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Miami Real Estate - The L Steps: 6 Steps of Investing
Real estate investing in Miami real estate is now becoming popular again as there are many properties in foreclosure, short sale, bank reo’s, and government foreclosures. With such an overwhelming inventory of homes available for sale a real estate investor must be able to determine which one to purchase. Investors must follow six steps in order to learn, understand and achieve Miami real estate investment success. These are the six L steps to Miami real estate investing: 1. Location - Location, location, location is still the key of buying Miami real estate. Buying Miami real estate just because the price is low in a declining area is big mistake that should be avoided. Look for homes in an excellent location like, good schools, economic stable and growing neighborhoods, near shopping centers and malls, near bus stops and metro rails, near hospitals and restaurants. Sometimes it is better to pay a little more for a property in a good location than getting a bargain in a place where it is very hard to sell or rent the asset. Location is often overlooked in purchasing real estate as many investor think they can overcome a bad location if the price is low enough. Out of two homes that are exactly the same, the one in the best location will command a much higher sales price and rental income. Location is the number consideration when purchasing Miami South Florida real estate. 2. Long Term - Real estate investing is a long term proposition. Don’t think you are going to be a millionaire over night. It takes years of hard work and dedication in order to succeed. Hold any property at least one year before selling it. Capital gain taxes will be greatly reduced. Consider renting the property for at two or three years. The rental income generated will help you to properly repair and renovate the property. Many investors purchased properties in the middle of real estate boom with no money down and no equity. These investors were thinking of flipping the homes fast and make a killing in the process. Many homes now in foreclosure are due to investors that were caught in the middle and now realize that real estate investing is very hard to time. Long term Miami real estate investing is the secret to a successful real estate career. 3. Lease Option - Never rent a property with a lease option to buy. Either sell or rent it straight out. A lease option usually is a disaster for both buyers and sellers. The tenant will demand a large discount of the rent to go towards the down payment and closing costs. The problem is that tenant will not buy the property at the end of the lease and the landlord/seller will have wasted a lot of money in rebates given to the tenant/buyer. Demand a 20% or 30% deposit from the tenant/buyer and a clause in the contract that if they default on the purchase they will lose the deposit. This technique will force the tenant/buyer to purchase the property or lose the deposit. The risk of losing the deposit will eliminate the tenant from taking advantage of the landlord by walking out of the contract after receiving a monthly rental discount. 4. Local - Buy real estate close to where you live. Don’t buy real estate in another state or in another country. Keep real estate investing local. Buy in your own county and in your city. The more you know about the area where you are buying the better the decision will be. The investor should always be close to the investment property. The Miami real estate investor should inspect the property often to determine any repair, roof and other problems. The landlord must inspect the property every month when collecting the rent. Check for the number of tenants actually living in the property, check for damages and destruction of the property and overall condition of the place. The investor/landlord will not be able to inspect and determine the condition of the property if it is located far away. Keeping real estate local is an essential step in real estate investing. 5. Leverage - Most real estate books and seminars tell you to use other people’s money when purchasing real estate. This technique is not the best and buyers should try to buy the property in cash if at all possible. Buying a house in cash will help you get a better deal and allow you to negotiate from a position of strength. A cash buyer will always have the upper hand in negotiating with banks, property owners, and other sellers. Cash buyers will not suffer and go into foreclosure if the market turns and they are unable to sell or rent the house right away. Like Dave Ramsey always says “cash is king and debt is dumb”. Buying an investment property in cash is an excellent way to avoid Miami real estate investment mistakes. 6. Learn - Research the property and learn everything about it before you buy. A mistake in Miami real estate investing can be very costly. Usually you make your money when you buy not when you sell. Buying the property at the wrong price the wrong place and at the wrong time could be detrimental. One mistake could wipe you out and put you out of business before you start. Ask questions to the experts, real estate agents, appraisers, mortgage brokers, and other real estate investors. Learn, research, educate yourself in all aspects of real estate investing before you purchase the asset. It is definitely a buyers market in Miami-Dade County. Miami real estate investors have more choices than ever before when it comes to real estate investing. Investors must follow the L steps, the 6 steps real estate investor guide to successful real estate investing in order to achieve their investment goals in the Miami real estate market. Hector Lesende is owner/licensed real estate broker in Miami, Florida and creator of the (Lesende) L Steps. Please visit <a href="http://www.lesende.com/">Miami Real Estate </a> We will sell your home fast. We offer a Foreclosure List. Search <a href="http://www.lesende.com/blog">Miami Real Estate Blog</a> Search <a href="http://www.lesende.com/coral-gables-real-estate.php">Coral Gables Real Estate</a>
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Business Personal Property Valuation
Business personal property (BPP) can be challenging to value because of the limited quantity of data available and primary reliance upon the sales comparison approach. Relatively speaking, a voluminous quantity of data is available when valuing real estate as opposed to valuing business personal property. Many real estate appraisals consider three approaches to value: cost approach, sales comparison approach and the income approach. By contrast, most business personal property appraisals depend primarily upon the sales comparison approach. While it is possible to develop a reasonable estimate of the market value for business personal property, the values tend to be more subjective than the value of real estate. The sales comparison approach depends upon principles of substitution and supply and demand. Purchasers of business personal property will seek alternatives and choose the alternative most beneficial for them considering cost, quantity and quality. For real estate, comparable sales data is available with in-depth descriptions of the real estate, including quantity and quality. For business personal property, is more difficult to obtain accurate information regarding the quantity and quality of property involved in a sale. For example, assume the XYZ Company recently closed its Chicago operation and sold the furniture, phone system, network servers, personal computers and related items for an office with 30,000 square feet of space and 120 employees. The sales data includes the quantity of desks, chairs, file cabinets, personal computers, network computers, etc. However, it does not contain precise information regarding the condition and age of each of these items. Real estate is more homogeneous and easier to describe versus the sale of a quantity of business personal property. Real estate appraisers often gain insight from preparing each of the three approaches to value for real estate assignments. However, personal property appraisers typically focused primarily upon the sales comparison approach. They do not have the benefit of contrasting the value conclusion via the sales comparison approach with values via the cost approach and income approach. It is important to define the asset being valued. Referring back to our example of the XYZ Company which closed its office, is the assignment to ascribe a value to each item as though it is going to be sold individually or is it to assign a value to the aggregate collection of furniture, computers and equipment? An alternate approach would be to define a value based upon selling subsets of the whole. For example, the furniture to one purchaser and the computers and phone system to a second purchaser. The definition of value also substantially affects the value conclusion. Market value would typically be defined as the value assuming both the buyer and seller are knowledgeable regarding the property, neither the buyer nor seller is under distress to buy or sell and an adequate amount of time is allowed to market the property. A liquidation value would also assume that both buyer and seller are knowledgeable regarding the assets. However, it would assume a very brief period of time to sell the property. Value in use describes the value of the assets to the current owner. It is not indicative of what a third party would likely pay to purchase the assets. In addition to performing an appraisal to estimate the market value of business personal property, other techniques sometimes considered for valuing business personal property are IRS depreciation schedules and appraisal district depreciation schedules. These may or may not result in a value conclusion that is similar to market value. However, it is the writer’s experience that they typically produce a value in excess of true market value. To obtain a quote or further information for a business personal property valuation, contact us at 713-686-9955 The appraisal division of O’Connor & Associates is a national provider of commercial property real estate appraisal services including cost segregation studies, highest and best use analysis, due diligence, gift tax valuation, commercial real estate appraisal, lease abstraction, insurance valuations, business personal property valuations, business purchase price allocations, single-family litigation support and business valuations.Patrick C. O'Connor has been president of O'Connor & Associates since 1983 and is a recipient of the prestigious MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute. He is also a registered senior property tax consultant in the state of Texas and has written numerous articles in state and national publications on reducing property taxes. He continues to set the standard in direction and quality of our appraisal products, adding services ranging from business valuations and business appraisals to cost segregation analysis for income tax reduction. Patrick C. O'Connor <a href = "http://www.poconnor.com">www.poconnor.com</a>
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Selling Your Own Home In A Tough Real Estate Market - Five Tips
If you are in a tough real estate market and are looking to sell your home quickly, you might want to consider doing a For Sale By Owner. My wife and I recently bought a new house and after trying unsuccessfully to sell our existing house through a real estate agent for several months decided to try For Sale by Owner. We found a buyer within four days and closed on the house three weeks later. However, through our experience we discovered a few things. Here are a few tips if you are considering a FSBO in a less than ideal real estate market. 1. Consider paying to have your home placed in the MLS. There are several companies out there that will do this for a few hundred dollars. With sales down, real estate agents are desperate to earn a commission. By putting the house in the MLS you are agreeing that if an agent brings a buyer to you that you will pay the agent their part of the commission (you still save the listing agents commission). If you can sell the house on your own with no agent then you won’t have to pay an agent. However, in a tough market you want as many possible eyes on your property as possible. 2. Get the word out to as many places as possible about your house. One of the best places to do this is on the internet. There are dozens of free websites that will allow you to post your house for free. Consider starting with craigslist since it has so much traffic and then spread out to the other sites on the net. It will probably take you an entire evening to get the house posted on all the sites and you will want to keep a spreadsheet with your usernames and passwords so that you can go back later and remove the listing once the house sells. 3. Design a professional looking flyer and put out for sale by owner signs and a flyer box. If you aren’t the artistic type and don’t know that much about designing things like flyers consider a site like vflyer which will give you templates for designing a flyer. Take some good pictures of the house with your digital camera and put them on the flyer. If you use Vflyer or a program like it you can probably use the same template to post the house to craigslist and ebay (if you decide to pay for a listing). 4. Be creative. When we put our house on the market we ordered an eight foot full color printed banner to put on our fence. Our house backed to a major street and we were able to get some major exposure from the banner. I have heard of people offering free vacations, big screen tvs, cash bonus’ to the listing agent and even a free car. I have also heard of people giving away a cool prize at their open house. These things can help get your house noticed which is the first step to getting it sold. 5. Make sure that your price is competitive. Consider using the money that you are saving on real estate commissions to cut the price of your house so that it is more competitive. In tough markets it is going to be very important that your house isn’t priced too high or people will find another option. In our area there were a ton of houses on the market and most of the houses that were selling were 5% or more undervalued. If that is what it takes you might need to swallow hard and cut the price of your house. Of course all of these things are just suggestions. Still, when things get tough and you need to sell your house these could be an option for you. They worked for us.Jeff McRitchie is the director of marketing for MyBinding.com and lives in Hillsboro, Oregon. He writes extensively on topics related to Binding Machines, Binding Supplies, Report Covers, Binders, Index Tabs, Laminators, Laminating Pouches, Roll Film, Shredders, and Paper Handling Equipment.
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