What is Real Estate

Writen by Eriani Doyel

Have you ever heard of a log cabin kit? No, this is not the Lincoln Logs you played with as a child. It is a kit to build a real, life-size cabin. If you have fond memories from your childhood of staying in a cabin with friends or family and getting away from it all to get back to nature, this may be the way for you to relive those memories for yourself or to pass them on to your children. A log cabin kit is a way for families of nearly every income level to achieve their dream of owning a vacation home.

When people think of a vacation home, they often think of something that you may have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on, only to use it a few weeks out of the year. Most people just cannot afford this type of investment. However, if you have access to some fairly inexpensive land with water and other utility rights, a log cabin kit may be well within your means. You will need a little carpentry know-how, and you may need to contract out some of the more difficult work like plumbing or electric-but you can even build it yourself if you desire. Or, you can hire a builder to use the materials and blueprints from the kit to do it for you.

You can find a log cabin kit online easily that will fit your needs, but first you will need to determine what your needs are. How many people will be using the log cabin? Will those needs change in the future? Can you make additions to the log cabin kit plan if you need to? How big is the lot? Do you want a deck or patio added on? What appliances, electronics and plumbing features do you feel are necessary?

Once you have decided what features are necessary in your log cabin kit, you can begin shopping for one. Check out the company offering the kit with the Better Business Bureau to make sure that they do not have a large number of unresolved claims or complaints. How long have they been in business? Do they have a log cabin kit with all of the features you are looking for, and if not, will they customize one for you? Are their instructions easy to follow? Are the materials of top-quality? Each of these questions is important to consider when you are looking for a log cabin to live out your dreams.

Eriani Doye writes articles on Real Estate and Finance. If you would like to find more information on a log cabin kit visit http://www.dotcabin.com

Writen by Lanard Perry

Many real estate agents begin and sometimes sadly end their careers without a plan. And as the saying goes, failing to plan is as good as planning to fail.

Sure, some do the usual and expected things to cultivate new business, like mailing letters and post cards to friends and relatives, phoning acquaintances, and giving out business cards to any and everybody they meet.

Heck, some are courageous enough to "cold call" prospects, the most dreaded of all tasks! And while all of these activities are good things to do, they don't necessarily translate into new business opportunities - now or later!

And while these may be good strategies you need more. But instead of working harder why not work smarter?

The most successful Realtors and Real Estate Agents have "lead generating systems." Some Farm Expired Listings for huge profits.

A good listing system can:

jump start new or average real estate sales career; bring in real estate listings on a regular basis; week after week generate prospective buyers and sellers; give you marketing exposure in months rather than years; and position you to know the best real estate investment buys

Personally, I love Expired Listing Systems and their laser beam like focus on warm, responsive sellers. Sellers that are typically still Realtor friendly, eager to sell and will do what it takes to get their properties sold.

Owners of expired listings are motivated for many reasons; double mortgages, vacant properties, terrible tenants, recently married and combining households, recently divorced and liquidating real estate assets, and on and on.

Plus, they have gone through a listing cycle and may be anxious to get on with their lives. But, as you know, or will soon learn, all listings aren't worth having.

As for me, I initially listed every property that I could; vacant land, single family homes, condo's, triplexes, mobile home parks, mobile homes, homes in top notch condition, fixer uppers, whatever.

And I got to feeling pretty darn good (and just a little smug) as my listing portfolio grew to more listings than I could manage.

So, I first hired a part time clerk/assistant to help me market my listings, then took on a newly licensed salesperson as a partner and split the listing fees 50/50. Pretty soon my listing system was humming and I was averaging 1-2 listings a week.

I then had an army of agents working for me day and night, as almost all of my listings were in the Multiple Listing System. Working to get me paid, even when I was chaperoning field trips, getting a haircut, or just taking a day off!

That's what a good real estate listing system can do for you!

So, if you don't have a good listing system you should get one. After all, if real estate listings are the lifeblood of the industry then how successful can you be without them?

Lanard Perry is the author of "Farming Expired Listings - Your Personal Guide To Listing Success." Visit his website at http://www.farmingexpiredlistings.com for more real estate sales and marketing ideas.

Writen by Don Suter

Often people fail to make a profit from property investment when they do not understand the true market value of their chosen property, both in terms of resale and rental income.

Investors hoping to purchase a run-down home or off-plan development and sell it on at profit when the work is complete; a practice known as flipping, are often caught out by over-inflated prices or under-estimated renovation costs.

On the other hand, buy-to-let investors can be seduced by suggestions of high rental values and then disappointed when these do not materialise.

Whether you're planning to flip a property or buying-to-let, it is important to ensure that you do not pay over the odds, as money saved on the purchase price will lower your mortgage costs and increase your profit margin.

Understanding the local market

One of the best ways to estimate the potential value of a property is to understand the local market. Fortunately there are a number of tools to help you do this:

Use the internet - The Land Registry (landregisteronline.gov.uk) now provide information on all properties sold in England and Wales since 2000. Through this you can access information on the property's value when the registration took place. Remember this information will not be up-to-date, but it may give you a broad idea of what the current owner paid.

Browse estate agent listings - Using the internet and local papers, you can soon get an idea of the market value for different types of property in the area. It is also worth arranging a couple of viewings, allowing you to make suitable comparisons when you have decided on a place to purchase.

If you are planning to buy-to-let, it is also worthwhile speaking to a few letting agents to try and gauge the general rental prices that could be expected. Again rental listings on the internet and in local papers will help to verify the amounts tenants will be prepared to pay.

Seek professional advice

Once you have decided on a property and feel confident that it reflects the true market value, it is advisable to carry out a full survey.

Although it is a requirement for mortgage lenders to inspect the property, the surveyor will not look at inaccessible parts (such as the roof, floors and drains), unless there is reason to believe that there may be a serious defect, in which case it is likely that a recommendation for a more in-depth survey will be made.

The risk of relying on this basic inspection is that the surveyor could miss an important defect which will be expensive to repair. By having a more in-depth survey, the surveyor will be able to identify such defaults and advise on the potential cost of repair, allowing you to negotiate a discount on the purchase price to cover this.

Take your time

Unfortunately there is no silver bullet approach to accurately valuing property and one of the secrets to running a profitable property business is investing time and money to ensure your buy your property at the right price.

UK property search - Search for homes to buy and rent, plus information on property investment, buy-to-let, mortgages, insurance and plenty more - http://www.ukpropertyportal.co.uk.

Writen by Damon N. Burgess

Driving down a familiar street, as houses are passing by, you see it - For Sale. The real estate company wedged their sign into your neighbor's front lawn. The gossip swims around the neighborhood as common remarks like "I wonder how much they are selling for?" or "I wonder why they are moving?" intrigues our curiosity. But the real question we should all be asking is - "what kind of furniture do they have?"

Yes that's correct, I said Furniture. Why you ask? Well, let's jump to it. When selling a home, there are a lot of anxieties, preconceptions, and all sorts of things to get done. In this process people often get carried away in the actual preparation of selling their home opposed to the ultimate goal of making it appealing to the buyer. Let's forget all the real estate company's jargon, and break it down to 4 rough main points that come into the minds of buyers.

1. Money
2. Location
3. Appearance
4. Property

These are the 4 main things that need to get tossed around inside the mind of a buyer. All subcategories of buyer concerns like what type of school district does the area have, or taxes, that would fall into location, money, and other main categories. So not to make our buyers lemmings that walk around uttering these four mantras in zombie like fashion; all minor questions get placed into these four. Lets move on. So where is our furniture? You ask.

So now we have our buyer, ready for action, and really looking for what he, she, or they want in their dream home. Buyers will compromise these four main categories, not by leaps and bounds but enough for you to sell your home happily. The furniture connection to selling your home is a simple one - Value. Having expensive furniture does not mean, you can up the price on your home, since you will most likely take it with you, and the buyer knows that. The value I am talking about is what I call "Creative Value".

Creative Value is a fundamental attraction to selling to a consumer/buyer. Why would someone pay an enormous amount of money for a movie prop, or Babe Ruths baseball card? - Created Value.

Technically you can say well it's just a card, piece of clothing, plastic, metal, or whatever it is, just like money is made of something. No, it's the value you can show people its worth, its imagined and is worth whatever someone will pay, right? Well, Yes. The aim to get a little more for your house is to show people the value, that atmosphere it has, whether it's earthy, modern, homey - whatever. Create the value, by welcoming buyers into the world you make for them.

Furniture is just one step in the process of selling your home; commonly overlooked it is an integral part of "Created Value" that will lure buyers into something they can imagine, and be happy with. This is going to be a place that they rest, live, and dream in, your first priority to selling your home is showing them the world you create in your home. Your imagination can be inspiring and create a value all on its own with whatever decor you decide; it just might be the type of place someone would want to call home.

Damon N. Burgess is a search engine conceptualist, writer, and an award-winning designer. The founder of Verse Designs, a Long Island web design company, where his concepts come to life. Also the marketing manager of one of the largest online furniture stores on the net – One Way Furniture, he sleeps standing up.

Writen by Andrew Webber

With home prices rising to higher and higher levels, more and more homeowners have been wondering if the time is right to take the appreciation in their current homes and get out before the market begins to cool off. While there is no way to tell when the housing market is at its top, the housing mania we have seen does have some troubling similarities to the dot.com boom that typified the late nineties.

No doubt the housing boom has some viability to it, and unlike a stock a house represents a real item, of real value. In addition, the boom in housing has been fueled by record low interest rates, and by many new mortgage products, including interest only mortgages and negative amortization loans.

These new mortgage products are part of what many people perceive as the inherent danger of the current housing market. In many hot parts of the country, like California, so-called interest only mortgages in which homebuyers pay only the interest due on the loans for a number of years, represent up to half of all new mortgage loans. The downside of these loans happens, of course, after the initial interest only period has ended. For many such loans, that day of reckoning is fast approaching, and it remains to be seen what kind of effect this will have on the market.

Over the past few years, there has not really been a bad time to sell a house. The overall trend has been, and continues to be, up. What seems to be changing is the rate of price appreciation. While up until recently waiting only a couple of months could mean getting an extra 10% or 20% for the home, the rate of appreciation seems to have slowed for some of the hotter markets around the country.

Housing marketing is cooling gradually

At the beginning of the year, the National Association of Realtors issued a forecast predicting that the market will normalize during 2006. While in 2005 the average appreciation rate for existing homes came in at 13%, with large segments of the market seeing far greater gains, that trend is not expected to continue. While the National Association of Realtors expects the market for new and existing homes to remain strong, it also foresees a price appreciation of a more modest 5%.

What this means is that while the long predicted bursting of the housing bubble has not happened (and many experts believe it will not occur), there are definitely indications that the easy money has already been made.

Harder to sell now

Other sign that the optimum time to sell a home may be past is the fact that inventories of unsold homes are on the rise, with the fastest rise seen in some of the hottest real estate markets. For instance, the inventory of unsold homes in the suburbs of Boston has raised by more than 50% since January 2005, according to the MLS Property Information Network, Massachusetts.

In past few years, sellers of even marginal properties were often able to realize more than the asking price, due to the frequent bidding wars that often broke out in the hot market. These days buyers will have greater room to negotiate, and to ask sellers for concessions such as help with closing costs. While the market is in no way dead or even in serious decline, it does seem to be becoming more of a buyer's market.

Moreover, many home owners may realize they can't even afford to sell after they do the math. There are costs involved in selling a house, this including loan payoff, real estate commission, closing cost, property tax, attorney cost and all these costs add up. Nevertheless, the common reason that home owners can't afford to sell is because they borrowed too much. (Find out what are the costs of selling a house here before you put your house on market!)

So, is this a good time to sell your home?

The run up in home prices over the past few years have left many homeowners, especially those living in hot markets, with tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential profits. The idea to cash in the house and make a tidy profit while hoping the market to cool with the intention to find some bargains later is a high stakes bet. Unless you're ' house flipping', otherwise it probably makes more sense for current homeowner, who is benefiting from a low mortgage rate, to stay where they are.

Real estate market has a cyclical trend with ups and downs. To cash out now so you can buy again in twelve or eighteen months later is similar to stock day trading. It is not an excellent idea to speculate for most people as they're not dealing with just money but with a real asset with real value. Most importantly, it is where the family is living in. And if home owner sells their house now, they just have to buy another house that's just as equally expensive if not more!

However, the move to sell now and make a profit is perhaps less risky proposition for those homeowners who are seeking to downsize their lifestyle or who are near their retirement, to move to a less expensive area. For example from New York City, to a less pricey market, such as Atlanta.

The key challenge in a hot market, even for homeowners with substantial gains, is finding a suitable property at an affordable price. Many homeowners have found that buying a smaller home is a good way to lock in the gain on an appreciated home, as is moving to a less expensive housing market. There are plenty of affordable housing markets left around the country. And those people moving to these areas are often quite surprised at how far their housing dollars can go.

Furthermore, there is always the rental market. In most of the hottest housing markets around the country, rental price appreciation has not kept pace with the rise in housing prices, meaning that many former homeowners are opting to rent for a year or two while they wait for home prices to stabilize. This can certainly be a good strategy, and it can leave smart homeowners with a great deal more home for their money in the long run.

Andrew is the web owner of "Home Selling Tips: How to buy and sell house fast", a website that provides informational guide on home buying, home selling, home mortgage loan, real estate investment and more. You can visit his website at: http://www.buy-and-sell-house-fast.com

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Writen by Sam D'costa

One of the hottest and growing real estate market in the country is Arizona. For the past six to seven years the investors have described the place "hot", due to the continuous rise in Arizona real estate prices that subsequently continues to attract buyers and sellers. It seems there's no slowing of Arizona real estate appreciation. Starting from single-family homes, condos or commercial properties prices in Arizona has climbed steadily and is still on the rise.

But even this unprecedented steady rise in home prices in Arizona doesn't seem to depress any buyers. Recent statistics have shown home buyers are offering an average of 90 to 95 percent of the asking price for purchased homes.

Arizona real estate appreciation is envied by other states. What is the secret behind the steady appreciation of Arizona real estate prices? The bottom-line definitely being the demand for homes in Arizona is relatively higher than the supply and the demand is increasing further to instigate the price shoot up. Some of the reasons are stated below for the continuing rise of real estate appreciation in Arizona.

Arizona is now a well-established community for retirees. Various recreational facilities like golfing, hiking, fishing and horse riding are within the scope of the people. Comfortable weather conditions and affordable cost of living makes Arizona a sought after real estate establishment. For retirees Arizona is a paradise with the quietness' of the mountains and harsh free winters.

Business boom in Arizona. Many modern companies have relocated in Arizona. One can also find renowned educational institutions in this region. Combined with superb climatic conditions, businesses find Arizona the perfect place to foster growth.

Compared to other states in USA, the real estate in Arizona is reasonably priced. The average home price in Phoenix is in the $300,000. Over the last 12 months the home values in Arizona has shown an appreciating rise of 25%.

No one can deny the profit potentiality in Arizona for real estate investors. This market has had a booming success in the last decade and is still on the rise. To investors, Arizona Real Estate is a great investment potential with a predictable demand for real estate in the future. As long as Arizona continues to showcase its favorable conditions, it is one of best in the real estate business.

Sam D'Costa is well known professional in Online Marketing and web promotions.

Arizona Real Estate

Writen by Michael Teo

In today's society where most people are living in an urban jungle, it is becoming more difficult to find a house with good feng shui. If we were to look around our surroundings, we will notice that we are living in an environment that is surrounded by lots of man made sha qi.

To assess the feng shui of a property, one must study the effect of the environmental energies namely, the external and internal environment. The external environment refers to the surrounding environment or the topography of the neighbourhood such as the buildings, roads, seasonal wind directions, water features, landscapes, vegetation, shape and qi of the land. In the internal environment, feng shui focuses on the physical structure of the property such as the outlook, shape, layout, the orientation of the main door, the interior décor, the location of the bedrooms, kitchen and toilets.

In the eyes of feng shui, negative energies from the surrounding environment is far more potent than the orientation, design or layout of the house. Not all forms of feng shui sha qi can be cured with the use of feng shui placement. In the event where a house is threatened by strong environmental sha qi, it would be best to look for a new place to move instead of using feng shui to fight with the forces of nature. For instance, if the house is situated next to a power transmitter, it would be very difficult to apply feng shui cure to neutralize the electromagnetic energy that is being emitted by the high tension cables.

If a homebuyer has decided on a potential property one should walk around the compound to study the topography of the neighbourhood and to assess the nature of sha qi that is present in the surrounding environment. By observing the greenery and health of the surrounding vegetation, it should give a fairly good indication about the qi of the property.

Avoid buying a house that has hostile hills (such as protruding rocks) or harmful structures that is pointing directly at the house. As a rule of thumb, it is also not advisable to live in close proximity to places like:

1) Power transmitter tower, telecommunication station and satellite disc
2) Police station and military camp
3) Hospital, mortuary, crematorium and casket
4) Overhead expressway and train tracks
5) T-junction, Y junction, cross road junction
6) Places of worship
7) Cemetery
8) Industrial park

Roads and highways are like the arteries of the terrain that carries the qi to each house. The flow of qi from the road is viewed to have the same effect as a river. Houses that is located near to a busy road or the airport will tends to feel the ground vibration from the fast moving traffic or low flying aircraft. These vibrations will cause the house to tremble, thereby, giving a psychological effect that the house is collapsing. A long-term exposure to such high intensity of air and noise pollution will undoubtedly affect one's rest, mood, health and destiny.

Here are some useful guidelines to evaluate the effects of destructive road patterns:

1) Avoid a house that is facing a T-Junction, Y-Junction or dead end road. The onrushing qi from the vehicles will affect the health and luck of the occupants.

2) Avoid a house that is facing a destructive knife like road or train track, which tends to bring misfortunes such as accidents, health problems and financial woes.

3) Avoid choosing an apartment that is situated directly above the entrance to the basement carpark. The constant movement of cars beneath the house will weaken the foundation of the house, thereby, affecting the health and luck of the occupants.

4) Avoid choosing a house that is overlooking the multi-storey carpark. The headlights from the moving cars will tends to shine into the house, which will in turn affect one's concentration, mood and luck.

Michael Teo (MBA) is the Master Consultant for I-Ching Feng Shui Consultancy (Singapore). To find out more about the ancient art of feng shui please click here http://www.iching-fengshui.com Email: michaelteo@iching-fengshui.com Article source: http://www.iching-fengshui.com/article1.htm