Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'value'
Stupid Negotiating Tricks: Appeal to Pity (or Falling for Appeal to Pity)
A while ago, another agent in my office got an offer and brought it to me for feedback. The listing was range priced over a $30k range, and priced correctly, so there was a lot of activity on it. The...
How To Buy Bargain Real Estate
There are two main sources of bargain properties. The obvious one that everyone knows about is properties fresh on the market where the owner doesn't realize what they've got. This is the largest single reason why potential buyers obsess over...
How Do I Get Rid of Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)?
"How do I remove PMI?" was a question that I got. First off, a definition. Private Mortgage Insurance, often abbreviated PMI, is an insurance policy that the bank may make you buy in order to get the loan. It is...
Did That Slap On The Back Leave a Knife?
One of the things the place I work does to attract clients is advertise foreclosure lists to our clients. Several times a week, people call and ask for the lists, and we say, "Great! Just come on down, fill out...
Is Remodeling Likely To Show A Profit?
My general rule of thumb is "Remodel for your own enjoyment. If you're lucky, you'll get some of your money back when you sell." The remodeling industry has made a very large amount of money seducing people into believing...
Top Ten Reasons You Bought The Wrong House
A while ago, I wrote Top Ten Reasons Your Home Isn't Selling. It was well received so I thought I'd take it from the buyer's perspective. Once again, I'll try to inject as much humor as I can. And...
Real Estate "Pig In a Poke"
Over five hundred years ago in Europe, there was a con game that was more practiced than any other con game in the history of the world. It was simply the thing to try on the new rube in...
Who Does Creating Barriers to Growth Hurt?
For at least the last thirty years, I've been hearing "affordable housing" advocates yammer about the high cost of housing, and how working families can no longer afford "decent" housing, which they apparently consider to be the three or...
How Can I Lower The Down Payment Requirements So I Can Buy Real Estate?
With a few lenders starting to loosen their requirements slightly in San Diego, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the bottom is behind us. However, the issue has now become, "I don't have much of a down payment. How do...
What is Real Estate Worth?
One of the most common questions in real estate is "What is this property really worth?" The easy answer is the same as the deepest, most profound one I can come up with, "Whatever you can get someone to pay...
Trying to Buy Real Estate Below Market
This question: What real estate office can I trust to help buy below market house in (location) California? brought someone to the site and I have not previously written a real answer to the question. The short answer is "nobody."...
Leverage in Real Estate - Making a Decent Investment Spectacular
One of the concepts I keep seeing without a decent treatment is the concept of leveraging an investment. Real Estate has this like no other investment. You go talk to a bank about leveraging eighty to ninety or even one...
For Sale By Owner Issues
I've been taking a long look at the world of For Sale By Owner and similar concepts lately. With the digital revolution, you always want to be watching the tide to figure out if you're in a business that's about...
Top Ten Reasons Your House Isn't Selling
No, I never was a David Letterman watcher, for reasons having to do with turning into a pumpkin before his show started. I'm going to treat it a little more seriously than he did, as this is a serious...
How to Use Internet Based Real Estate and House Hunting Sites
As with anything you find on the internet, the critical thing to keep in mind with internet real estate is that it is subject to input control. In plain English, you only see what they want you to see....
A Good Listing Agent's Most Difficult Task
The general public may not understand this, but the most critical parts of a listing agent's job all take place before the property hits the market. The most difficult task of an agent who wants to successfully list property is...
Short Sales of Real Estate, aka Short Payoffs
A while ago I wrote an article called, "What Happens When You Can't Make Your Real Estate Loan Payment." This is kind of a continuation of that, as I got a search that asked, "What is necessary to persuade a...
Why You Want To Price Your Property Correctly From Day One
This article is for sellers who want to put their property on the market priced too high "just to see if we can get it." I know where sellers get this notion. A lot of people are out there...
What Happens When You Over-Price Real Estate?
Short answer: It almost certainly won't sell! If it does sell, it will take longer, and sell for a lower price than you could have gotten. The first thing that happens is that when it goes onto the Multiple Listing...
Sixty Second Public Service Announcement About Selling Real Estate
Here was an idea I had: Pack a list of the most important things consumers need to know about buying real estate, as packed into the words I can say in sixty seconds without sounding like an over-clocked squirrel. Here...
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