In today’s real estate market you need to have a system in order to sell your houses fast. Below you will find 3 ways that we use to sell our properties fast in today’s market.

1. Multiple Listing Service- Commonly referred to as the MLS. There are a few ways to get property listed on the MLS. List the property with a Realtor or you can list it yourself on the MLS by using a flat fee MLS listing company. Offer to pay at least a 5% commission when using a Realtor and on the flat fee MLS it will cost you about $500 up front for the listing and then offer 2.5-3% to the Realtor that brings you the buyer.

2. FSBO –You can use this method at the same time as #1 when you choose the flat fee MLS service. Install a sign on the front lawn the day you close and then post the property on as many websites as possible. Don’t use the info tube or provide any info, just a number for them to call.

3. Build a Buyers List- This is the best thing you can do because he who has the list has the gold. Whenever you get a call or an email about your property, capture the buyers info before you provide them any info. Find out what they are looking for and keep track of all of the information in a database or spreadsheet. Next time you have a property to see all you need to do is go to your buyers list and send them the details and watch the phone ring of the hook.

There are many techniques to find buyers and sell houses quickly. The key will be to build a buyers list so you will be able to use one method so you won’t need any other.

You don’t need to be a marketing genius in order to get your phone ringing off the hook just find where the list is posted in your area. It will cost you less than a couple hundred dollars to get involved and you too can buy properties at a substantial discount and quickly sell the property for a big profit. Here are 3 reasons to profit from Pre-Foreclosures.

1) Motivated Sellers: A homeowner in foreclosure is the most motivated type of seller. You will find that they are the only sellers that have a true deadline. Other sellers will say they are motivated or want to move on but none of them have a deadline that they are not in complete control of. The bank is in control of setting the timeline and in most cases they are unwilling to adjust the deadline. Because of the deadline, the homeowner is more willing to make a decision before the bank makes the decision for them and they lose everything.

2) Motivated Lenders: Not only are there motivated sellers in this niche there are motivated lenders. The lenders that are foreclosing on these homeowners in foreclosure do not want to own the property. They are only interested in getting as much of their money back as possible. In many cases they are willing to take less than what the homeowner owes just to get rid of the bad loan. They will take less than what is owed and mark the mortgage paid in full. This type of sale is called a short sale and it is a valuable technique to understand with the number of properties out there that are upside down.

3) Solutions Provider: You have a choice when you market to homeowners in foreclosure. You can be a property buyer or you can be a total solutions provider. As a property buyer your primary goal is to purchase the property. As a total solutions provider, your primary goal is to save the house from foreclosure which is what 95% of the homeowners want anyway. Most of the options to save the house will be eliminated for most of these homeowners. For the ones you save be sure to get a testimonial letter and as for the rest just make sure that you make it a win-win situation and always make sure that they get some money and are happy with the result of the transaction.

Real estate and the pre-foreclosure niche is one of the greatest industries to profit from. The most important thing to recognize is what stage of the market are you in and what strategy to apply. Apply the right strategy at the right time and you will have massive profits coming into your life. I challenge you to get into the foreclosure niche and start claiming your chunks of cash.

Have you ever heard the saying “the money is in the follow-up” and “most sales are made after three contacts.” They are both true, it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or more experience in quick turn real estate, you need to have a follow-up system.
You probably already have some type of system but how effective is it? You may think that your current system is working just fine but what if I told you that you could increase your business by 20%, 50% or 200% with the proper follow-up system. Would you implement one? Here the basics of a follow-up system.
Lead capture: How do you capture your leads? Do you find the closest piece of scrap paper and scribble as much info as you can get? You should have a form to capture this information when a lead calls in.
You should have a similar form on your website. This form should collect the essential data such as name, address, multiple phone numbers, condition, the least amount they can accept, and marketing source. Whether you are using an answering service, a website, or answering the calls yourself, you need to have a lead capture process.
Lead tracking/management: Do you have a pile of papers in your office with old leads on them? Once you capture the basic info from a lead, you need a way to store and organize that information for later use. Later could mean three hours later when you go out to see the property or three days later. In either case, you need to know how to retrieve the data.
There are many contact management software systems available today. You can start with something as easy as Excel and create your own system or you can purchase Act or Goldmine. I would stay away from a very expensive software programs until you grow out of the ones mentioned above.
Act and Goldmine are low-cost systems that have the ability to store the captured data and set a follow-up action such as setting an appointment to visit a prospect, calling a prospect back, or sending a prospect a letter or postcard. You can also set it to give you a daily task list of what prospects you should be taking action with and what action you should take.
Follow-up/action: You look at the folder of old leads and think to yourself, I wonder if that prospect has sold their property. You should have a system in place so that you never have to think about that again because with the proper system you will already know the answer. With a contact management system your follow-up will be automatic. Every morning or night before, you can print a task list that will tell you who you need to call, visit, or send direct mail to.
The part I find the most challenging to do is entering the data into the system since I don’t spend most of my day at the computer. You have a few options: Carry a laptop or PDA and enter the data as it comes in, choose one time per day to enter a batch of information, or hire someone to enter the data. I prefer the last option since it frees me up to be out making offers and closing deals that I wouldn’t have been able to do without a good follow-up system.
Don’t let a penny of marketing go to waste because you lack a proper follow-up system. The best leads to follow up on will be the ones that are not that motivated yet but have equity, you captured their caller ID but they didn’t leave a message, appointment no-shows, or decided to try a Realtor first. There is a deal in all these situations and unless you have a system to follow up you’ll miss out on most those deals. How much more money will you make after implementing the proper follow-up system in your Quick Turn business?

When you are a real estate investor, the concept of maximum allowable offer (MAO) becomes quite important to you. Basically, the maximum allowable offer refers to the highest price that you offer or are ready to pay for any property in the market. You arrive at this price with some consideration and calculation. This is the brink for you; if you were to pay any more than the MAO, you will likely stand to make a loss in the property transaction. If you pay very close to the MAO, you will probably just break even. The ideal case is when you get a property by paying less than the MAO.

Assiduous real estate investors are quite particular about the maximum allowable offer. But, even though someone has good experience in calculating MAOs, it is not necessary that they will be able to be accurate all the time. When buying properties that you intend to sell for a profit, there are several costs to be factored in. There are the costs of transfer, the repair costs, the legal costs and so on.

It is because of this reason that there is no truly accurate formula for calculating the maximum allowable offer. However, expert real estate investors often use something that is close to the following formula:-

MAO = CF x ARV – RE

The abbreviations mean the following:

1. MAO = Maximum Allowable Offer that we want to calculate.

2. CF = Cost Factor. This is calculated by taking into account all the different closing costs that might need to be borne when acquiring the property. The cost factor is usually 10% less of the total value of the property, which means 90% or 0.9. In simple words, it means that you will spend near 10% of the property cost in paying the various fees that go into acquiring the property.

3. ARV = After Repair Value. This is the cost of the property after the repair has been done. When you do all the necessary repairs on the property, then its ARV is definitely going to increase. The ARV is multiplied to the cost factor.

4. RE = Repair Estimate. This is the estimated cost you will pay in repairing the property. Here it is advisable to take quotes from various contractors and get the true picture. Remember that local repair costs always vary. Hence, if you are dealing with a property that is not in your local area, then you need to find out what costs repair locally.

So, taking into account all these factors, the maximum allowable offer can be calculated as:

MAO = 0.9 x ARV – RE

There are many factors that might affect this formula though. It is possible that your cost factor is higher, i.e. you have to pay more than 10% for the fees and other property closing costs. However, the highest amount of fees that you might pay wouldn’t be more than 30% of the total cost. If that is the case, then the CF would rise to 70%, i.e. 0.7. In that case, a modified version of the formula would be:-

MAO = 0.7 x ARV – RE

The term foreclosure has been a buzz word in the real estate world for decades but in the last twelve months the term has become well known by anyone who reads the newspaper or watches the news. Pickup the local newspaper and you will find several articles on foreclosure. Foreclosure is one of the best ways to buy real estate at a discount but there are risks involved.

As long as you calculated and accept these risks you can buy properties that have been foreclosed on by the bank at a significant discount because the lender that now owns the property is not in the real estate business, they are in the lending business and will do what it takes to dispose of the asset and get some or all of the money back so they can lend it back out.

Identifying the best sources of foreclosed properties will be your first challenge but I have included the 3 of the best ways to find foreclosed properties.

1. Build a list of REO agents: A REO (Real Estate Owned) agent is hired by the bank to sell the property for the bank. Find out who the top REO agents are and set up an individual meeting with each of them and be prepared to discuss what type of property you are looking for, how fast you can close and what type of proof of funds you have. After you meet with them, continue to follow up with them on a weekly basis and see what new listings they see coming in on the horizon.

2. Search Bank Websites: Many banks will list their foreclosed properties on their website. Enter your search criteria and it will tell you the address of the property and who to contact to get more information. In some cases the information may list a Realtor but the property has not been listed or is in the process of being listed so you can get a jump start on your completion.

3. Registry of Deeds:- Where they record deeds is another great place to get information on foreclosed properties. Keep in mind that more and more areas are now online and access to the information is only a click away. You can use information at the registry of deeds in order to know if a bank has taken back a property after the auction. The way you will see this is in the grantor/grantee index. Look for the Seller as the grantee and this will signify that the foreclosure deed has been recorded and the bank will be selling the property and you will have a jumpstart on the competition.

There are many ways to profit from foreclosure and this is just a small sample of different techniques that you can use.

When Don and I started out in this business, there were very few deals and a ton of competition. In today’s market it seems like there are a lot of deals and very few investors. No matter what type of market you are in, you need to be aware of what your competition is doing and you need to stay ahead of them.

The reason there are less competitors today is because many investors are on the sideline afraid to do deals because the quick turn real estate game is not what it was 2 years ago. It has changed but they either chose not to adapt or were not paying attention and got knocked out of the game. While the economy and market have the competition back on their heels, it’s time to throw the knock-out punch by implementing this strategy that the competition is not using and probably never will.

Become a total solutions provider: You have 2 options when you approach a homeowner that is looking to sell because of their financial situation. You can either be a property buyer or a total solutions provider. The property buyer’s only goal or intention is to buy the property while the total solutions provider is looking to help the homeowner first and buy second.

As a total solutions provider you will evaluate the homeowner’s situation and offer alternatives to selling such as: forbearance agreement, refinance, and private loan. As the solutions provider you will present options to the homeowner and if all of them get eliminated, you can then proceed with the purchase of the property.

If you are able to use one of the options to save them from their situation then you will walk away from the deals with a bounty. However the bounty will not be money. The bounty or reward for your good deed will be a testimonial letter from the homeowner that you will then use in your direct mail campaigns in order to increase your response rate. There is also no better feeling than helping someone who has been unable to help themselves.

You have two options: Continue to offer one solution or become a total solutions provider. If you want to do the same marketing but close more deals, the solutions provider role is for you. How many more deals will you get into as a result of using the solutions provider approach? There is only one way to find out, implement this strategy, answer when the phone rings, and show these homeowners their options. How many testimonial letters will you have 30 days from now?

Because of the work that is involved in the conveyance of property, many homeowners seek to rely upon a realtor to handle the entire process and so contracting a realtor to do all the work is an attractive option.

All the property owner has to do is sit back, pay the realtor their commission and then enjoy the fruits of the transaction with the capital sum directly deposited into their bank account.

However, a relator is so much more than a convenient middle man who is proficient at the paper pushing component of the conveyance of property. The realtor will have a significant amount of experience and contacts at their disposal and so they will be able to make calculated decisions that will directly influence the profitability and the potential risk of the transaction.
People can be rather fickle and fussy about the property they buy and so even a slight blemish or hiccup in the process can be enough to scare them off. A realtor will be able to smooth over such rough patches quickly, professionally and with a minimum of disruption overall.

Another benefit of using a relator is that the seller will be guaranteed to get the best possible price for their property. Why? Because the realtor will receive a commission directly determined by, and proportionate to, the final sales value of the property.
Therefore, it is in the best interests of the realtor in order to ensure that they squeeze every last dollar that they can comfortably manage from the purchaser as they can.

Many people balk at the idea of using a realtor primarily because of the cost involved, and if we are to be brutally honest, the fees levied by the average realtor can be very expensive and steep indeed.

This leads us rather neatly to the meat of the issue. Is it better for a realtor or the seller to be responsible for the handling of the entire transaction? To be totally honest, this is a question that only a seller can answer for themselves. They need to decide whether they are prepared to rely upon the services of such a professional, and whether they are comfortable paying the commission they charge.

If you are not very confident with the legal side of things, struggle to negotiate or are not very proficient with dealing with people on a personal basis, then you should use a realtor. One of the best things about using these professionals is that you are not only guaranteed a sale, but you are guaranteed to get the best deal possible.

What is a REIA you ask? It is an acronym for Real Estate Investment Association and is often referred to as Real Estate Investment Club. Why should you join or go to the meetings at all? They will provide you with the information you are looking for, a place to find buyers and sellers, and somewhere to talk about the business of real estate investing with other investors

When I first started real estate investing, I was told about this mythical meeting (at least it was mythical to me) that happens once a month, which is filled with all sorts of investors at different levels, team members such as bankers, attorneys, insurance agents, and a great monthly networking opportunity where you could grow your business by introducing yourself to others. I call it mythical because I searched for this meeting for 2 years before finding it and it actually had been in the same building that I had taken real estate education classes in for my Realtors license. I guess I was not motivated enough to find it.

After starting to get educated about real estate investing I had an instructor from North Carolina and his response to all my questions was go to your local REIA. I not only went to one but figured if they are as great as people say they are I will join 3. Let me tell you that the REIA’s have been everything that my instructor said they would be and I am certain that I would not be writing this article today if I had not joined my local REIA.

There are 3 primary reasons to join you local REIA: Networking, Networking, and Networking. Ok so there are a few others as well such as Education and Marketing

Education is one the primary reasons investors, new and advanced, to come to the meeting. No matter who the speaker is or what the topic is you are sure to learn something new. My gauge of a successful educational experience is taking one thing that I learned from the speaker that I can implement in my business that will have a positive impact. Education is an important part of success in this business so take every opportunity to learn something new that will have a positive impact on your business.

Marketing or the lack of marketing is one of the primary reasons small businesses fail. I learned early on in this business that there are 10 ways to find one deal but there is not one way that will produce 10 deals. I still believe this theory but a trend has formed in my quick turn business over the past year and I have gotten more deals from networking than any of the marketing methods that I use and I use them all. During deal time or the open forum during the meeting stand up, introduce yourself and tell the investors what you are looking for and where and provide your contact info.

Here are the steps to success at the REIA: Find your REIA, go to the meeting, become a member, get involved and grow your Quick Turn business. The REIA has grown my business dramatically and as a result of joining my local REIA I met a wonderful mentor who has changed my life and afforded me opportunities that many only dream of. Who will you meet at your next REIA meeting?

A balloon payment is a large payment that is made on a mortgage.  In such a system of repaying loans, you make small payments every month (smaller than that with a usual mortgage) and then make a large payment at a specific time. Usually, this large payment is done at the end of the loan, i.e. when the loan is just about to expire. In the usual kind of balloon payment mortgage, the balloon payment is the last payment; i.e. when the balloon payment is made, there is nothing more of the loan left to pay.

It is because the individual is to make a single large payment at the end that the monthly payments are lesser.  A lower interest rate is also applied because of the larger payment that is due to come. As a result, the borrower has to make a reduced payment and is much more relaxed during the life of the loan. The important thing, however, is that the person should be able to make the balloon payment at the end of it all.

In a variation of the balloon loan, the person doesn’t just make one large payment at the end of the loan period but makes several small payments at regular intervals. This could be somewhat like an annual payment. The interest is lowered in such cases as well, but it is much closer to that applied on a regular loan.

The big question for most people who are considering a balloon loan is to whether or not such a loan is suitable for them. Now, this is an excellent loan for people who are expecting some kind of windfall in the near future. This could be in the form of an insurance policy that is going to mature, or some inheritance that is going to come their way and so on. The windfall income can then be used to make the larger payment.

However, it is very important that you should be able to manage your payments well when you are going for a balloon payment scheme. It is highly important that you should budget your payments in such a way that you have the money to make the large payment when the time comes. If you are person who doesn’t have the knack for saving money, then this may not be a good mortgage arrangement for you.

There is usually an option to convert the balloon payment scheme into a usual kind of mortgage at a future point in time. If you are not sure that you will be able to make the balloon payment, you can get your loan converted into a more conventional loan. In this case, an adjustable rate will apply, i.e. you will have to make future payments at the prevailing rate of interest, not what it was when you took the loan. Such loans are called as convertible balloon payment loans.

So, the benefit of a balloon payment mortgage is that you pay a lower amount throughout the life of the loan. But it will only work for you if you are sure you will be able to make the single large payment when the time comes.

For people who are living in homes with a mortgage, foreclosure is usually a veritable threat. If people foresee a problem in which they cannot manage the payments on the house, or if they are already not able to make those payments, then the fear of foreclosure looms much more prominently. If you are facing such a problem, then there are a few things you need to know about foreclosure. In fact, educating yourself on the foreclosure process can actually help you save your property from being taken back by the lender.

Foreclosure Stage # 1

The first stage of the foreclosure is the default. You have to be a defaulter for any aspect of the foreclosure process to be initiated. A mortgage default occurs if the borrower has not been able to make mortgage payments for the last 90 days. So, if you just skip a mortgage payment or two, you aren’t going to have a foreclosure. But if you skip a third mortgage payment, then the risk of foreclosure is very real. However, there are ways to avoid it, as you shall read below. In any case, try not to default on your mortgage payment at any time for over two months.

Foreclosure Stage # 2

The second stage of the foreclosure is the pending notice. Once you have defaulted on your mortgage, i.e. you are back in your payments by over 90 days, the lender serves you a pending notice. This is known as Notice of Default or a LisPendens. This is a public notice that is required in a few states to be pasted at the front door of the property in question. Or, you will be physically served the notice. Once you get the pending notice, the foreclosure process has begun but it hasn’t gathered steam yet. You still have a further 90 days to clear your dues. Within this period, you can make up for the money and get this notice wiped out. Or, you could meet with the lender and work out some arrangement if they are agreeable. Some people opt to sell their properties within this period and clear their dues.

Foreclosure Stage # 3

This is the auction stage. When the pending notice grace period is over, the property is advertised publicly for auction. Advertisements are put up in the local newspaper and a notice is pasted on the door of the property as well. The auction’s venue is publicized. At the auction, the property is sold to the highest bidder, provided they can pay for it in cash. The borrower can clear off the dues and reclaim the property till the very last minute, i.e. till the time the property is auctioned off.

Foreclosure Stage # 4

This stage applies only if the property cannot be auctioned off. In this case, the property becomes owned by the bank called as REO (Real Estate Owned by bank). Such properties might be listed on realtors’ catalogs from where buyers for the property are sought. There are also regular events where REO properties are sold by banks for lower prices, mostly to get them off their hands since banks are more interested in money than in having properties with them.

So, these are the 4 stages of the foreclosure process. The important thing you have to know here is that even though foreclosure is a real threat, there are several ways to avoid it. Since it doesn’t happen overnight, you have time to understand and implement your solutions.