5. 06.
There are so many REO (Real Estate Owned) properties with banks that they are trying to sell them off at very deep discounts. These properties are obtained when the owner is not able to pay the mortgage and the bank decides to foreclose on the properties. These foreclosure properties are a great opportunity to make some money! What if you are not interested in buying the properties for you but you would like to make use of this opportunity to make some money for your self? It is possible and without any money of yours. There are two proven ways to make this happen.
The most important thing in real estate property - Location, Location, Location!!!
The first step is to identify a property in a good location and a reasonably good condition with repairs less than $15,000. Typically, properties that sell quickly have three or more bedrooms, one or more bathrooms, basement, yard and garage. This rule applies to properties anywhere After you identify the property, negotiate with the bank and bring down the price to at least 40 cents on the dollar. Your intention to flip it immediately should not be revealed to the bank. While some banks don’t mind that you are flipping “as is” (i.e., without any remodeling or fix up of repairs), others do.
Typically, a real estate is flipped “as is” using an assignment contract. Assignment contracts are written by adding the clause “and/or assigns” after the buyer’s name (either the individual buyer or the company’s name). For example, John Doe wants to flip a property “as is”, then the offer to purchase property for $40,000 will contain buyer’s name as “John Doe and/or assigns”. This clause gives the John Doe the authority to assign/sell the purchase contract to anyone for a fee (for example $10,000). So, now John Doe makes $10,000 by selling the contract Mary Smith and she can purchase the property for $40,000 from the seller. But the problem with banks is that they will not accept an offer to purchase document that has the clause “and/or assigns” after the buyer’s name.
So, how do you flip REOs “as is” without using any of your own money? You have two options:
1. Purchase Property to Land Trust: Land trust has several parts to it. The important parts for this article will be the Trustee and the Beneficiary. The trustee can be a reliable relative, friend or an attorney. The beneficiary has all the powers to this property and hence the owner. You have to inform the bank that you will be buying the property to a land trust. Normally, they will agree. If you (John Doe) are buying property at 123 main street, then in the offer to purchase, you will write the name as John Doe, 123 main street Trust, Trustee, exact vesting TBD at closing. The phrase “exact vesting TBD at closing” allows you to assign the beneficiary rights to anyone who pays you an assignment fee. You can tell the bank that you are not sure how many investors will be partnering in this deal and that’s why you have not mentioned the beneficiary. So now, they will allow you to purchase the property even though you do not have a beneficiary listed. The Trust does not have to be created before making the offer to purchase as long there is an intention to create a land trust later. If this is the first time you are using land trusts, then it is best to get help from a real estate attorney who has experience in land trusts because the rules can be different in different states in the US. The two keys to flipping properties successfully using land trusts are finding the right title company and the right attorney.
While you are negotiating with the bank, you can also start finding a buyer of this property. One of the easy ways to find a buyer is to post an ad in free websites like Craigslist and others. For example, you are purchasing a property that is worth $100K in its present condition. You managed to negotiate the price $40K. From Craigslist ads, you find your end buyer to purchase it from you for $50K. Request the buyer to pay you $10K so that you can add his/her name as the beneficiary. Tell the bank your buyer is your investor partner. After you receive the $10K from your buyer, put his/her name as the beneficiary. So, now you have made $10K profit without using any of your own money!
2. Double Closing: Double closing is when you are closing the seller and the buyer on the same day i.e., you are using the money from your buyer to close the property from seller and the difference between your purchase price and your sale price will be your profit. In one or two states, land trusts are not allowed and in a few others land trusts are frowned on. In such state you have to use double closing method. As mentioned in method 1, while you are negotiating you have to find a buyer using the same methods.
Here, you may lose some money in fees for closing costs and also if you have to bring money for a few hours from hard money lender, they (hard money lender) will charge you around $2000 to $3000 for this service. If you search on Google for money for a few hours until you close with your end buyer. To obtain these funds, there are no credit score and history checks. To summarize the two fees involved in this method of flipping: a) there are closing costs of around 3% of the sale price. b) The double closing funds fee of $2000 - $3000. You have to negotiate with the bank and your buyer in such a way that you make up for the loss in these two fees. It is good idea to inform the title company that you will be double closing. First, bring/wire the double closing funds to the bank/title company and pay for purchase of the property from the bank and get the title in your name. Next, have the buyer bring funds for the purchase of the property from you for a higher price. The difference between your purchase price and sale price minus closing costs minus the double closing funds will be your profit!
While banks frown on “as is” REO flipping, they are badly in need of clearing the properties from their ever growing inventory so sometimes they do not mind at all unless you make it too obvious by using the clause “and/or assign”. So it is best refrain from using this clause. Also, it is best to refer to your end buyer as your investor partner instead of making it obvious that you are selling your property to the end buyer. REO flipping is a great real estate opportunity with low risk. The banks are badly in need of selling their foreclosed properties so start contacting banks’ loss mitigation departments for REO properties in your area.
20. 05.
The Key to Improving Conversion Rates
With Internet Marketing, conversion rates are everything. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you pull in, if you don’t convert that traffic then you won’t make any money. You can market as much as you want but if you can’t close the deal then your business will fail. To help your business, here is the key to improving conversion rates.
Before we actually get to the one key to improving conversion rates, there are a few conversion rules that you have to know. One of the best ways to improve conversions is to add value to the deal. Give a special gift to anyone who decides to buy. Offer a discount on another product or give away a free service. Do anything you can to sweeten the deal.
Another great way to improve conversation rates is to create urgency with the purchase. In other words, give the person a reason to buy right away. Offer them a one-time deal or offer to knock 25% off if they buy within 24 hours. Create urgency anyway you can and your conversion rates will improve.
Yet another great tip for improving conversion rates is to make your offer unique. If what you are selling isn’t unique then you need to find an angle to sell it so that it seems like it’s completely original. If it is unique, or a part of the product is unique, then you need to make sure you highlight that part. You need to make the potential customer feel like you’re offering something that can only be gotten from you and your product.
While the above 3 tips are all great conversion tricks, they aren’t the actual key to improving conversion rates. In fact, a major part of conversion is just getting a reader from your content somewhere on the Internet to your site. For example, getting the reader from an article on Ezinearticles.com to your site where you can try to sell them something or try to get them to perform some other action. Taking them from one spot on the Internet to the place where you can try to sell them a product or service.
The above tips don’t help with this at all. But there is one key that will help get people to your site and will also help people buy what you’re selling. That one key is quality content.
Everything you do online has to be valuable. Your sales pages need to offer value to the reader or they will click away. Your videos, blogs, articles, social networking sites, and everything else online has to give people value. Otherwise, they’ll simply click away and you won’t make the sale. So don’t ever forget to always give readers valuable content. That is the key to improving conversion rates.
21. 04.
Get More Traffic through Bookmarking
Everyone wants more traffic to their site. Why wouldn’t they? More traffic means more exposure and more money. There are many ways to bring visitors into a Website too. And one of the best ways to get more traffic is through bookmarking.
There are sites on the Internet that are specifically for people to “bookmark” their favorite things on the Internet. For example, if you read an article you really like then you can go to one of these bookmarking sites and list that article. Then other people will see that you liked the article and that will encourage them to read it too.
Not only does bookmarking help people to see the content that was bookmarked, it also helps rank the content higher with the search engines. This is because every time something is bookmarked it creates another link back to that content. These are called “back links” and the more back links you have going back to something the higher that something will rank with the search engines.
The top bookmarking sites on the Internet are StumbleUpon, Digg, and Delicious. All of these sites are easy to use and bookmarking with them literally takes just a few seconds. All you have to do is sign-up for an account with each of them and then start your bookmarking. This, in turn, will get more traffic to your site through the bookmarking.
Every single time you create something new on the Internet you should bookmark it with all the sites. When you first put a new site on the Internet, bookmark it. When you create a new video, bookmark it. The same is true for articles, blogs, social networking pages and anything else you create and put on the Internet.
You should also pay attention to what other people do with your content. If someone else embeds your video on their site or uses any of your content on their own site then you should bookmark that site too. This will help you in the long run since you’re sending more traffic to your own content, just on a different site.
Again, bookmarking will bring in more traffic to your site. When you bookmark all the content you put on the Internet then more people will see the content directly from the bookmark and search engines will rank your content higher because of the extra back links.
