How to Buy Abandoned Property For Cheap

Whenever I'm in search of a particular item or piece of property, I'll usually look on eBay to see if they have it, like most people who have the internet. There are some things that just can't be found on eBay or similar sites though, and when I can't find something, I'll turn to unclaimed property sales to find what I'm looking for. Unclaimed property sales are sales made by governments when a property owner has abandoned his or her property.

When property gets abandoned, federal, state, and local governments will often put notices in a local paper or on the internet asking the original property owner to come forth and reclaim their property. Usually there are no time limits on when a person can reclaim their property, but lately governments have began setting time limits so they can get rid of the property quickly and without hassle.

This is where you can swoop in like a hawk and buy the property. Most of the time, these sales will be in the form of auctions, sometimes not. If it's an auction-style sale, make sure you're prepared to get into a bid war with another person looking to buy the same property. It can be very easy to lose track of what you're doing in a bid war, and spend way more than you originally intended (thus, making the point of bidding for cheap property worthless).

You'll also want to examine the unclaimed property before you decide to bid on it. A lot of the time, it will be in bad to terrible condition. If you intention is to fix the property up and sell it, then this would be ideal. If you're looking to actually live in or use the unclaimed property, then I would be very hesitant to bid on it if it doesn't meet your standards.

5 Tips On How To Sell Your House Without A Realtor

1-Don't change your mind after you made the advertising and preparations for selling the property. If you decide to sell your house without a realtor then keep it this way, because if you change your mind you will feel about it and your morale will go down. Think this way: If so much people make money through selling their own house why shouldn't I do the same thing.

There's no ultra-secret method that real estate agents use to sell your house, and there's no secret tips that everyone sell their own houses without a realtor.

2-Be sure that you are doing the right things, because the main mistake that people do is to think if they spend a fortune on advertising they will get higher offers.No. Advertise in the right place,
through newspaper and websites and put a sign outside the house.

3-Try to make small improvements to your house in order to increase it's value.

4-Have patience and don't rush things, because you will get a buyer for your house eventually.

5-Price your house correctly. This is one of the most important tips on how to sell your house without realtor: When you evaluate your house I suggest to find out the price for houses that are for sale or were sold in your neighbourhood and price your house 10% lower. This way you will get most visitors to your house and the chances of getting fast offers for your house increase. Keep in mind that in order to have a relevant price you must look for houses that are close to yours. I mean houses that have the same number of rooms, same number of baths, same style.

These are just a few tips on how to sell your house without a realtor, but I will reveal more soon.Keep in mind that selling houses can pe a profitable business if it's done correctly.

How to Advertise Your Home For Sale

Considering selling your home and need to know where to advertise it for maximum exposure and a quicker sale? If you haven't sold a home before or you haven't sold a home in the last seven years you are about on the same page because many changes have happened in real estate. Real estate advertising has changed greatly in the last seven years and is changing every day. You could say that real estate has changed and it has changed forever because the advertising aspect alone is radically different. Homeowners who are selling their home now have choices. Read here and understand point by point all the different marketing avenues that a seller has today to get a home sold.

Advertising is defined in the Webster dictionary as the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards to get more customers by advertising. So, lets break that down for how to advertise your home for sale to get it sold. This works for any type of home or condo that you have, anywhere in the U.S. that you are selling it.

Where to advertise your home compared to the definition of Advertising:

• Multiple Listing Service
  
• Newspaper
  
• Magazines
  
• TV
  
• Radio
  
• Billboards
  
• Other Internet Sites
  

Buyers look everywhere for a home so there is not one thing that is better than the others are, they all report that a sale has happened from these medias. The point is that you have to put your home everywhere that is available for you to advertise for it to be noticed. Because buyers work with agents to find homes, the first and obvious place is to put the home in the multiple listing service otherwise known as the MLS. There could be many MLSs in your area. Make sure you understand which ones impact you. In today's market there are many ways to put your home in the MLS. Well, I should say there are many different types of companies that will put you in the MLS. The MLS makes all members use the same rules, same processes and the same forms so as long as you are in the MLS correctly with all the fields checked that apply to your home and the directions to the home are correct, you should consider yourself advertised in the MLS. So, find a company that fits your budget and gives you the best alternative advertising in their advertising package and that the alternative advertising is consistent.

Let me continue with the agent part of the equation when you hire a company to put your home in the MLS. Agents are not all the same. Some agents are approaching your advertising as simply putting a sign in the yard and your home in the MLS so that other agents can find and sell the home thus receiving their co-op commission as a buyers agent and the listing agent gets paid their listing fee or commission as well. You will find that some of the agents that just place the home in the MLS and then put out a sign are the highest priced fee or commission in your marketplace. So, don't be fooled by the commission that they charge. More fees is not necessarily the best player in the real estate market. They rely on the system instead of making the system because they have not accepted the changes in market place and attempted to use these systems. Please be careful to compare this article to your agent's plan of marketing so that you can attract every buyer in the marketplace since we know that buyers search every source, not just the MLS or the MLS feed sites on the internet.

Newspapers are the next source of advertising and have continued to be a resource for open houses and price reductions. Although many buyers have discontinued their daily search in the newspaper due to lack of information and photos, many buyers today are searching the online portion of the newspapers where many newspapers are now allowing multiple photos to tell the story. Smaller county papers are also a good resource for advertising. For some reason they are read more consistently as the buyers embrace the community that they want to live in.

Magazines are referred to in the real estate field as the magazines that you would pick up at the grocery store and restaurants. If you can find a magazine in your area that sorts the homes by zip code and then by price, that is your best bet. The magazines are vague and have just a small picture of the home so honestly; most agents use this as a lead source to collect questions from potential buyers instead of a good source of getting homes sold.

Obviously radio would be an expensive place to advertise a house individually; however, many companies are now using radio as a way to announce company open houses wherein they have all of their houses open 3 to 5 on a Sunday. That is one of the means that we use in my own company and we successfully alert listeners to generate traffic for our open houses.

Television is a source of advertising for most homeowners as most metro cities at least have one real estate cable channel, some areas have more than one channel. We have experienced that a home will run at least 15 times per day on this channel. Whereas the exposure is minimal for an individual house due to the fact that you are not allowed to show many multiple photos, the audio of a person speaking the details while the visual of the television shows the photos does seem to appeal to some buyers.

So that leaves us to the last point of the definition of advertising which fortunately is not the last point of advertising a home. Billboards. Of course billboards are your yard sign and directionals. Your yard sign is a place where you can, if you elect, put the price of your property. I am not really sure why this isn't done more often, I think that would greatly help buyers understand neighborhoods that they are not familiar with and what the neighborhood sells for. And, directional signs are critical if you are in the back of a neighborhood. You can advertise open houses easily by adding directional signs and balloons.

Now, on to the good stuff of how to get your home sold. Advertising a home for sale is now easier because buyers have access to the entire inventory of every listed home via the internet. The MLSs are agent only sites where you must have a password to enter. However, the MLSs download to many sites that you will quickly recognize as you do your home searching on the internet. These sites pull visitors from all countries in the world. The key to any of these sites is that the company that you are listed with has paid to upgrade their listings so that you, the seller, can have multiple photos on these sites. This form of advertising is very exciting because before the internet happened, agents would need to call each other to see what they had listed. The books that were published by the MLS were weekly books in black and white with 1/8th page ads for each home. Only the exterior was shown with a little writing. Today the MLS is instantaneous and shows multiple photos if the agent chooses to add them.

For sale by owner sites are also important because it allows you to cover every buyer in the marketplace. Many for sale by owner sites allow even more photos than the MLS. Some of them are free and some charge a small fee. Sites like Craigslist have exploded on the internet with their real estate sections leading their whole site.

Now you may even find your dream home on Ebay. Yes, you read it correctly, Ebay. Sellers are successfully selling their homes there everyday by the auction method of marketing on the internet.

And, speaking of auctions, don't forget that auctions bring action. You could elect to do a live auction or a silent bid action that results in round robin bidding at the end of a weekend. You have several resources for both of these types of auctions.

Word of mouth is also still a big player in the real estate industry. Not so much agents speaking to other agents but you talking to your friends and family. Because of the automation of the MLS into the internet real estate sales meeting attendance is at all time record lows and is more for learning contracts and current violations of building practices. But if the owner can spread the word with their contacts that may have visited the home for a party, the word spreads quickly through the neighborhood and on to the friends and family of neighbors that will remain. This is a huge source of sales in any city and any area.

So, as a homeowner who has something for sale, you have a lot of opportunities to advertise. Stay consistent with your advertising and know that you don't know where your buyer is coming from, when you will hook them, when they will enter the marketplace or who they will be. That is the mystery of real estate.

Successful Home Sale in Slow Economy

How long have you had your home for sale? Have you listed your home with a number of agents, but still haven't found the right buyer? There are a few things that are of the utmost importance if you want any chance of selling your home in this slowing economy.

First of all, price is still driving the market. If you have gone a month without any showings your price needs adjustments. Buyers today are very educated and know the market much better than they ever have before, and when they see a home that is overpriced, they are not going to look at it. Location, Location, Location is a popular saying in real estate, but I believe in this market it should be Price, Price, Price. The homes that are priced right and competitively are going to get showings. Another way to know if your home is priced correctly is to get good feedback from showings. If the agents who are showing your home are telling your agent that the price is too high, this is a sign that something needs to be done.

Secondly, outdated homes rarely sell, and when they do they get beat up on price. So make sure your home is updated and looking great. Old furniture and old carpet needs to go, and if you can get a home stager in the home that is great. There are so many homes currently on the market that one bad feature will send the buyer looking elsewhere. One thing that I have seen a lot of is seller's offering an allowance to buyer's for updates on their home. The problem with this is that it is hard for a buyer to imagine what the home would look like with these upgrades. Most buyers will continue searching until they find a home with the updates made, and at a similar price.

Finally, quality pictures are important for marketing. When your Realtor comes to take pictures make sure he shows you what he takes. I find too many listings with dark, blurry, and unappealing pictures. There are still agents who think it is cleaver to take one picture of the outside, and leave what the inside looks to the buyer's imagination. Too bad the buyer's are imagining there must be something wrong with the home. Why else aren't there pictures of the inside? The listings that are being shown the most are the ones with good, clear, and quality pictures.

If you decide to become motivated with your price, are willing to make the changes necessary to update your home, and have a Realtor who will take good pictures, then you have a great chance of selling your home even in this slow economy.