You’ve done the real estate comps research, found the deal, fixed it up, now how do you get it sold?  With Internet Marketing investors have the chance to promote their listings online with the freedom to exhibit as many characters as they need through social networking, websites, and squeeze pages. You can show off your property with appealing imagery (in color, not like the ugly black and white blurry images that the newspaper has!)

Many investors are using social networking platforms such as Craig’s List, “Yahoo! Real Estate”, Facebook, Google Base, YouTube and many more to effectively sell their homes. Buyers are turning away from reading the newspaper and prefer browsing the Internet to find what they need. The Internet offers users information at their own time and convenience.

Internet marketing also allows long distance buyers the opportunity to check out properties they would be interested in investing all over the country. Trends are revealing that online advertising for the real estate sector in particular, will progress rapidly and overtake traditional advertising methods within the next 5 years. Targeting online investors/buyers will help you sell your property at the best price possible and much more quickly than before.

It is important to have the right blueprint for real estate marketing online when you get into the industry. This is because most potential clients go to the internet to decide on future purchases and also go there to research the properties. A major component in a successful real estate investor’s marketing strategy is to make sure that they are known online and are visible to many people.

Advertise yourself and your properties all over the web in as any places as possible. You can do this through blogs, social networking and advertising. Make yourself known and you’ll get more quality buyers.

Of course you need InvestorCompsOnline which easily and quickly lets you evaluate all your deals for any market across the country. Not to mention having access to the Best Support System and Knowledgebase on the Internet to get help with valuating your deals.

Look, investors and buyers in 2010, like to do most of their advertising and searching via the internet. That is why it is so important to make yourself an authority on the internet and make your presence known on the net.

All the best,
MJ

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Company Holiday Party, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years Day. With so many “dead days” in such a short span of time, it becomes common place to just go through the motions on every other day between Thanksgiving and the New Year, content with what you’ve already accomplished for the year. Of course, that is probably the biggest mistake you can make heading into 2011.

End of November, early December is when the market odds are in your favor and next year’s success is determined. Pretty simple to see why. Success is just a game of statistics. The more you play, the more you prevail. Throughout most of the year, the odds are stacked more heavily against you as your competitors are pursuing the same buyers that you are. During the holidays, people begin to slack, and your competition subsides.

Furthermore, who is selling real estate during the holidays? For all the reasons you want to take off during the holiday months, are the same reasons many don’t want to deal with the headaches of selling: they want to enjoy this time of the year. So if someone decides they do want to deal with all the hassles and inconveniences of selling between Thanksgiving and New Years, they must be motivated. We know the most important factor when selling your real estate during the holidays is price! Beyond pricing, many of the flakes seem to go away during the holidays. In addition, there are many investors who are motivated to close by the end of the year for the purposes of a tax gain or loss.

And what about the business you don’t capture during the end of the year? The flakes you do deal with during the holiday season can often turn serious at the beginning of the year. I don’t know if it’s New Years resolutions, but often those who can’t seem to make up their mind in the last weeks of the year, come into the new year more decisive and ready to negotiate in earnest. So all the tracks you’ve laid at the end of the year can pay huge dividends the next year. I know it has in my career.

So, in addition to turkey, ham and wine, a little hustle during this holiday can turn out quite fine.

The holiday season is generally known as the worst time to sell a home.  A quick look at real estate comps show that sales do tend to drop off between November and January, but there are actually some good reasons to sell your home during these months:

• Buyers are more serious. Anyone shopping for a home during the holidays probably has to buy before a certain deadline. January is a popular month for job transfers, so some buyers may be looking to relocate before the new year. Investors may also want to close before the end of the year for tax reasons. If you live near a university, students and staff may be looking for homes between academic sessions, and if you live near a military base, servicemen and women may be moving to the area. Work with your staff to target these motivated buyers.
• Buyers have more time to house-hunt. Some buyers purposely wait until their families are together for holiday vacations to start looking for a home.
• There are fewer homes for sale. Lots of sellers take their homes off the market during the holidays, assuming no one will be buying at this time. But with serious buyers still out there and a lower inventory of homes, your deal has a good chance of standing out.
• Services are more available. Business slows down for real estate agents, lenders, home inspectors, appraisers and title companies during the holidays, so they all have more time to spend with clients.  This can result in faster turn around times and closings.
• Homes show better in the winter. Decked out in lights and garland, homes often look their best during the holiday months. 

The holidays are stressful enough without having to think about staging and open houses, so if you’re not truly motivated to sell, it’s probably best to wait a few months. But if you have sell or don’t get stressed by the holidays, these next few months may be a good time for you.  And remember a good agent can take the burden off of your shoulders, giving you more time to enjoy the season.

Knowing the market value of a property is the most important item in investing in real estate. Knowing what the property should sell for or the fair market price, information gained through real estate comps, will make it possible for you to know if you are buying the property at a good price. Your goal is that the price of purchase, which is called the market price, is below the fair market price. The real question is how do you determine what the fair market price is?

How do they come up with these figures? They use data from similar units that have sold recently, a method known as the market-data method, sales-comparison method, or the comparative market analysis. These fancy names all refer to the same way of determining market value, which is researching the price of comparable properties sold within the last year. Usually, at least three properties are used to determine the market price. If comparable properties differ in some regards, like having an extra bathroom or being in a worse location, then dollar amounts are assigned to those differences. The prices of the comparable properties are adjusted so they can be directly compared with the property in question.

Understanding the sales comparison approach of valuation will provide you the basic knowledge you need to make an informed decision on the value of a property.