Agents Heaven - Real Estate Blog

VIDEO: Top 5 Tips For Home Sellers

As you know, I like to bring readers all the best real estate tips I can find, whether it’s home buying tips, home selling tips, or even ways to avoid foreclosure. Usually I present a few of my favorite tips from real estate articles I’ve dug up, and link you to the articles to read the rest, but today I’d like to try something a little different.

We are, after all, in the YouTube/internet media generation, and more and more real estate agents are making internet videos to sell homes. It only stands to reason that real estate experts would share their tips via internet video as well.

Today I stumbled across a guy at YouTube who calls himself the “Real Estate Dude”, who offers his top 5 tips for home sellers, that focus a lot on the little things you can do to think like the buyer and make your house more appealing to them.

Tags: selling your home, real estate tips, real estate dude, house for sale, how to sell real estate, how to sell homes, home seller, house selling, home for sale, home selling, homes for sale, real estate agents, real estate, real estate selling

Yahoo! Real Estate’s “How much house can I afford?” Calculator

The other day I told you about a basic, but very cool, mortgage calculator widget, that makes for a great addition to any real estate site. Today I’d like to bring to your attention another type of calculator, that may not come in the form of a widget for us webmasters to use, but it couldn’t be more important for home buyers, specifically first time home buyers.

Check out Yahoo! Real Estate’s “How much house can I afford?” Calculator. In addition to stupidly going with adjustable rate mortgages, the current surge in foreclosures is due to people not understanding how much house they can afford.

Folks today seem incapable of adding up their monthly bills (with high-ball estimates) and then comparing it with the low-ball estimate of what they make each month, and then determining from there, what they can afford. I don’t know why people don’t understand this, but the “how much house can I afford” calculator eliminates the excuses from those who are incapable of figuring out their budget.

Update: Bank of Green is sharing this calculator, along with a list of other mortgage calculators, with their readers.

Tags: first time home buyer, real estate calculator, mortgage calculator, how much house can I afford, mortgages, home buyer, budget calculator, real estate budget

VIDEO: Internet People

A little off topic Friday night fun… Are you an “internet person”? Watch the following video, and if you are familiar with most of these references you spend WAY too much time at your computer, and at YouTube (but don’t worry, you’re not alone… I’m embarrassed to tell you what percentage of these I recognize/remember)

h/t HotAir

Rumors Daily has an “internet people” reference cheat sheet, for those who may not recognize everything in this vid. Pajama Market has a cheat sheet as well.

Even some ladies are “internet people“.

More internet people: Inquirer Bloggers, Somewhat Frank, WebGlobe, DwingDwang, Peter Black

Tags: danmeth, youtube, viral vids, internet, animation, internet people, viral video, internet videos, funny, dan meth, viral vids, funny video, meth minute 39, meth minute, cartoon

Mortgage Calculator Widget For Real Estate Web Sites

*UPDATE* - Big thanks to Widgets-Blog.com for linking to this mortgage calculator widget post. If you’re in to widgets, subscribe to Widgets-Blog, as it is quickly becoming a guru for identifying the latest widgets and bringing the latest widget news to its readers. In fact, Widgets-Blog is the site that turned me on to WidgetBox in the first place.

This is awesome! I was checking out WidgetBox.com to see what they had for real estate widgets to might jazz up the ol’ blog, and I happened upon this sweet mortgage calculator widget:

For anyone running a real estate blog, forum, or just a local real estate site this mortgage calculator widget is a must have. The widget is clean and professional looking, and even offers the option for annual taxes due. We’ve all seen the widely available free bland and ugly mortgage calculators, but this mortgage calculator widget blows them all out of the water. Pick yours up and custom is to fit your real estate site today, it’s free!

*UPDATE* - Portland-Real-Estate-Agent Blog has discovered another mortgage calculator widget, so you’ve got your pick. If you choose to use one on your site, I’d be happy to hear your comments on the pros and cons of each, and what mad you decide to go with the one you did.

Tags: calculator widget, mortgage payment, mortgage payment calculator, mortgage widget, mortgage calculator, real estate widget, mortgage calculator widget, property taxes, real estate

How To Make Successful Low-Ball Offers In Buyers’ Markets

Whether or not you like the future of the real estate market, there is no debate over who currently holds the cards: the buyers.  With home prices projected to fall and more existing homes sitting on the market, buyers are justifiably beginning to wield their power.

The “lowball” offer isn’t exclusive to the buyers’ market, but it’s especially important in a buyers’ market and can lead to you saving a bundle.  MarketWatch’s Amy Hoak has written an article, detailing the “dos and dont’s” of low-balling and the potential outcomes of making these types of offers.

Amy discusses a case study, and then details the three major points of low-ball offering.  The main points follow, but you should read the entire article as she details each of these 3.

1. Learn how motivated the seller is to make a deal
2. Make your case with hard facts
3. Prepare for the possibility of rejection, or negotiation

Elizabeth Weintraub at About.com offers similar advice.

Tags: cheap real estate, low-ball offer, buyer’s market, make an offer, buyers’ market, real estate, discount real estate, buyers market, real estate market, home buyers, real estate offer, lowball offer, first time home buyer, home buyer

VIDEO: Borat Shows You How To Shop For Real Estate In U.S. and A.

In your efforts to find that perfect home for you and your family, have you ever stopped and asked yourself “what would Borat do?” No? Well, too bad I’m going to show you how he shops for a new home anyway!

(A slight “content warning”… not bad though. PG-PG13 at worst I’d say.)

Tags: funny real estate, borat, sacha baron cohen, sacha cohen, funny, home buying, real estate shopping

Can’t Get Rid of That Home? Try These Tried & True Home Selling Methods in This Buyer’s Market

As the current mortgage situation weighs on the overall outlook for the real estate market, it’s tough to say “it’s a buyer’s market”, as many people are concerned we’re not even close to the bottom yet, and things will get much worse before they get better. Others disagree.

The trouble is, it’s tough to know who’s right. Many of the “experts” are bloggers who’s existence depends on negative developments in the real estate market (evident by their very blog names), so can you really trust them? We’ve heard “experts” say that the “real estate bubble” was about to burst for years, and it never happened. Even now, we’re still in slowdown rather than a crash. Could it crash? Possibly, but we aren’t there yet. We still occasionally see positive numbers pop up in months where negatives were predicted, indicating a softer blow than some seem to be almost hoping for.

Home prices have definitely fallen, and seem set to fall further for some time. Some call it a buyer’s market, others call it the calm before the storm. Either way, the ball is certainly not in the court of the seller at this point, especially with the existing homes on the market piling up. If buyer’s have good credit and can get a loan, one could argue that they’ve got their pick of the litter.

Because of this, BankRate.com offers all you sellers some tips on moving that real estate. It should come as no secret that this one is becoming more common, and almost expected as buyers get more and more picky:

• Closing costs: What buyer wouldn’t welcome some help with those teeth-gritting closing costs (legal, title, filing fees, etc.) that, according to a Freddy Mac estimate, typically run between 2 percent to 7 percent of the loan amount?

Do read the rest, but that one is far and away a buyer favorite incentive.

Tags: buyer incentives, FSBO, realtor incentives, selling your home, homes for sale, real estate incentives, selling real estate, real estate for sale, selling homes, selling my home, buyer’s market

Real Estate Buying & Selling Tips Galore

Cruising around the web today I ran across two sites offering you tips on various aspects of buying and selling real estate.

A blog entitled Oppertunity Land (not my spelling!) has a posted a list of excellent tips for home buyers. An interesting read, and the author promises to add to the list in the future. You should definitely check out all the tips offered, which you would use throughout the buying process, but the first one stands out to me, as it’s something I find myself telling people all of the time:

1) Know Your Budget Sounds obvious but there are buyers out there today who have no idea how much it is likely to cost them to buy a home, or what they can afford. Work out what you have coming in, and what you can afford to spend each month including all the household bills.

Seriously, it’s disturbing how many people simply don’t get what they can and can’t afford, and that’s exactly why we’re facing the current mortgage crisis. Whether it’s a home or supersizing your fast food - 1. Do you need it? 2. Can you really afford it? A Big Mac might not sound like much, but it adds up… no self made rich person will tell you they got their with stupid spending habits.

The bottom line is that people need to take responsibility and ask themselves “can I afford this?”, and when you screw up, don’t ask the government to bail you out… because now you’re hurting the rest of us! If you find yourself in trouble, you’d be better off checking out these tips on avoiding foreclosure.

The OC Coastal Real Estate Blog is also offering up a list of 10 tips relating to real estate buying, selling, and investing. It appears they had some formatting issues, as the post isn’t broken down in to paragraphs, but it’s worth a read because there are a few nuggets you could take away from it.

Tags: home buyer tips, first time home buyer, home buying tips, first time home buyer tips, home for sale tips, real estate tips, home selling tips

Buyer’s Market = Time To Buy That Vacation Home? Forbes.com Tells You Where to Buy.

There are more existing homes sitting on the market than ever, and with home prices likely to dip significantly, it may be just the type of buyers market you’ve been waiting for, before you seriously considered vacation home shopping.

I’ll let Forbes.com fill you in on all the technicals, as they’ve done the leg work on determining the Best Place To Buy A Vacation Home.  If you find statistics and appreciation values boring, HouseHunting 101 links you directly to the lists of the best places to buy vacation homes in each region of the country, in the Forbes.com famous “In Pictures” sections.

Of course if you aren’t filthy rich, that information may not serve as much more than entertainment.  However, a blogger at Move.com noticed a link buried in the middle of the Forbes.com piece that points to something more useful to the rest of us:  In Pictures: 10 Undervalued Vacation-Home Spots.

If you’ve got the resources and the credit, there may never be a better time than now to buy that vacation home you’ve always wanted.

Tags: lower home prices, cheap real estate, buy vacation home, vacation homes, buyers’ market, vacation property, buyer’s market, vacation real estate, buy real estate, second home, home prices

WSJ: 5 Homes You Could Never Afford

A few days ago the Wall Street Journal posted an article on 5 homes currently hoping to beat the current record home sale price of $103 million. Read all about these homes
that you’ll never… EVER be able to afford, in an article that’s written like a playoff season sports article, handicapping the tournament.

5 Homes enter, 1 home……… sells for a few million more than the rest.

h/t Luxury Clues

Tags: million dollar real estate, overpriced real estate, espensive real estate, overpriced homes, expensive homes, donald trump