The overall economy- people decide to sell their house when they are deciding to move up the food chain. This is affected by their ability to get financing and the ability to receive a fair price for their existing house. If the market is down and they have to sell because of employment then they will be very cautious and may consider alternative such as leasing. They may choose to lease their existing house or they may choose to leased where they are heading.
 
Financing rates and terms- if the cost of moving affects people by 15% or more then they will not move or if the new employment will not allow then to keep the same discretionary income then they will not move.

The best economy- when the people can refinance and use that cash to pay for the equity for when they are moving. That way they can keep their cash flow as well as create equity in a house.

Based on these items I believe that 2008 will be a very good year but will not materialize until the primary’s are over and the people can determine where the politics will land. It doesn’t matter who will win it will only matter that we know what their overall impact will be.

-Tim Leadbetter

Chances are there aren’t any agents in California that specialize in vacation homes in Switzerland.   The idea of trying to find someone qualified in Switzerland is probably not to appealing to the prospective buyer.   

This is why having a working knowledge of international property is important.   There is an excellent site for researching real estate in international markets.   PropertyMagnate.com is a very useful site that has a plethora of information on this subject.   If you have a client that asks if you can help them finding a property abroad, you can now confidently answer “Yes!” with the help of Property Magnate!

The infusion of “foreign” money in the mortgage business thru Wall Street while ignoring the tested guidelines of the experienced mortgage industry has created the current “Sub-Prime” problems. That economic correction mixed with 2008 being an election year has a “perfect storm” feel about it.

 It seems similar to me to the day one of my lawyer friends stating, “I can invest in a restaurant, gosh I eat lunch out everyday so I know how they are supposed to work”. He lost over five figures in less than two years.

There is a big difference in managing a business on a day to day basis and being a visionary or planner of a healthy real estate deliver service.

In Charlotte I have heard that 50-65% of the clients would not use the same realtor for their next transaction. That doesn’t say much for the industry.

Today, information and availability of houses for sale or for rent can be accessed many ways. With the public information of deeds ownership and transaction information being digitally accessed from any search engine, the trip to the County Recorder is not necessary any more. We used to depend on databases created by and for realtors so that decisions could be made with relatively limited access.

But the main missing ingredient is the evaluation of this information. That needs to be done by an experienced person in order to see where values realistically are trending. Like they say, “Wisdom is the combination of knowledge and experience”. If either one if missing the evaluations should be suspect.

The assumption that values track a predictable pattern and that the past three months dictate the next few months is not valid. If you buy into that then everything should be predictable and we all know that is not true.

- Tim Leadbetter

We are excited to have Tim on board with us!  He has a wealth of knowledge to contribute.  You can learn more about Tim and his myriad of awards and accomplishents at the official Tim Leadbetter website.

He will be contributing here on a regular basis, so you should consider subscribing to this blog through your favorite rss feed reader.  We will be announcing more writers like Tim in the near future.  Stay tuned to Adison, as we are your source for great real estate education!

 If you are in college, or just graduated this past summer… stay tuned for great advice and insight through years of experience from seasoned professionals.  We are also compiling the real estate licensing procedure for each state, and will include some of the best real estate pre-licensing schools available.

The result of this new medium, is a more powerful and cost effective method to expose home listings to those looking for them.  A quick search on the internet for “Real Estate” will identify a huge number of websites, at last count there were over 300 million web pages connected with Real Estate. This shows just how many real estate firms and associated industries are benefitting from the power of the Internet.

So, where do you start? First, you need to understand that this is a very competitive area, so you need to find a niche, which is an narrow and specialized service that makes you stand out from rest. For example, you may want to go into the rental market, but this is also very competitive.   Let analyze what kind of niches there are in this market.  One option is to provide a service to property management companies and private landlords.  You can also focus on a geographic location. As you go through this process you start to narrow down the field of competition. Once you have identified your niche the next thing is to consider the strategy. How are you going to market your service? What will your services cost? I was in London 2 weeks ago, and noticed  an ad for a website on a mini-cab I hired.  It was a great example of an established niche.  The site is  Simple2rent.co.uk, and it focuses on London properties to rent.  That happens to be an incredibly competitive market. I learned that intially advertisers could list on the site for free.  That makes perfect sense. A site without listings won’t get very much traffic, and people won’t list on a site with little traffic unless it is free.  People are only willing to pay if you have something they want.  When listing real estate, people want exposure! 

Once you do establish your real estate niche you need to remember that the internet marketing is hard work.  You can not just set up your website and collect the revenues. You have to continually market and develop your services to keep ahead of the competition. Websites are not a “set it and forget it” type medium. The internet is the most cost effective method of marketing in real estate.  That is also the main reason why it is so competitive.  Finding the right niche that fits you is key to being successful. Another approach is to provide traditional Real Estate services via the Internet. Since we have been talking about England, I’ll use another example from the area. EnfieldEstates.co.uk is an Enfield Estate Agent service that brings the knowledge of local service and the power of the internet together. Carefully considering all options and assessing your strengths and weaknesses is important to finding the right real estate niche. You need to confident with this decision before you do anything else.

Mr. Hornung is a native Coloradoan, and served in the United States Marine Corps as a Cobra helicopter pilot.  He is a member of the  Re/Max Platinum Club, and also served as their Vice President of Business Development.  Mr. Hornung also holds the e-Pro designation, which is held by less than 1% of Realtors nationwide!  All Realtors who hold this designation have not only embraced technology in regards to real estate, but have demonstrated a level of expertise.

 Mr. Hornung has indeed displayed his internet expertise with the ultimate resource for Colorado Real Estate. Colorado Home Finder is probably one of the sharpest websites I have come across.  It really does have almost everything you could need.  This site has access to 257 Colorado Cities and their listings.  When I checked their were almost 52,000!  If you are interested in working in any of these cities, Colorado Home Finder is a great site to start your research.

 There is more than just listings on this site.  It has been designed as a one stop shop for anyone needing to buy, sell, or LEARN about Colorado Real Estate.   There is a searchable breakdown of every major Colorado Subdivision sorted by city, and gives you a current snapshot of the price range.  It also gives a just as detailed breakdown of Colorado High Schools, and will show you all homes available that are assigned to that school!  It does the same for all elementary schools, middle schools, zip codes, and just about any other parameter that is important to real estate.

Colorado Home Finder is based out of Boulder, but covers the entire state of Colorado.  If you are in the area, you might want to consider talking to Mr. Lane Hornung.  As with any state, you have to be licensed to practice real estate.   Your first step is taking the pre-licensing course.  A place you might want to check on for classes offered is the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  It is an excellent Colorado Real Estate School for those wanting to take the professional track.

Feel free to post some more school recommendations in the comments section.