I’ll ask for their parents’ contact details) and a character reference from a recognised member of the community such as a Doctor or Teacher. Importantly, I always act on these references. I will check with whomever they have given to make sure the details are correct and they can vouch for the applicant.
Secondly, I ask for a larger deposit than the usual 4 weeks rent. Typically I ask for 6 weeks rent (UK law give the tenant an automatic option to sublet if the deposit is too excessive, say more than 8 weeks rent). Paying more upfront is usually a good sign that they are serious.
Finally, I have to feel comfortable about the people. If I can get along with them when the property is viewed and when we talk on the telephone and if I don’t have any intuitive alarm bells going off then I trust my own judgement.
At this point you might be wondering about a credit check? Yes this is a great tool depending on the affluence of your potential tenants. Some of my properties are let to people on social security benefits, many of whom I’ve had to help set up a bank account even. In these cases a credit check would not be beneficial but for better off tenants it can be a worth while exercise.
Once we know how to approach the subject of finding great tenants we can consider why people make poor letting decisions. In my experience the worst decisions about tenants are made in pressure situations. An empty property is very damaging to the bottom line of a landlord. If a property is unoccupied it’s very tempting to let the first person who comes along have the tenancy. I know, I’ve made the mistake myself (several times I’m reluctant to admit). This situation is exacerbated if you find your property is not in demand. If you only get one phone call from your advert in the local paper then you’re putting pressure on yourself and your business.
Therefore, the best way to make a good decision is to have a lot of people to choose from. Creating a big list of possible tenants comes from good advertising with good descriptions of you property and its selling points, realistic pricing (even undercutting competition in a renter market) and building a solid reputation as a landlord.
For Real Estate - Commercial Real Estate Loan
Buying a real estate for commercial purpose is always a trouble as it require huge amount of investment. A real estate can be defined as a combination of property in form of land with any other property on it such as buildings, complex etc and is highly profitable for your business ideas. Commercial real estate loan can be your financial partner for such investments in real estate deals at the right time. Commercial real estate loans are available for all types of income producing commercial properties including:
• Office buildings and shopping centers
• Owner occupied buildings
• Motels and apartments
• Automobile dealerships
• Health care facilities
• Manufacturing facilities
• Miscellaneous
Commercial real estate loans are secured by the real estate itself and offers you huge amount ranging between ₤100000 to ₤300000 and can further extend if required. As the amounts are bigger, the repayment period also has to be longer…yes, the repayment term lies between 10 to 30 years. You can choose a repayment term while keeping your repayment capacity in mind. The borrower is required to place the title of the real estate to the lender at the time of loan agreement, while the possession remains with the borrower. The lender can only take the possession if any default is made in repayments for the commercial real estate loan.
There are certain points which you should consider while applying for a commercial real estate loan:
• A Definite plan – A plan for the use of loan money will convince the lender in a much better manner. Lender will also like to know the expected period in which you anticipate completion of planned project.
• Cash ready to put into the project – Lenders will also look that you have sufficient ready cash to be put in the project to cover a percentage of the project.
• Reviewing balance sheet – Review your balance sheet and analyze your cash flow and liabilities before applying for a commercial real estate loans. This will ensure that you have sufficient money for running your commercial property simultaneously paying off the loan.
• Negotiate the best deal – You can take the help of a competent real estate attorney who can help you negotiate and get the best deal while reviewing commercial real estate loan offer.
• Documentation required: It is recommended to arrange all the documentation which a lender can expect. Also you should be prepared to convince the lender that your idea of commercial real estate project will yield enough finances to repay the loan.
• Researching your options – make sure to go through all the option available before finalizing any commercial estate loan deal. You can take the help of online websites to search among numerous free loan quotes available on these sites.
In conclusion, we can say that considering all these points will ease your task of getting a commercial real estate loan and shorten the gap between you and your success ideas with your own real estate.
Why It Is Important To Have A Proven Income Opportunity?
There is nothing more ideal then being able to work for yourself in the comforts of your own home. At one point or another in any given day, most of us look at ways to make money online. After all, we know that it is a legitimate way to earn an income, many people are doing it, so why try to reinvent something, why not just copy what someone else is doing? What you need to be successful though is a proven income opportunity. To do this, you need to approach working online the same way you would find a job in the real world.
A proven income opportunity is one that has an established track record of being successful. There should be a human being you can contact freely. Whether that is by teleconference, phone or a company representative they offer their contact information freely. There must be someone that if you have a question you can call and get an answer from them directly. Talk to them before you get involved with them. If they are not willing to go over their program with you prior to you joining then do not join them. If they are legitimate then they have nothing to hide.
A true proven income opportunity will have more then just their sales page. There should be a real webpage that contains a press release, and when you do an internet search that page should pop up as number one in the search engine. A proven income opportunity should also have a lot of PageRank (PR) links that pertain to their niche. These two things tell you that they know what they are doing and that they themselves have put the work into their business.
Proven income opportunities that are legitimate will also offer you training and support with a real person. You do not walk into a new job and not go through a training process. You need to look at working online in the same fashion. It only makes sense to be trained by someone who is already successful at what you want to do.
The biggest proof that you are working with a proven income opportunity, is that you start making money. If you are following the plan that they gave you and not seeing any income in two to three months then you are not working with a legitimate company. If this is the case, drop the program and find something new.
To be honest with you there are four types of proven income opportunities. These are providing a service such as data entry or virtual assisting, selling your own product, selling other people's products and network marketing. Network marketing has been made big by the internet. It is a way for you to make a nice income with little work. The best part of network marketing is that it offers a way for you to make residual income. Again, do you research not all network marketing programs are created equal, and not all of them are legitimate.
When people ask me why I work from home, and how can they do it. I simply tell them that they need to find a program that works for them. If you are not going to enjoy what you are doing online you are not going to make money at it no matter how successful the program is. My advice, figure out what you are good at, and what you really enjoy doing. Believe it or not, there is niche market out there for everyone find your and be successful.
