Archive for August, 2008
Why there are no Escalators in Government Buildings
Click the Link Below and Smile. We don’t know the source, but we certainly enjoyed the humor.
Click the Link to Enjoy a Short, Funny Video Clip.
Have a Safe and Happy Labor Day Weekend.
Thanks as always for visiting InfoTube.net
6 Tips for Pricing Your Home to Sell
Winner of the Best Sign Award
The first thing buyer’s ask is “How much is your asking price?” If the price is too high, the buyer will quickly lose interest. If the price is too low, you will quickly lose money.
In order to price a home correctly, you must understand your local real estate market and your competition. The goal is to set an asking price that successfully competes with homes that are comparable to yours. Setting the correct price is easy to do, if you follow these 6 simple steps.
Step 1. Get to Know Your Competition: Drive through your neighborhood, and other area’s that compete with yours. Identify the homes on the market that are similar to the one you are selling, with approximately the same size and age as yours, with the same number of bedrooms, baths and lot size. Visit local real estate websites, infotube.net, realtor.com, zillow and trulia to verify property details, square footages, asking prices, etc. These website can also help you find a complete listing of all homes that you may not have found on your drive by search.
Step 2: Tour Open Houses: Visit as many open houses as you can to see for yourself how your home compares. Learn as much as you can about the condition of these homes, such as upgrades done to the kitchens, baths and bedrooms.
Step 3: Find Recently Sold Properties: To correctly price your home, you need to know what others like it have actually sold for. To find out this information, you can visit your local tax assessors office, as housing data is public information. The internet can also cut down on your homework. Many tax assessor offices provide housing data online. You can also educate yourself by reviewing the “Recently Sold” feature at Zillow and Trulia. While these technology websites don’t have data for every location, they do cover most of the country.
Step 4: Add and Subtract: You now have information about property currently on the market and data for recently sold homes. Evaluate the asking and sales prices, property details, neighborhood ammenities and ask yourself how your home measures up?
Step 5: Be Honest and Impartial: This is the hardest step for anyone attempting to value their own property. Even Realtors, who price homes for a living, are notorious for overpricing their own homes. Forget about what houses sold for in the past. In most area’s, prices have decreased 15-20 percent in the past year alone. Price your property inline with your competition or it will simply sit on the market. Only competitively priced homes are selling in this market and buyers will only purchase what they perceive to be a good deal.
Step 6: Set Your Price: You have a complete picture of all the homes that compete with yours in the marketplace. Price your property aggressively from Day One on the Market. Pay attention to the effect subliminal pricing has on buyers and play to it. If your competition is priced at $250,000, price your home at $249,000, for example. Use your knowledge to to set a price that buyer’s can’t afford to pass up.
Congratulate yourself on a job well done!!! Not only have you determined an asking price for your property, you’ve become an experienced expert in your local scene. With your knowledge and sense of the competition, you will be able to honestly communicate about your homes’ advantages and disadvantages, when comparing it to other houses in the area.
Thank you for visiting InfoTube.net.
How to Protest Your Home’s Property Tax Assessment
This is how You See Your House
Your Banker See
Your Tax Assessor See
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Are the measurements of your property accurate? Accessments are based on a price per square foot basis, so make sure you aren’t paying for a larger lot or home than you own.
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Verify the accuracy of the number of buildings shown on the assessment roll.
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Are you being assessed for any improvements you DON’T have, such as central heat and air, garages, fireplaces, basement, bathrooms, etc.
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Is the stated age of the structure correct? If not, the depreciation may be incorrect.
Second, you need to do some research and provide key information at your assessment hearing. Generally, you will need to show…
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Sales information about comparable properties in your neighborhood. You can obtain this information from a realtor, your tax office or websites such as Zillow.com (Note: Zillow is a national database and their information should be verified with a local source.)
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Make adjustments for special features such as pools, tennis courts, lot sizes, etc. and note age if you have one of these features, too. A 20 year old tennis court should be accesssed for less than an new one, for example.
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Check the condition of the property and take pictures of any problems that would require repair before you sell.
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Gather bids on the costs to make the repairs and deduct the amount from the comparable properties.
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If you don’t want to do the research, hire a licensed appraiser to do the work. An actual appraisal is inexpensive. One that is less than 3 months old works the best, if you need to argue your position.
If after doing research, you believe your assessments are too high, schedule an appointment to appeal the valuation. Pay attention to the deadlines. If you miss the deadline, you will be stuck paying the higher tax.
Appealing your tax assessment is your legal right. You deserve to be treated with respect and the tax offices’ job is to work with you, not against you. With a little preparation and patience, you can get your tax bill lowered.
Thanks, as always, for checking with InfoTube.net. If we can help you, let us know. If you have a story or advise for us, we always appreciate hearing from you.
Home Sellers Make More Money when Agent is NOT Involved
- InfoTube homes for sale
Asheville, NC – August 22, 2008- A study, conducted by the well respected Consumer Reports publication, found that home sellers who used a real estate agent made less money than sellers who sold by owner. The report also found that nearly all of the people who sold ‘by owner’ received near their original asking price
“This is great news for people who need to sell their home”, said Tommi Crow, President of Crow Erickson, Inc and InfoTube.net. “Consumer Reports published a well researched and unbiased article that clearly finds home sellers are financially better off selling their home without an agent.” Real estate commissions take a huge bite out of the money sellers receive at closing. For example, a typical real estate commission would erase about $18,000 of equity on a $300,000 home.
The September 2008 Consumer Report findings are similar to the results from studies conducted by Stanford and Northwestern Universities. All three studies concluded that “for sale by owner” (fsbo) sellers made more money than sellers who used an agent.
“The release of this study is very timely news for some, and life changing news for others,” said Crow. Zillow.com recently reported that nearly 30 percent of the people who purchased a home in the last 60 months, now owe more money on their home than it is valued at. Furthermore, Zillow found that 45-60 percent of buyers, who purchased in 2006, are upside down.”
“For fortunate homeowners that have a lot of equity, the possibility of keeping more money from their home sale is great news. For the unfortunate, who have little or no equity in their homes, the report offers real hope in knowing they can clearly sell their property for a realistic asking price, without paying commissions they can not afford,” added Crow, also a real estate broker for over 20 years.
About Crow Erickson, Inc
Crow Erickson, Inc. is a privately held corporation founded in 1988. The company manufactures outdoor marketing products used in the real estate industry and for a variety of purposes. Its brand name products are Made In the USA and can be purchased at The Home Depot, Lowes Hardware, ’neighborhood’ hardware franchises, sign companies, for sale by owner companies, Boards of Realtors and other business locations from coast-to-coast.
The company website, http://www.InfoTube.net, offers free real estate marketing services, online shopping and a retail store locator. Its services include free internet classified listings, free color brochures and flyers, free legal forms and contracts, home tour video’s, opt in email services for home buyers and sellers, a community forum, blog, 5. MLS listing services, marketing tools and replacement parts for its products.
®InfoTube is a registered trademark of Crow-Erickson, Inc.
Show Off Your Home on the InfoTube.net Homepage
InfoTube homes for sale
InfoTube.net showcases Featured Home Video Tours on its Homepage.
The user submitted Video Tours rotate on the home page in random order, with a new video appearing upon each visit. Video’s are also uploaded to YouTube, one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web, automatically.
“Thousands of visitors begin their search on the InfoTube home page,” said Tommi Crow, President, “this is an ideal time for home sellers to showcase their property in a high traffic location.” Because the service is new, only a few video’s are in the space right now. “The timing couldn’t be better for seller’s to enhance their listing with video, and spotlight it on our home page” said Crow.
Video is the future of real estate marketing, so grab your digital camera and show us what you Love about your house. You have nothing to lose and a lot of additional exposure to gain.
Thank you visiting InfoTube.net and good luck on the sale of your home.
6 Signs of a Lousy Real Estate Agent
At InfoTube.net, we strive to help home owners sell their property, whether it is listed by owner or listed with an agent. Sellers, who can afford the luxury of a full service real estate agents, often get less expertise and help than they deserve and pay for.
6 Ways to Determine that you Hired a Crummy Realtor or Real Estate Agent:
- Bad Behavior: Each state has a real estate association that moniters agent behavior and tracks compliants. Check the agents record before you hire them. If you are already working with an agent that you suspect has acted in an ethical or unlawfile manner, contact your state association to review compliants from previous customers. The state association also tracks criminal behavior by agents.
- Part-Timers: If you are willing to pay thousands of dollars in fee’s to a real estate agent, make sure they aren’t a waiter in real life. Just because an agent is licensed, it doesn’t mean real estate is their full-time job. Insist on a seasoned, full-time agent, before you give up six percent of your sales price. The 6 percent real estate monopoly means they all charge the same amount to sell a home, so hire a pro.
- No Contact: When you are spending big bucks to sell your home by agent, instant communication is a “must do”. If your agent doesn’t return calls in a timely manner, use email, or they have only one contact number…the relationship won’t work. The last thing a seller needs in a bad market is to find they lost a buyer to the competition because no one could reach the listing agent.
- Insists You Use Their Partners: Realtors who insist or push a particular lender, inspector, title company, mover or lawyer, are likely receiving “kick backs” and making undisclosed money. Agents scamming a referral fee should send up a huge red flag. It’s your money, so you should use the services of whoever you want in your transaction.
- Clueless: Good Realtors are not the shy, quiet type. They are sales people and they are full of advice. If your agent makes no suggestions about improvements, drippy faucets or something…they are probably not fully engaged in selling property. If they don’t firmly recommended a sales price and have facts to back it up, they probably don’t have the experience, confidence or personality to get the job done.
- Push In House Listings: Some real estate brokerages hold listings “in house” for some time, giving their company a chance to “double dip” and earn both the listing and selling commission. Avoid brokerages who push in house listings and Insist that your property be placed on the MLS immediately upon signing of the listing agreement. This questionable business practice is also known as a “pocket listing”. Agents who pocket list harm buyers by limiting the inventory they can select from, and cost sellers time and money by limiting their exposure to all buyers in the market and increasing the odds the listing will look stale, once it is placed on the MLS.
InfoTube.net has thousands of home listed for sale by owner and by agent. Search our database of fresh listings today and if you want the advantage of the MLS without paying 6 percent of your sales price in fee’s, get a low, flat fee MLS and sell today for thousands less.
Thanks for visiting InfoTube.net and good luck on the sale or purchase of your home
Create a Video Tour of Homes for Sale
InfoTube.net homes for sale website, combined with a flat fee MLS listing places your property in front of millions of home shoppers each month. But, in a difficult housing market with far to few buyers and far too many sellers, there is another way to reach millions of new buyers per month…Video.
Making a Video about the benefits of living in your home is easy and fun to do. Dust off that digital camera you don’t often use, and put it to work selling your home to a whole new audience.
Tips for Shooting a Good Video Home Tour without Editing:
- Plan Your Tour and Your Shots: Decide what property features are important and how you will highlight them visually. Make sure you clean and stage the area’s that will be on video so your house looks its best. Plan the order of the shot in the same sequence as someone would tour the home. Start with the front walk up, entry, etc. to make your video easy for the viewer to follow.
- Get familiar with your camera. The on-off switch, zoom and record buttons. You can pause between scenes by touching the “shoot” button and resume filming by touching it again. (Practice a little to see how the camera works inside your home.)
- Use the video camera like a still camera. You can walk with a camera, but the video will be shaky. Keep the camera as still as possible. A tripod is an excellant tool used to steady the shot.
- Shoot 3 Basic Shots of each Feature: Start with a Wide Shot to establish the location. Zoom slightly to use a Medium Shot to follow action or frame a view or scene. Use a Close Up shot to show off a detail or something special.
- Watch how much you zoom. The camera registers better if you move closer to the subject, versus just zooming in. Also, avoid using the zoom if you are hand holding the camera. You won’t be able to keep a steady shot.
- Try to shoot at least 10 seconds for each shot. If you are panning the scene, 10 seconds will produce a nice flow and the viewer won’t get sick trying to watch while the room spins.
- Lighting is a must. Do not shoot toward a bright window. Lower the blinds and turn on all the lights, if you can’t get another angle. Lamps or drop lights aimed at the subject and positioned behind the camera are an ideal way to light your space. If shooting outdoors, try a cloudy day, early morning or late afternoon when harsh sun won’t wash out color and details. Also when shooting outdoors, make sure the subject is facing the sun.
- Plan to bring emotion and life into your presentation. Include historical facts, neighborhood shots, nearby attractions, special views, street scene’s, neighborhood schools and parks, splashing hot tubs and roaring fires. Add fresh flowers in the kitchen and dining room. Set the dining room table. Place candles around tubs and fireplaces. Add color outdoors with inexpensive hanging baskets or pots of flowers. You don’t need to plant them unless you want to. You can hide the pots in the dirt or behind shorter plants.
- Time the Video. The majority of viewers will not sit through a video longer than 3 minutes, unless it is really compelling.
- If can have a lot of fun Editing, if you have a newer computer. Movie Maker is Free on Microsoft software. IMovie is free on Apple. While you don’t have to edit to make a great video, editing is great for adding captions, music or voice overs, or selecting the best scene. We will discuss editing and special effects later next week.
Video’s don’t sell a home all by themselves, but they certainly attract serious buyers. Do yourself a huge favor and upload your home video tour to InfoTube.net today…we will put it on Youtube for you.
Show and Sell with Free Home Tour Video’s at InfoTube.net
This video done by a home owner in Tybee Island, GA is a great example of using video to sell a home. This video has been viewed more than 950 times.
The owner did a great job of giving the local flavor and outdoor activites in the area. He also did a good job of showcasing his home and all it has to offer.
InfoTube.net invites you to upload a video of your home and neighborhood, today. We will upload it to YouTube for you.
Thanks for visiting InfoTube.net and upload those video home tours today. Buyers are waiting.
Real Estate Rule of 15: Should I buy or rent this house?
“Should I buy or rent??” is question people are asking themselves a lot these days. The answer can often be found by using the Real Estate Rule of 15.
Here is how the Rule of 15 works for real estate investors:
- Determine the rental rates for the area you are interested in. Rental rates can be found at Zillow, Trulia or a new fun website Rentometer.
- Calculate how much you would pay in rent for one year. (Example: $1000/month x 12 = $12,000/yr)
- Multiple the annual rent by 15. (In our example, $12,000/year x 15 = $180,000.
- Look up and compare the asking prices of comparable properties in the same area.
- If the sales prices in the area are higher than the annual rent times 15, the location is still over priced for the market and prices will continue to fall. In other words, keep renting and banking cash.
- If the sales prices of homes in the area are lower than your annual rent times 15, the market has probably gone through most of the bust cycle and if may be safe to step in and buy.
If you want to dip into your local housing market, make sure you do the research before you buy. There is a lot of inventory to consider, including a vast pool of foreclosures and distressed property. The best advise is to proceed, but do so with caution and all the facts.
Thank you for visiting InfoTube.net. Don’t forget about our new video uploads . It easy and fun to create a virtual open house for your home. With our free Youtube uploads it also means you attract a whole new audience of home shoppers.
Show and Sell!!
Real Estate Agent’s Cut Their Commissions
The September issue of Consumer Reports magazine has some great news for home sellers. Haggle on the real estate commission before you sign a listing agreement.
The 3 year study released Monday by the respected, non-profit group found that:
- 71% of home sellers were successful in getting the agent to reduce their fee.
- Seller’s who paid a 3% commission were just as satisfied with the job performance as those who paid the “traditional” 6% fee.
- Seller’s who paid the most commission, ironically had the most regrets about their selling experience.
- Nearly one-third of home sellers said they should have been more aggressive when negotiating the commission they were charged.
- Over half of the 9141 polled responders reported they paid less than a 6 percent commission to sell their home by agent.
- Re/Max and independant brokers were more willing to deal and lower their fee’s. 77 percent of sellers who listed with these firms reported that they cut the commission.
- 67 percent of Keller Williams, Prudential and Century 21 agents agreed to lower their fee’s, when ask. While only 64% of Coldwell Banker agents lowered theirs in response to the seller’s request.
- According to Consumer Reports, “We found that paying an agent a lower commission rarely had any effect on the sales price.”
- 82 percent of respondents sold with the help of an agent, and received an average price of $5000 below the asking price.
- 17 percent of respondents sold their home without an agent, and they reported receiving roughly the asking price for their homes.
- A shocking fact was also revealed in this report. Only 46 percent of home sellers attempted to negotiate the fee at all.
In conclusion, if cutting the costs of sell your home is important, it pays to haggle, negotiate or walk away if you are not successful in getting an agent to reduce their commission. Nearly all Agents will cut their fee’s or you can easily find one who will .
Another alternative for sellers in tough times, list on the MLS , act as your own agent and save a bundle of cash.
Thanks for checking in with www.infotube.net . We appreciate your business, feedback and questions.
InfoTube.net and Youtube.com a Great Combo for Home Sales
InfoTube.net launches “Do-It-Yourself” Home Video Tours starting Monday, August 4, 2008, as a part of our Featured Home Ad program.
Our goal with video is to drive buyer traffic and provide another avenue for seller’s to reach the largest audience possible. We will also automatically distributed all video’s to YouTube.com, as a part of our service.
Grab your digital camera or phone this weekend and create a movie about your property, neighborhood and home town. Video’s are easy to make and a lot of fun to watch. Best of all, today’s tech savvy home shoppers love video’s!!
Lights, camera, action, InfoTube. Let’s Show and Sell.
Thanks for visiting www.infotube.net and best of luck on your home sale.