Before Owning Rental Property You Must Know These Crucial Facts

Learn the important  5 steps to manage your tenant and rental property with this landlord guide.
Step 1: Find New Tenants for Your Rental Property
After buying your rental property, the first crucial thing is to make sure it doesn’t remain vacant. If you want to make money by owning rental property, you will need tenants for rental income.
Step 2: Interview and Pick Reliable, Rent-Paying Tenants
Recent studies have shown that choosing the right tenant can help you avoid up to 80% of your future headaches. There are 2 major steps in this landlord guide when it comes to picking your dream tenant: Credit checks and tenant interviews
When it comes to owning rental property, credit checks mean getting your hands on the credit report of potential tenants. Tenant interviews are effective for choosing pleasant and cooperative people as your tenant.
Step 3: Sign Your Rental Agreement and Collect Rent from Your Tenants
Now that you have found your perfect tenant, it’s time to seal the deal with a written rental agreement.
Make sure you and your tenant agree on a date and method of collecting rent. Most landlords accept their rent by cash, checks or Paypal.
Step 4: Keep Your Rental Property in Shape with Repairs
Owning rental property also means having to maintain in habitable condition according to your local housing safety and health standards. When it comes to property repairs, it’s important to know whether the landlord or tenant is responsible for footing the repair bills.
Step 5: End Your Rental Agreement Smoothly and Legally
How you can end your rental agreement depends largely on whether you have a periodic tenancy or a fixed term tenancy. Sometimes owning rental property means have to deal with nightmare tenants who don’t pay you rent or breaks the terms of your rental agreement.

Tags: Landlord, Leasehold estate, Money, Property, Rental, Rental agreement
Posted under Property Management

Why You Want To Be An Insurance Agent With The Internet Today

Why Sell Insurance Products
By far, insurance products are the most sellable items that you can sell. Unlike satellite dishes, insurance programs are necessary to existence. In fact, insurance programs like life insurance The good news is that many Internet-based companies for are offering free websites for their insurance agents. In some cases, some of them offer free sales leads, which gives insurance agents more time to actually sell their products than finding prospects. Some sites also sell their leads at a competitive price per lead while others offer both free leads and sold leads for selling two types of insurance programs.
Commission Vs Average Income
In 2006, insurance agents earned an average of $58,450 in commissions, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The actual commission that can be earned by an insurance agent will largely depend on the commission package of the insurance company or the brokerage company. Generally speaking though, an insurance agent can earn up to 10% on health insurance programs, and from 20% to 90% commission on life products on the first year of the policy.

Tags: Agency, Company, Financial services, Health insurance, Insurance, Investment, Sales, Website

Contents Insurance Crucial for Your Rental Property?

landlord contents insurance is a type of insurance coverage that compensates a landlord for property loss or damage. Contents insurance usually covers any fixtures, appliances, furnishings on the rental property that belong to you.
There are two types of contents insurance for landlords. Landlord contents coverage usually insures the landlord’s property in an amount ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.
As a landlord, you may be wondering whether landlord contents insurance is a worthwhile .
Choose Standard Landlord Contents Insurance if You Want Basic Protection
A standard policy typically protects you from damage caused to furnishings, appliances and fixtures during the normal course of a tenancy.
This coverage usually applies to normal wear and tear only.
Go for Accidental Landlord Contents Insurance if You Want More Protection
In contrast to standard insurance, accidental coverage will pay insurance proceeds for damages that may occur due to tenant negligence and other types of accidents or disasters. For instance, this type of coverage might apply if a tenant rips your sofa when moving out of the property or if a fire out break destroys your furnishings and fixtures.
Most insurance policies will provide coverage in the event of theft or vandalism, tenant negligence, fires, floods, storms, and explosions.
Landlord insurance will only cover furnishings that are provided by the landlord. If your tenant wants coverage for his or her own belongings, then they must buy a separate renter’s insurance policy.

Tags: Agents and Marketers, Business and Economy, Financial services, Insurance, Insurance policy, Investment, Property insurance, Wear and tear

Are Apartment Reviews Helpful?

Apartment reviews are an interesting strategy. However one must consider the source of the reviews. There are the ones that seem to dominate every review I’ve ever seen on the apartment internet sites and presumably, they are current or past apartment tenants themselves. I Movie reviews are going to be subjective to the individuals opinion as well but at least you get an educated third party critique that has their integrity to uphold.
Some tenants can be great & some unruly. There are a couple of types that need to be addressed, (I) is the tenant that is just plain rowdy, they have parties that cause disturbances, are loud and obnoxious and are only concerned about themselves. The constant complainer, the tenant that is always calling the office. Both of these can leave nasty reviews if they dont get their way and of course if they are reprimanded for their unruly actions. Unfortunately, on the apartment review sites, there is no real rebuttal system in place like on EBAY, where the Apartment management can comment on a complaint.

Tags: Christmas, Housing, Landlord, Law, Leasehold estate, Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town, Renting, Tenant Rights

Best Return on Investment real estate

Real estate! Real estate has been a time-tested vehicle for short and long-term wealth and income and that was LONG before the .com and tech stock busts. Average time is about two years to transition from corporate jobs to fulltime real estate investor.

• Both spouses contribute in some way to the real estate business.
• Investor possesses more than one profit-centered technique to make money in real estate.
• Commits to a continued investment in their real estate education.
• Feel that you DO NOT have to possess credit or money to make money in real estate.

Bottom-line is that this that now full-time real estate investor makes 2-3 times as much as the corporate executive.
Difference in the middle is called a profit and is our motto in real estate: FIND A GREAT DEAL!!!
If you’re not satisfied with the returns on your investment and you’re in real estate or considering to be aggressive in real estate, then divert those funds into launching your own marketing IPO! Being able to control your own financial destiny if you’re a competent real estate investor will result in what many of us already know….marketing is the best return on your investment!!
more information at wikipedia

Deal-Finding Strategies: The Good and The Bad

Good: The Multiple Listing Service. The MLS is essentially a catalog of all the properties listed for sale by brokers. The trick is to ferret out which properties have motivated sellers without making offers on all of them. I’ve honed this skill through years of translating agent lingo like, “Handyman’s special” (looks bad, smells bad, has at least one major system that doesn’t function).Coincidentally, these are the same properties that most agents prefer not to spend a lot of time with.
Bad: Direct mail to real estate agents. In 1994, I had the brilliant idea that I might be able to find MLS-listed properties even faster if I simply let agents know what I was looking for. So I purchased 1,200 agent names from the Board of Realtors and generated a 3-part mailing send to every agent in town.
The theme of this campaign was this: if you, Ms. Agent, have a property listed that fits my criteria, I’ll make an offer and you get to keep the entire commission. Out rolled my brilliant campaign -all mailed first class, incidentally – and in came the phone calls.
first, I’ll target only the 200 or so agents who list the types of properties I buy.
Good: Ads in the Yellow Pages. For 8 years, I’ve had an ad in the “real estate” section of the Yellow Pages. The sellers tend to be motivated, cooperative, and have unlisted properties.
Bad: Advertised FSBOs. Properties For Sale By Owner, a.k.a. FSBOs, are a favorite for some real estate investors. I, on the other hand, have never purchased a property from an owner who advertised his property for sale rather than calling me.
I’ve found several problems with trying to buy FSBOs. If you are buying expensive homes creatively, these sellers are ripe for the kind of solution you offer.

Tags: Business and Economy, For sale by owner, Major League Soccer, Multiple Listing Service, Real estate, Real estate broker, United States, Yellow Pages

The Moral? Stick with What works

Good: Flapping my gums. Luckily, talking – a lot – is something I have little problem with. Laugh if you will, but my willingness to talk about what I do to anyone who will listen – or even pretend to listen – has made me a lot of money. For instance, when my new hairdresser asked me what I did for a living, I responded that I buy and sell houses. His immediate reaction was, “really? How pretty do they have to be?” Long story short: I bought his unwanted junker house for $4,000 and sold it for $7,000 the same day. When my attorney wanted to know what type of assets I wanted to protect, I told him about my house-buying business. Four months later, he referred a client to me who sold me a $35,000 property for $12,000. You get the picture.
Bad: Using only one lead generator at a time. In my experience, it’s best to use at least 3 different ways of finding deals at the same time: preferably two you’ve used before with some success, plus one that you’re testing. Not knowing which of your deal-finding strategies are working, and which aren’t! If you’re going to spend money on flyers or ads or telephone pole signs or whatever, it’s very important that you pay attention to which methods are generating good leads, and which are duds. In looking over my own deals was very surprised to discover how many great deals came from attorney referrals – a strategy that I haven’t pursued aggressively, but will in the future. If you aren’t tracking your lead generators to discover which are working and which you should give up, you’re wasting time and money that could be put to use making you deals.

Tags: Barber, business, Economics, Kids and Teens, Money, School Time, Shopping, Social Studies

How much your Budget before you buy property

How much your Budget before you buy property

If you are going to buy a new house there are several details that you should refer before getting started .One of the highly imperative is your budget. Your budget plays a major role in buying a home and how you are going to move further. There are two different things that go into your budget. First, you need to look at your monthly income .If you are getting a steady paycheck then it is easy to move forward . On the other side if you are self employed it will be little bit complicated.

If you mess up this process you could end up in a bad situation. Now you know your monthly income , the next step is to consider your expenses. This includes everything from utilities to loans to money that you need for fun. When you know all of your expenses, you can then decrease that number from the money that you make each month. you can probably guess how much you can afford to a home. As you can see, a budget is very important if you are going to be buying a new home. Not only it will help you to prepare for the buying procedure, but it will also help you when you own your home . Sure, you may be able to get away without planning your budget but this is not a risk that you should be willing to take.

Tags: Budget, Forward, Home, HOUSE, Income, People, Personal Finance

The house Buying Process

Well to help buyers figure out that the information overload age need not apply to them when looking for and in buying a house, we have detailed the Buying Process for better peace of mind below… less chaos. This article is written in a state where real estate agents handle real estate transactions, so realize that in some states or counties an attorney is required.

1. Find Your Dream Home
After becoming pre-qualified or pre-approved with a lender, it is time to find a home that truly meets your needs and budget.
Use a local realtors office or internet property search solutions to access “All the Listings”. You can do this by typing into the internet the name of the city (and state, if needed) followed by the words “real estate”. Most local county boards will control how much data gets released onto the internet. Most realtor sites will “serve up” some version of the local Multiple Listing Service containing all the listings. Typically, these entities get property data either direct or in a “feed” from the local Board of Realtors in that County. If it’s a direct line, then data can be deemed “real-time”. If not, usually a day or two lag time of new listings going on will be rendered at your interface point of contact search solution. The bigger conglomerates compete with how you as the end user will eventually be connected up with which realtor. Both realtor and conglomerate may compete with the need to withhold enough information to still be able to entice you enough to get your contact information. Often times an individual realtor’s site will give out more data on listings than the big conglomerates because they already have some security of possible representation of business.
Email updates are when a new listing comes onto the market matching your criteria and you get a reference to that listing freshly emailed to you with all pictures and data relative to that new listing.
Select those homes or properties that are of interest.
If possible drive-by the listings to become accustomed to the neighborhoods, styles and curb appeal of your preference homes.
Depending on areas, sometimes a Key-Box will be attached to the home as a way for your realtor to access the home when an appointment was not able to be secured. If in an area, likelihood abound that many homes of the homes selected are on Key-Box, then less time is required and in some cases immediate showings can be arranged.
2. Become Educated
If you don’t contact a realtor first, do at least take time to get educated both about the real estate values by shopping online and about getting pre-qualified with a mortgage lender.
Maximize your opportunities to find the right home by eventually sharing your property wants/needs and timeframe with a realtor.
Your realtor can:

• Commit to your agent of choice for the best professional service because commitment reciprocates commitment and genuine service, which is maximizing your opportunities.
• Direct you to competent and reputable mortgage professionals to establish your comfortable home buying price range.
• Help with advanced search methods or tools.
• Help you to understand neighborhoods and home features and their value in today’s market, as well as relevance to your buying needs.
• Conduct information gathering and research on specific properties for you.
• Create a venue for home buying advice and counseling.
• Discuss current market conditions.

3. Get Pre-Qualified
Finding the right mortgage lender or bank can be trying. Often times a good realtor will give the best recommendation. Also, don’t forget the energy and possible long hours saved from shopping around for homes that don’t meet your needs and budget. Your lender will:

• Check your credit.
• Write a “Pre-Qualification” (Pre-Approval if you take extra steps) letter that strengthens your offer on a home or property.

4. Getting a Loan

• Proof of Income
• Employed – 2 year tax returns or W-2, 1 month pay stubs
• Self Employed – Federal tax return, profit and loss statement, 2 years balance sheet
• Retired – social security awards letter
• Other income
• Rental property – copy of lease
• 2 months bank statements
• Driver’s license
• Social security card
• Home Owners insurance information
• Bankruptcy information
• Proof of Earnest money check

Tags: Balance sheet, business, Business and Economy, loan, Mortgage, Real estate, Real estate broker