Selecting the Right Property for Investing

by: Gary Fee

Anyone can make money in real estate when the market is booming in your area. The trick to making a solid investment that pays out big in today?s market is to follow the process used by the professionals. The first question that you have to ask is which property is right for me? If you are new to real estate investment, or have lost your shirt trying to flip properties in the past, please pay attention to the points I will lay out in this article. Pros never buy based on a hunch or a guess. They always do their homework.

Basic Economics

We all know that the market is the intersection of Supply and Demand. The set price of goods or services is wherever consumer demand meets producer supply. In real estate, demand always sets price. However, real estate is more complex than just that, and you need to research why market indicators in your area are the way they are in order to make a wise investment. Why is there a high or low demand, what is driving the prices up or down, what are people looking for, are people making more money now? Of course, you are going to be looking for markets with a strong demand and low supply for investing techniques like flipping and wholesaling. However, even markets with a below average demand and above average supply of real estate can yield decent profits through investment techniques such as listing with a lease option and buying a home for rental.

Making money requires that you know when the market will go bad, or begin to boom. Waiting until after the market changes before making your move is a good way to do poorly. You will want to know when the market in your area is at its highest so that you can sell off and take your profits, and at the low end, ready to head up again, so you can get in on the best deals for future profit. You can leave this to chance, or you can pay attention to the market indicators and let them show you where it is going before it moves.

Market Indicators

Some indicators are more important than are others, but all should be considered before making an investment. When doing your research remember that your local numbers and statistics will not necessarily reflect those of the national market. Real estate values are always local in nature.

-Housing Affordability-

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has an index that gauges median income against median price. A rating of 100% means that the median earner has just enough income to purchase a median priced home, assuming a 20% down payment. An index number above 100% means that the median earner has more than enough money to qualify for a loan on the same homes with the same money down. A rating of 100% is ideal for a growing market and a higher supply.

-Population Growth-

In general, a growing population means increased demand for real estate. For instance, if the average growth over the past five years in your town has been 3%, but a new highway and industrial park drive more people to the area then the population growth rate will probably increase. Supposing that the local chamber and county planning commission expect the growth rate to approach 10% in the near future, you will want to invest in this market.

-Employment-

Employment is a good indicator for an obvious reason. If chronic unemployment is high because of problems with local industry, like in Michigan, then this may not be the best time to invest in working class housing serving the needs of the auto industry because there simply is no money to buy real estate, and because people are leaving the area to seek employment elsewhere. On the other hand, investors who saw the increase in major corporations moving their operations to North Carolina made a huge profit. These companies brought a large influx of upper-middle class wage earners seeking housing and employment. The market there is still booming. Noticing the up or down shift in employment figures can help you predict the market ahead of its shift. The best indicators are low unemployment and a growing local industry.

-Consumer Confidence-

A market with high consumer confidence should do well. Low consumer confidence can depress a market through reticence to buy because consumers are unsure of their future earning potential. As expected, this hedges prices down. The NAR also measures consumer confidence. A score over 100 means that consumers have confidence in the economy, while a score under 100 means that consumers have less confidence, and the real estate market will reflect that. High consumer confidence often comes with low unemployment rates and a strong economy.

-House Sales-

The sale of homes is a direct indicator of how well the market is doing. High inventories, with homes sitting for more than 120 days will hedge prices down into a buyers market. If inventories and average time on the market are low then prices will be higher, and the time will be ripe for quick deals and investment techniques like rehabbing and wholesaling. You should be aware that sellers using multiple agents listing separately, and agents delisting and relisting properties could manipulate the putative Days on Market (DOM).

Home sales are really a following indicator. It is usually the result of higher consumer confidence, employment, and affordability.

-Interest Rates-

Lower rates often result in higher prices and more qualified buyers. Do not overestimate the importance of this indicator, though, for when consumer confidence is high, higher rates will have less of an impact on the market. Be on the lookout for cash-following properties when rates are low. Sometimes a percentage point can be the difference between a positive cash flow and a negative one.

Best Investment Properties

To put the odds in your favor, look for standard investment properties. Avoid the quaint and the kooky, and never buy an investment property just because you would want to live there. For the fastest turn-around, you want properties that will appeal to the greatest number of people. The point of investing in real estate is to get your investment back with a healthy profit. To that end, I recommend the following qualifications to ensure a quick flip.

* Priced right for you
* Needs a little work
* 5 to 50 years old
* Single-family dwelling
* Three bedrooms with two baths
* Decent area
* Priced from the lower median to median for your area

The price should be about 65% to 70% below the After Rehab Value (ARV) for a good discount. I will explain that later. You should keep the rehab costs between $10,000 and $12,000, which means that you want to avoid older homes that might need electrical or plumbing system replacements. Nothing sells better than single-family homes with three bedrooms and two baths. The best areas are working class neighborhoods where first-time homebuyers would want to live. Finally, most buyers will be looking for homes priced in the lower median through median range. Give the people what they want.

Getting Your Money Back

As an example, take a property that had an ARV of $150,000. Subtract 35% or $52,500, and you get a purchase price of $97,500. The reason you want to find property at this discount is that in order to get cash at closing, I advocate using a hard money lender to purchase the property, rehab it, and then either sell it again at $150,000 or refinance the property to put a new loan on it. Most hard money lenders will only loan 65% to 70% on the property. Some will loan on the After Rehab Value, and some will loan on the Fair Market Value. The key strategy for your success in flipping property is to work with lenders who loan on the ARV.

Surprisingly, this is one of the best markets for finding properties with this kind of discount transaction. Another benefit of using hard money lenders is that they will review the property value and estimate the rehab costs so you will have someone checking your work to make sure you got it right. To learn more about hard lenders please follow the link below.

Gary Fee
http://www.fast4close.com

Aquinas Company
21390 Bagby Road
Bowling Green, VA 22427

About The Author

Gary Fee is a professional trainer whose clients have included Fortune 500 firms, Federal agencies, technical schools, and colleges. He runs a sometimes amusing blog about starting home based businesses at http://makewhatyouareworth.blogspot.com

The author invites you to visit: http://www.fast4close.com

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Professional Health Care Business Card Designs That Does the Job

by: Geraldine Anderson

The health care industry is a people-oriented business and it will be certainly advantageous for health care professionals to be viewed as pleasant and easy to talk to. One of the ways to achieve this is through nicely designed business cards that reflect a caring and understanding personality behind the card.

No one understands this better than people who work in the health care business. People who seek professional health care are understandably under some pain. They would expect that their health care provider should at least empathize with them. People in pain require that they can count on their health care provider when they need them.

No other tool that can do this effectively yet inexpensively than the use of business cards. There are lots of business cards out there that to think that all of them are alike and will have the same effect might be a costly mistake for health care providers. When people are in pain, they are more likely to be more sensitive than average healthy people.

Your business cards will not only serve to provide your patients and people around you the information that they need when they need you. Of course, any sensible person would include the important information such as addresses and phone numbers, however, the special sensitivity of patients and their loved ones will probably notice a little more.

Even the size, color and style of fonts will be noticed and commented upon by your card recipients. In turn, their comments will give impression as to the kind of personality that you have. If you have a disorder or untidy looking business card, naturally, it will reflect on your personality as someone disorganize.

In the same vein, if you have a business cards that looks really presentable showing that a lot of effort and thought has gone through in the making of the card, it will reflect on your personality as someone who really cares about his profession, and in turn, will be viewed as someone who really cares for his or her patients.

All in all, a business card is not simply a tool that you hand out so you don’t have to write down your important details on a piece of paper every time you want to disseminate important information about your profession. A very effective business card should be able to get you more clients, more renowned in your field, and most of all, lets your card precedes your reputation for kindness, compassion and professionalism in your work.

About The Author

Get your free products for 250 business cards , 14 standard post cards and 6 jumbo magnet calendars and a whole lot more only at http://www.bizcard.com/industry/health-care .
The author invites you to visit:
http://www.bizcard.com

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Identifying Brochure Problems

by: Janice Jenkins
Are you having trouble with your color brochures? Did you spend all that time, money and effort in brochure printing only to discover that they are not giving you the results that you want? Well there are several key factors why brochure printing can fail. In this guide, we will share with you some tips on how to identify these possible problems and correct them.

Do an opinion survey: The first thing that you need to do to identify any problems with your brochures is to do a survey. Look for the people that you gave your brochures to, and ask them a few questions about their reactions to it. Also, try to find other groups of people to give your brochures to, and then ask them immediately afterwards of their opinion about it. If you gather data that is large enough, chances are good that you should see a growing trend where your brochures fail to impress your readers. This should be a key factor on how to improve your brochure designs on the next printing run.

Re-analyze your target readers: Next, you may want to study once again your target readers or target market for your brochures. You may discover suddenly that your target market is inappropriate for your brochure, or that your brochure content is not ideal for your particular target market. This can be a common mistake for brochure printing, since some people just assume immediately what their target readers like while actually not researching what those are. So try to reanalyze your target reader’s wants and needs by looking at market research data about them.

Revise distribution techniques: You may want to check your distribution technique as well if it is indeed effective. Did you just hand out your brochures to people on the street? Did you mail them to several addresses in a mailing list? Or maybe you just left them behind in public places. Try to review these techniques if they are indeed effective and people are picking them up and reading. If you look closely enough you should identify key problems that make a certain technique not work. For example, you may be mailing brochures to the wrong kind of people or the public places that you leave your brochures to are not really where you target market is. So revise your distribution techniques accordingly and try other methods to see if those others can work better.

Find another location: Also, you may want to look at your distribution policies for your brochures. Sometimes brochures can fail because they have been given in the wrong locations. Try to determine who the most common type of people that pass by your distribution zones. Also if you mailed some of your brochures, try to see the demographic data on the neighborhoods that you sent them to. You may discover that your brochure message will not really be interesting or be well received by the people in your distribution area. When this happens, it might be a good idea to shift your distribution efforts elsewhere.

Use multiple concepts: Finally, you may want to branch out to several design concepts for your brochures and test them out separately. By testing multiple concept designs for your brochures, you should be able to identify which design works, and which does not have enough of an impact to customers This should be the last step in troubleshooting the problems on your brochure since this basically decides if you will change your whole brochure or not.

Hopefully by the fifth type of check, you should already identify the problems inherent in your brochure. Just try to be patient and methodical about analyzing your brochure problems so that you can identify it and rectify is as soon as you can. With some determination and hope you should be able to turn your brochure printing around before any kind of permanent harm is one for your business.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit:
http://www.printplace.com/printing/brochure-printing.aspx, http://www.printplace.com/printing/full-color-brochure-printing.aspx

About The Author

Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.

Visit the author's web site at: http://www.printplace.com

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How To Use Logo Effectively For Your Business

by: Keith Ng

A logo is a design or image that represents a company, brand or product. Its target is to help people identify the company with a positive buyer experience. It is the basis of all future branding, advertising and communication methods. Each Company wanted to prove it was essentially the best.

The appearance of emblems caused a revolution in the advertising world. More companies began demanding a novel symbol that is part of their business for future years.

The symbol wants to go through total tests in order to make a novel place in the market its brand owners operate in. Never forget that once selected, your logo will be a silent medium that may communicate the firm's ideals and philosophy. The logo should be electrifying and at the same time should not be over dramatic. The design elements need to be as few as possible so that the brand does not appear to be packed with different image parts. It should be in a position to draw in the consumers the company wants to draw in.

As an example, studies indicate that using bright colors does not create the brand confidence in finance related firms. Finance firms are recommended to stick by the standard grey, blues and reds. In my point of view, there is no point being another face in the bunch. So stand out and if you dare, be different. It should reflect the firm's business, products / services. It should be straightforward to compact and still uniquely keep its design elements.

Logo creates the loyalty of the company. Future clients form an opinion of a business within seconds and the brand plays a giant part in deciding this. Each aspect of the logo's design should be scrupulously investigated to make certain the right message is being communicated. Logos leave superb impressions possessing an enduring and a deep result on the hearts and minds of the viewers.

About The Author

Keith Ng is a Trainer and Online Business Consultant, who is specializing in web solutions and readymade business turnkey websites. He is also a professional designer, who provide 3D graphics like ecover design and minisites for many individuals and companies. His portfolio page at Ecover Membership

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Warm Calling Can Make You Rich Quick

by: Randy Babi
There are many different ways to get rich quick. It can happen fast, but only when you have the knowledge and know how to get rich, that is when you can go against mainstream knowledge and begin to learn the shortcuts to getting rich. When you have these secrets to getting rich you can then go ahead and make a substantial amount of money in minimal time, thus increasing your rich status. Let me start with the different ways.

Today, I am going to go with the way that is the hardest to calibrate but gives you near instant results. We have all heard of cold calling, which is calling a prospect seemingly right out of the white pages. Warm calling is someone who wants to get rich quick, signs his name, email and phone number into a lead site which then affiliates can buy very cheaply (about 1,000 a day for $19.99 a month or so), call and pitch the idea.

This would terrify most people, about as much as public speaking. The reason why is not because they do not want to get rich, it is because of our tribal background. Several thousands of years ago, everyone lived in villages and knew each other, so anything you did or said to anybody else would be known throughout the village, causing you embarrassment or worse. You will not get rich with this mindset.

In today’s world, the idea of calling someone with absolutely no connection to you can still make your heart skip a beat. The truth is that it should not give you any fear at all. These people do not know you, they do not know anybody you know and do not even think about the whole process they way you do. They either make you richer by buying or signing up or they hang up, never to be seen or heard from again. That is what should be going through your mind at all times while warm calling.

To be successful and get rich quick with warm calling, you first have to find that connect with your primal feelings and then DISCONNECT! If you want to get rich quickly with this kind of marketing you need to have no fear of the call. You have to remember that these people have requested the information that you are giving them. They are pretty much waiting by their phones with credit card in hand waiting to join your program or buy your product. What is the worst that can happen? They hang up and you’re done with them. That’s it. Nobody is going to come to your home or work and no complaints will be filed against you. In all my years warm calling, either in affiliate marketing or when I worked in mortgages, the worst thing that ever happened to me was a man called me back to apologize for being rude to me and he ended up joining my program and is now making 6 figures a year!

So when it comes to warm calling, it can make you rich quickly if you know how and you get over the fear of the call. Just keep telling yourself that we do not live in tribes anymore and that the worst thing that can happen to you is to get a sale or sign-up!

About The Author

Randy Babi is a former loan officer and successful internet marketer who has a reputation for going above and beyond in order to help who he sponsors become successful as well. Visit his website at http://www.SucceedIn24Hours.com.

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