3 Tips for Sellers of Real Estate in 2012

Hi Folks,
   Hope all is well so far in this shiny new year!

   If you were waiting for the Holiday season to end before selling your home, there are some tips you can follow that will help you during the new world order of the 2012 Housing Market. To be exact, we have highlighted 3 tips just for you, and hopefully, these will be very helpful for you.

Tip #1: Price Flexibility. Make sure either you or your agent have all of the local sales, including those of short sales and foreclosures, so you can see what they sold at vs what they were asking, writes Steve McLinden in an article on Bankrate.com

Tip #2: Clean up. Neaten up. Paint, etc. Neglecting even the cheapest repairs can turn a buyer off. You want to make sure that you have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" when it comes to curb appeal. It's more important than ever before, it seems (due to the over-abundance of homes on the market to choose from).

Tip #3: "Trump your techno-fears", writes McLinden, and suggests hiring a listing agent "steeped in mobile platforms", and mentions Facebook and other social media. He even eludes to a trend where Some owners are even making YouTube videos to showcase their homes, and thus, "making it easier to quickly link to potential buyers via email"

McLinden listed a total of 12 Tips in his story, but I feel that these 3 tips (not in the same order as his story) will be the dominant factors to help sell your home in 2012. What do you think?

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Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #SellRealEstate #HousingMarket #shortsales #foreclosures #listingagent #mobileplatforms #Facebook #YouTube #video #socialmedia

What Are The Hottest Real Estate Internet Trends?

Hi Everyone,
   Glad you could make it back with us today.

   Today, I'd like to discuss some of the hottest Real Estate trends on the Internet. Some of them will be familiar to you, and some of them will be new ones that will surely become a part of the mainstream for Real Estate on the Web.

   The first "trend", if we can even call it that, since it has become super-mainstream, is Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Earl Miller of 5Star Investment Group, feels, "that the hottest Internet real estate trends are social media", and says that, "Studies have shown that 90% of all buyers that are looking for a home will start their search on the Internet.", and that, "The old way of doing showings on properties with a Realtor are really fast becoming outdated. People want to see more of the property in a smaller amount of time before they actually drive out to see it." One of the many services that capitalizes on the soaring popularity of Social Media is "Tweetlister.com", which, "takes MLS listings and turns them into tweets, then allows agents/brokers to schedule them to tweet to selected Twitter account", as explained to us by Lloyd Chrein, an individual that is familiar with the service. There are numerous other utilities and services that piggy-back on Social Media, but that would encompass an entire Blog post by itself.

   Another hot trend is the Housing Search experience on the Internet. Paul Gleger, Director of Communications Office for HotPads.com, says that he is seeing a, "Particular emphasis on creating a granular and personalized housing search experience.", which he says is being done through, "interactive map technologies, neighborhood search filters, integrating the social graph into the search process, and there is an especially strong growth in mobile tools." Along the same theme, Sam Debord, a Managing Broker/Realtor with Coldwell Banker Danforth, says that one of the biggest Internet trends in Real Estate are, "tying in localized services to MLS listings.", and that, "Every web site has home listings with photos, but the more advanced real estate sites have a suite of features from multiple vendors/providers all on one page." Debord says that, "Users shouldn't have to click around to find these features, they're all on one page.", and he gives examples such as map search, area maps, Google street view, walk score, census data, school data, and pricing history. As Debord says, "Many different data sources, but no need to search around."

   Video Tutorials are also becoming increasingly more popular, and as Christine Schwalm, an Interior Designer that specializes in home staging for Realtors says, the videos she creates are, "Nothing fancy." Schwalm says that she shoots it, "with a flip camera and don't do much to edit the footage." She informs us that she does, "A one take video that lasts several minutes that follows the realtor around the space as he/she explains the property. Home buyers know that it is fairly easy to manipulate pictures, so the videos do a more accurate job of selling the property--and featuring the realtor."

   The final trend leans more toward the lending side of the industry, and Dave Galanter, President of freeMortgageFix.com calls it, "DIY Mortgage Modification". Galanter says this is a free online utility to assist homeowners in, "preparing a Mortgage Modification Application which complies with HAMP guidelines as well as individual lender's own programs. It works in a way that is very similar to Turbo Tax, with helpful hints and prompts.", and says that he is, "quite sure it is the best assistance for the DIY Mortgage Modification Applicant on the web."

   There are some exciting trends on the Internet for those of us in the Real Estate industry. I hope these have been helpful. I'm sure we missed a few and we'd love to hear about them from you.

Have a Great Day, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com


TAGS: #realestate #socialmedia

Helpful Tips when doing your Walk-through...and More..

Hi All,
We hope you had an absolutely fantastic weekend, and we welcome you back.

A few interesting items happening today and this week:

Since the Spring is here for most of us, our market tends to pick up (we hope!), and buyers start doing their walk-throughs of properties that they are closing on. This brings me to the "Tip of the Day":
When doing a walk-through of a property, make sure you bring a small electrical outlet tester, as well as a phone jack tester.
These are two very inexpensive items that can save you time and money !
I've been burned on that a few times and it is quite irritating, so please learn from my silly mistakes.

OK, now, for HomeRun Homes, we have been compacting our database of properties and buyers, since it was a very busy February & March. Basically, to spare you the technical jargon, we compressed the data so that the site works faster.
Additionally, we have edited our YouTube Video for Rent to Own Homes over the past few days. Please take a glance at it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlOZxvY2gg4

Please also note: You can Follow our Blog and be notified of new posts by clicking on the "Follow" Button on the Right-hand side of the page - we promise that we will not bore you or let you down !

Finally, New Residential Construction numbers are coming out this Friday, the 16th. These numbers, as you can imagine, are very important for the housing market and the Economy, since this takes into account Building Permits, Housing Starts, and Housing Completions. For more information and details on this upcoming Report, here is the link: http://www.census.gov/const/www/newresconstindex.html

Thank you.
Have a Great Week and Happy Rent-to-Owning !!