So you need to sell your home?

This article is exactly what you need to do, to sell your home or create a bunch of leads of individuals, who are HOT prospects to buy your home.

Before, I share my 3 steroid ideas on selling your homes; you need to take a few simple steps…

PREPARATION

1. You need to locate and interview an aggressive Mortgage Broker, very knowledgeable, with a GREAT TRACK RECORD of closing deals, especially difficult ones.

I cannot stress enough the importance, of having a great broker on your power team. I own and run, the R.E.I.A. (real estate investor club / www.tcreia.com) in my area, so whenever I hear a member, say they got a difficult deal closed, I always make sure to inquire for an introduction, because this might be the broker who can get most of my deals funded.

Remember, you can sell a home ten times, if you can’t get the buyer funded by a mortgage company…who cares, your wasting your time.

2. You should make some effort in fixing the home up; even if it’s a hunker, I’d still get the lawn cut and maybe throw a coat of paint on the property. You’d be amazed at the improvement to even an ugly property, with a simple coat of paint on the front of the property.

3. Go to your local community financing office or local grant and home buyer bond office. For example in my area (South Florida and Palm Beach County), both counties run a FREE class for your buyers on becoming a first time home buyer and when they take the class, they then get a voucher from the county, giving them $10,000.00 toward the purchase of their first home. The best part is sometimes the loans are even forgiven, when certain criteria are met by the new homeowner.

LET’S DO SOME MARKETING ON STEROIDS

Let’s be frank, your going to have to be more aggressive, smarter and persistent than 99% of all your homes neighbors.

There’s no magic pill, but this has been working for both my students and me, for the last year, and we’re always testing and fine-tuning the system.

And I can tell you, that while every other investor, is sitting with their heads in their butts, my students and I are able to sell all of our properties, during one of the worst RE slowdowns in history, and this is in South Florida, one of the most depressed markets in the Country,

1. Buyer First System

Basically you create your own buyers. The best example would be converting a lifetime renter into the American Dream a homeowner. Just so happens, that while becoming the American Dream, they also end up buying your home.

Very simply, create a flyer or postcard, and market to communities of people who would be a great prospect to buy your home.

Who doesn’t want to be a homeowner in America? Nobody, that’s a stupid question, everyone wants to be a homeowner, and it’s bred into us as kids.

The real key is you must understand, that these individuals renting, most are under the impression they CAN’T get a mortgage. They might have tried in the past, and we’re shutdown and embarrassed, only to believe they would live the rest of their lives as a RENTER.

These are the best leads you can focus on, because it’s not a matter of IF they’ll buy your home, they will, the key is can you get them funded or is it the right house for them, financially affordable.

I must also share with you, this strategy will take some of your time and initiative, because their is hand holding involved, mortgage brokers, and helping them get any government help in First time homebuyer money.

2. Fish in some one else’s pond!

Go where the most prospects are for your home. I’ll give you some examples, you need to go where the most and the best prospects are to buy your home, assuming it’s a good deal (priced right, and there’s still built-in equity for your buyer).

If you have any contacts or a friend of a friend, now is the time for using it and your expectations are for these contacts to open doors for you, to their sphere of influence.

For Example, one of my students, Courtney, leveraged a contact he had, his cousin (she was a middle school teacher), and she introduced him into the schools, where it just happened that the schools are in the same area, that he was selling a great starter home.

He sold the home that he needed to the most, but then, once word spread of what he was able to do, the rest of the teachers came out of everywhere, wanting him to help them. He’s since helping the 1st teacher, sold another 5 homes, to 5 different teachers, earning him over $30,000.00 for this simple, leveraged relationship.

So what ponds can you fish in, with your marketing? Think about whom you know (friends, family members, and associates)?

BEST: Teachers, Cops, Firefighters, Government Employees, Bus Drivers, Department of Transportation. (These careers are loved by lenders, they mostly have good credit, and their income is basically guaranteed and very stable.)

GOOD: Large local employers: Supermarkets, Local telephone company (Bell South), Home Depot, Wal-Mart, etc.

3. Use the Internet…

You should definitely have an individual website for your property.

You can get a simple site built for under $100.00.

 Use www.elance.com or www.rentacoder.com : Two great sites, for getting your site created, they are both similar to EBay. You post an auction about your project (your home website), and then companies bid on your job, and you get to see samples of their work and read all their feedback, after you decided who wins your job, you choose a winner. Oh by the way, both of these services cost you nothing, their completely FREE.  Take some pictures with a digital camera of your home and you’ll end up emailing them to the site designer, to post on your site. (good example, is www.735airoso.com)  Treat this as an online, digital brochure, basically being able to do whatever you can conceive.  You can take a video of the home, with you walking through the home and then have it placed on your site. If you’re intimidated by video, like I was at first, don’t be, because your web site designer can do it for you, very easily.

Now, when ever you talk to someone on the phone or in person, they can quickly look at your property, on the web. This will be the best $100.00 you’ll ever spend on marketing of your home.

4. BONUS: Promote and hold your own, “First Time Homebuyer Seminar”.

Before you say anything, I don’t expect you to be Tony Robbins, if you can get 10 to 15 people in a room, your going to be successful.

We shared this strategy with my mentoring students, and it’s been working excellent for them, from the results I’ve been receiving back from my future millionaires. In fact, one of my students from Miami, Alex, has been executing this strategy like gangbusters.

Before writing this article, I received permission from Alex to share some of his feedback with you, on the Homebuyer seminars that have been very successful for him.

He’s now doing 1 a month, every month. Also, since he’s has a few successfully under his belt, he’s now selling sponsorship space to his seminars, to Mortgage brokers, credit repair companies, and he’s even worked out a joint venture with two different realtors, whom pay him for every property they sell to one of his prospects.

If you’re curious how he’s filling the room, all he’s doing is as follows…

-Flyers in Parking lots, I.E. Wal-Mart, Publix Supermarkets, and local churches.

-Free Advertising on www.craigslist.com

-He uses bandit style signs on the side of the road, 18 x 24, corrugated plastic signs.

-He’s even put up a website that the attendees, can pre-register for the seminar. (Sorry, he didn’t want me giving out the site, for obvious reasons)

-He also is giving them an ethical bribe for attending the seminar; he gives them a few nooks and tapes just for making it to the event. The best part is he received the books for free on the internet, and he’s also allowed to give them away for free and even rebrand them as his own books.

So you’ve seen your umpteenth infomercial with the guy in his neatly pressed button-upped white T-Shirt grinning ear to ear waving his rock-solid no-money-down rags-to-riches real estate investment course for 3 easy payments of a gazillion dollars (but only if you call now) and now you are thinking, “wow this looks like a great deal, I better get it fast before the special offer expires.” You notice how there’s always a special offer? Anyway, I am not saying this guy isn’t telling the truth, however regardless of which course or school of thought you buy into there are several key areas that one must avoid when engaging in any real estate related transaction.

Pitfall Number 1: Don’t Overpay!

The whole point in investing is to find properties that are undervalued. How does one find out what is undervalued versus overvalued? Without getting into technical details, the bottom line is you need experience. Yes much like shopping for anything else, real estate is essentially one of the highest ticket items in the shopping center of life. It’s advisable to stick with one market, perhaps the one closest to you in proximity as a starting off point. Through your experience and asking the right questions, you will eventually have a feel for the pulse of the market you are looking after, and of course identify what is considered a good buy.

Pitfall Number 2: Know the Market

Yes, you are actually going to have to do more work! This part is really common sense though, but executing it where the beauty and the payoff comes in. How do you make money in real estate? The most basic way is to buy low and sell high. So from the first step, you have identified general trends in the value of homes, and are pretty good at spotting undervalued homes. Assuming you acquire that home, you may want to profit from it by selling it off to someone else for a higher price. How can you do this? Well there are many ways. For one, most markets appreciate in value over time so if you want a longer term approach that will work. Making upgrades to the property will automatically raise the price of the home as well. Think in terms of what the market wants, not what you personally want. You aren’t the one buying it; you are trying to sell it to someone else for a higher price than you bought it.

Pitfall Number 3: Know Your Budget

It may be a fine philosophy to go through life on a whim, but real estate is serious business, and thus diligent financial planning and budgeting is critical to your success. Don’t worry you don’t need to be a finance geek, however you need to be disciplined and know your budget from the onset, or you may be finding you are learning that you need to make certain renovations or upgrades, and didn’t anticipate it going over to a certain cost. Think ahead as to what is needed before actually going forth with investing in real estate.

Many finance firms are wiling to offer a sum of $1000 to those in need, provided the beneficiary has a provable source of income and agrees to repay the amount as per the firm’s outlined repayment schedule. However, needless to say that you would end up repaying more than you acquire from the cash advance firm. This is because the cash advance firm is likely to charge an interest on such credit lending.

Getting hold of a $1000 cash advance won’t be a cinch by any means. You would have to carry out a preliminary research of reputable cash advance firms willing to lend $1000. Though it’s easy to find cash advance of around $250 to $500, you might have to shop around a bit in order to bag $1000. It is recommended to keep several options open during your quest for a cash advance. This way, if one cash advance firm leaves you high and dry, you could easily switch to another.

Sums of $1000 and below are considered trifling amounts by bigger loan firms’ standards. Therefore, it is highly unlikely to acquire a $1000 loan from a loan firm. However, cash advance firms are a viable option for people in urgent need of around $1000. Cash advance firms would gladly approve your application, provided you have a provable income source. But, cash advance companies normally charge a higher rate of interest relative to bigger loan firms.

All in all, cash advance is a nice and quick way to acquire that much needed cash in a jiffy. But since the rate of interest is on the higher side, it’s best to take up a loan from a loan firm, if possible. In general, you should turn to a cash advance firm only when you have no other means of acquiring cash.