http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/things-youll-want-to-know-about-your-foreclosure-property.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/things-youll-want-to-know-about-your-foreclosure-property.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600
During the pre-qualification process we’re assessing two things. The first is finding out what the ARV, or after repair value, is for the property you are looking at. You can also get your Realtor to find out this information for you, but I don't recommend that because Realtors can slow down the process and it's good to be independent from other points of view in this process. There are also online resources that will give you this information right away. They are www.realestateabc.com and www.bankofamerica.com. I recommend taking a look at these two sites and not relying on just one for source for information.

Another great resource that I use is Google Earth. Basically you’re looking for the condition of the neighborhood and to make sure that there aren’t a lot of vacant lots or board ups or burnouts. On this site you can pick a specific neighborhood or a specific zip code depending upon what you wanted to look at.

Investors should also be taking a different approach to making offers. Intuitively people make one offer at a time and hope the deal will go through. What I’d like you to consider is to pre-qualify enough properties so that you can place 10 to 15 offers every week.

In the top foreclosure marketplaces of the country where I do business, I lowball my offers because those markets are so saturated with foreclosures that the banks really don’t have much of a choice. These banks are always willing to negotiate just about any offer that comes in, if the days on market are significant. Banks can only have so many liabilities or nonperforming mortgages on their books, so they will sell when a legitimate offer comes in.

Once your offer is accepted by the bank, you typically will have about five to seven days before your earnest money deposit is non-refundable. Within that five to seven day time frame, investors should usually do four or five different things for due diligence. They are:

1) Get a cost estimate of repairs done by local contractors.

2) Have a rental market analysis performed by your property manager.

3) Get a quote for insurance, including verifying annual property taxes.

4) Get a home inspection.

5) Hire someone to take photos or video to see the specific condition of the premises.

If all this due diligence work has been performed and the numbers still look great, then close the deal and start making your repairs so you can rent the property out as soon as possible.


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Travis Millward has mastered the cutting–edge strategy for investing in REO
foreclosures! This is your opportunity to discover the 7 golden foreclosure
marketplaces, where banks are unloading foreclosures for pennies on the dollar.
Sign up now and start cashing in on these
killer deals without ever leaving your home and become "virtually" unstoppable.
Visit

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/three-powerful-foreclosure-lead-sources.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/three-powerful-foreclosure-lead-sources.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600
The first stage of foreclosure investing involves pre-foreclosures. When a property owner falls behind in their payments, a notice of default is issued. This notice is filed (in most cases) at the county courthouse, where it becomes a public record, and that means anyone can access this information.

Once the notice is filed, the property owner has a specified time frame known as the "redemption period," in which he must cure the debt or else the property becomes foreclosed on and goes to auction. In general, pre-foreclosures involve dealing with the homeowner face-to-face, which means a lot of time is spent going back and forth. One thing most amateur investors find when dealing with property owners in pre-foreclosure is that a lot of them are in denial and despite the arising foreclosure problem, they refuse to cooperate! For that reason, pre-foreclosures can be extremely time consuming.

Auctions are the second stage of the foreclosure process. At these auctions, investors will either have to be physically present at the county courthouse steps or hire someone to be their representative (power of attorney) to bid on these foreclosed homes. Again, time and money are issues here because financial resources can get eaten up rather quickly with all the traveling or hiring of representatives.

What’s more is that once you become the winning bidder for an auction, you’ll typically have 24 to 48 hours to overnight or wire funds to the attorney. That’s not a lot of time to put a deal and funding together, and sometimes doing this can be difficult. Oftentimes you have to do this without ever having seen the inside of the house since the former owners are probably still living there.

These are both good options, but I specialize in REO foreclosures, which is the third stage of the foreclosure process. With REO properties, I don’t have to travel all over the country to close killer deals. In fact, I can pretty much do most of my research online and with a solid power team; a smooth process to profit can be created!

REO foreclosures are properties that were not sold at auction. When no one bids on a property, it goes back to the bank and is then seen as a liability by the bank because it's not making them any money. These homes can most easily be found on the MLS (multiple listing service) of the area you’re investing in. This makes the investing process much easier because all I deal with is a Realtor® who submits the offers and helps with the negotiation process until a deal is solidified.

With all that being said, you’ll still need to do your due diligence on each property and form a solid power team who will help you with your investing.


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Travis Millward has mastered the cutting–edge strategy for investing in REO foreclosures! This is your opportunity to discover the 7 golden foreclosure marketplaces, where banks are unloading foreclosures for pennies on the dollar. Sign up now and start cashing in on these
killer deals without ever leaving your home and become "virtually" unstoppable. Visit

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/the-more-you-learn-the-more-you-earn-in-foreclosures.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/the-more-you-learn-the-more-you-earn-in-foreclosures.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600
In real estate, information is what makes the difference between a good deal and a great deal. Every deal and every home is unique and presents its own set of problems that an investor needs to solve. For that reason, every investor should have an arsenal of strategies they know how to apply for every situation.

You know that there are many investment strategies and ways to apply them, but there are still more things that an investor should be learning. A serious investor should also be knowledgeable about the marketplace that they are investing in and they should also be sharpening their millionaire mindset!

Not only should an investor study various real estate investment strategies, but they also have to keep up with what’s going on in the marketplace. For instance, there is a phenomenon that we call the Three Storm, and investors should understand how it impacts their investment niche. While this is a rather complicated concept to go into in this article, understand that many factors are coming together to make this a great time to get into foreclosure real estate investing.

You might have already heard that millionaires think differently than most people. For example, one thing you’ll see is that a person with a millionaire mindset forms a team of people to help him accomplish his goal. They handpick people who are knowledgeable in what they do. Here’s another concept that marks a millionaire’s mind: that you can never know enough. There’s always a new angle or a new approach or strategy, and if you keep your eyes open, someone will tell you exactly what they need to know. Millionaires don’t have to come up with the idea. They can borrow someone else’s concepts and make it their own.

By now, we hope you see how critical having a continuing education system in place is. Check out our website for more tools and resources that will kick start your real estate investment career!


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Travis Millward has mastered the cutting–edge strategy for investing in REO
foreclosures! This is your opportunity to discover the 7 golden foreclosure
marketplaces, where banks are unloading foreclosures for pennies on the dollar.
Sign up now and start cashing in on these
killer deals without ever leaving your home and become "virtually" unstoppable.
Visit

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/one-exit-strategy-for-your-foreclosure-investing-rentals.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/one-exit-strategy-for-your-foreclosure-investing-rentals.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600
There are several exit strategies that an investor can use in real estate, but rentals are the market of choice for long-term wealth accumulation. In the case of rentals, an investor will purchase an REO foreclosure, rehab it as needed and then rent it out so that they can benefit from the property’s appreciation. Let’s not forget to mention that in specific marketplaces a sizable monthly cash flow is very possible, meaning that the property will produce monthly income above and beyond your monthly expenses.

The first step in making this strategy work is to buy REO foreclosure properties at a significant discount. These properties can often be found on the MLS with the help of a local Realtor. The Realtor will help with negotiations, which frees up your time to look for other properties.

One thing I teach is that an investor should spend no more than ten minutes assessing a property to see if they should make an offer or not. The reason is because with most of the deals you’ll find, you’re only interested in submitting an offer to start negotiations (and I recommend submitting at least 15 offers per week). Once an offer is accepted, you’ll have a few days to perform your due diligence on that property.

The second step in this strategy is to fix up the property so that it is "rent ready." One thing you will find is that the majority of REO properties are vacant and are in dire need of major repair. For that reason, you’ll need to find a reputable contractor who can determine the cost of rehab and complete the project in a timely fashion.

Remember that you will need to factor in the estimated cost of repairs into your purchase price to determine how profitable the deal really is. One other thing to keep in mind is that investors need to tread carefully when determining what kind of repairs to take on. For example, minor cosmetic repairs are actually the easiest and best to work with, but for the new investor, taking on a property with structural damage might be over their head unless they already have experience in home construction.

The third step in this strategy is to rent out the property. Before you even purchase a property you should have some idea of what the rental market is like. You should also compare like properties with like properties and see how much they are renting for. You should check to see if there’s a rental market for the type of property you’re purchasing.

For example, you can get a great deal on a high-end property, but if there’s no rental market for that property, then you will be losing money. For that reason, I recommend staying in the middle to the bottom of the market scope because that’s where your bread and butter properties are. Your local property manager can help you assess the rental market as well as provide you with good and bad rental neighborhoods.


--
Travis Millward has mastered the cutting–edge strategy for investing in REO
foreclosures! This is your opportunity to discover the 7 golden foreclosure
marketplaces, where banks are unloading foreclosures for pennies on the dollar.
Sign up now and start cashing in on these
killer deals without ever leaving your home and become "virtually" unstoppable.
Visit

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/learn-to-operate-outside-your-local-foreclosure-market.html http://www.articletrader.com/finance/real-estate/learn-to-operate-outside-your-local-foreclosure-market.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600
One thing I notice as a real estate investor is that most investors tend to do deals in their local marketplace – in the areas where they live. The problem with that strategy is that not everyone tends to live in a place that is best suited for foreclosure investing or is the most optimal foreclosure marketplace. The honest truth is that while just about every place has foreclosures, not all foreclosures will be killer deals. When new investors don’t see the results they originally hoped for, they’ll give up on their dreams thinking that investing doesn’t work!

The problem is not that investing doesn’t work, but that the marketplace in which the investor lives is not the best possible place to make money with foreclosures. In fact, not only does a real estate investor have to find a deal that makes sense numbers wise, but part of that deal includes knowing what your exit strategy will be.

Let me give you a better example of what I mean. Let’s say you have a potential deal and your intention is to fix it up and rent it out. One thing you might want to ask yourself is, “How strong are rents in the neighborhood where that deal is located?” If the rental market isn’t strong, you might consider another exit strategy.

There are many market areas where foreclosures are booming. The key is to find out where these marketplaces are and capitalize on what’s already going on in that particular area. There are actually several places where the market is hot and to give you a taste of where these markets are, I’ll just mention three here for you. They are Atlanta, Georgia; Denver, Colorado; and Houston, Texas.

In order to make investing outside your local market area work for you, you’ll have to learn to do your research virtually online. One of the great things you’ll notice is that a lot of information is already available online as public records. Here’s a list of a few of the tools and resources I normally use in my Internet research system:

*County website
*City website
*Real property tax records
*Tax bill search
*Planning & development
*Police department
*Fire department
*City data
*Tax assessor’s office
*Chamber of commerce

I also check out a couple of online real estate investor clubs and see what they have to say about these areas. I will also look for local newspapers and other websites that have general city information.

Once you start doing the research in these areas, the research will become easier to do. You’ll find that you’ll be able to quickly analyze a property because you’re already familiar with a particular area just as if you lived there!


--
Travis Millward has mastered the cutting–edge strategy for investing in REO
foreclosures! This is your opportunity to discover the 7 golden foreclosure
marketplaces, where banks are unloading foreclosures for pennies on the dollar.
Sign up now and start cashing in on these
killer deals without ever leaving your home and become "virtually" unstoppable.
Visit

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>