When selling your home, there are some things you need to remember to make sure that no one is inconvenienced or that your house is perfectly ready to be sold anytime! When on sale, the number one priority is for your house to be ALWAYS available for show. While this may seem to be inconvenient for you at times, you will be able to show your house to a lot of prospects and, thus, will enable you to sell your house faster.

Most real estate agents will call hours beforehand when showing your house to prospective buyers. However inconvenient it may be for you, the best decision would be to allow the agents show the house to the prospects as planned. Refusing might only lead you to lose a prospective buyer.

Here are other reminders for you when selling your home:

1. It’s Best Not To Be Home.

The prospective buyers will not be comfortable viewing your home when you’re around. They will feel like intruders. They may also not be up to being critical of the house because of the your presence.

If you cannot leave the premises, do your best to not intervene with the agent and guests. Try to remain out of sight. You can answer any inquiries from the agent or guests, but only when asked.

2. Turn On All the Lights In and Out Of the House.

Even if it’s broad daylight, turning on all the lights in and out of your house is recommended. The lights will help brighten up areas in your house which cannot be reached by natural sunlight. It will also prevent harsh shadows and will make your house more cheerful and bright to look at.

3. No Scented Sprays or Artificial Fragrances!

You never know if the guests are allergic to certain scents or fragrances. It may also offend others. If you want a pleasant smell around your house, opt for something natural. Or you can have a potpourri pot. You can also try turning on your stove burner or oven for a moment and putting a drop of vanilla extract on it.

4. Keep Your Pets Controlled Or Take Them With You.

To let the agents freely take the prospective buyers on a tour around your home, it is best for you to take your pets with you outdoors. It is not recommended for pets to go running around the property. Some prospects may not be too keen on having pets, or may be allergic.

It is also better to have a notice put up. If you cannot take your pets with you, keep them in safely penned area on your backyard. For household pets, you can put them in a room and put a sign on the door stating about the pets.

5. Keep Everything Tidy and Clean.

Make sure to empty your trash bins every time prospects come. Go through the bedrooms and see to it that the beds are made, and the curtains are well placed. Papers and scatters should be picked up and stacked neatly where it belongs. Do not leave empty glasses, saucers, or any unnecessary stuff around the house. The house has to be freshly dusted and swept or vacuumed. It is important for the house to be clean and to present it with a positive atmosphere.

The buyers from today’s housing market can be described as more choosy and picky when they choose a property. This means that selling a house in today’s property is done with more caution and with a more detailed outlook.

Three factors determine what makes a good house to live in. Buyer usually take these into consideration when choosing a house that they would like to buy and live in.

Location: Location is the first thing that the buyers think of. They decide on an area of the town that would be most ideal for them to live in and start from there. If the property you’re selling is in this kind of area, chances are you’ll have many prospects to sell the house to.

Price: Price is always an issue in any market. Buyers always look for properties that are accessible and ideal while at the same time affordable for their pockets. Considering the price is especially essential today because of the recession and the ups and downs of the housing market.

Presentation: This automatically includes repair and staging the house. Buyers won’t just choose a property over location and price. Buyers today are picky; they will choose a house that they see and feel is right for them. With this in mind, you have to present the house you’re selling in a simple yet affecting manner. You have to present the house in a way that the buyers will be able to see its fine points and potential.

Staging a home also has its challenges. People may look at it as decorating the home to attract buyers, but there is actually a difference between staging and decorating. Staging focuses more on depersonalizing the home and in selling the space rather than the personality that the previous owners of the home had put into it. Staging dwells more on making a clear flow what the home can offer. Decorating, on the other hand, is personal, and ‘personal’ is not something that staging creates; ‘personal’ is what staging makes a path for.

There are four challenges in staging that home stagers may encounter:

1. The owners would rather have the decorations as it is. Nothing changes and nothing moves out of the room.

There are just some sellers who want the properties to be sold as is and you as the stager cannot force them to change it. About the only thing that you can do at this point is to show them the value of having to change things. Do not leave it to their imaginations. It is important that they see it for themselves. You can try to convince them by citing your experiences as an example and showing the sellers some of your previous projects.

2. Another challenge is when the house has already been listed for many months before the seller calls for a stager.

This becomes a problem because this means that many prospective buyers have already been to the property and has seen the house. It would have already been too late for these buyers to see the potential of the property. The house should be staged before it is listed. It may hove lost its selling momentum already when a stager is called months after it was on the market.

3. Some rooms in the house may give headaches to stagers because they are cramped and stuff are all cluttered around.

In staging, showing lots of space while emphasizing the good points in the room is what matters most. The clutter has to be sorted out and removed. You can use some of the furniture and things (lamps, desks, chairs, etc.) to highlight the main purpose of the room and to focus on its finer points. But always remember that space is important to give the buyers an idea of what they may want to add to it when the property becomes theirs.

Multifunction rooms are another headache. These rooms often give a confused layout and can leave people wondering what they’re supposed to do with so much space. Where would their couch go? What about the dining table?… Multifunction rooms are even more confusing for the buyers when it is vacant. This is why stagers must make use of furnitures and designs to show buyers the possibilities in using the rooms. They can set the couch here and position the table there to give the buyer an idea of how to bring out the beauty and flow of the room.

4. A home with nothing in it is also a challenge for home stagers.

In staging a home, you need to bring out a feeling or an impression from the buyers when they see the house. Showing them a bare and lifeless home is not going to achieve this goal. Vacant homes only give confusion to the buyers. They will wonder what they can do with this room or if they need to have that room. To give some life and feeling into the room, you may need to rent some furniture. Get only those that are important. Remember to focus on selling the home and space and not the furniture.

In every property that you’re going to invest in, you’ll have to go through a real estate agent. Working with a real estate agent can be critical in your career as a real estate investor. It is important to have a harmonious working relationship with th real estate agent and push towards your goal in real estate investment.

Choosing a real estate agent, or realtor, is especially important when you are specifically investing in a certain real estate niche. For instance, if you are only looking for properties that can be turned into lease options, then you would want a real estate agent who can find a seller or property that fits your terms.

Choosing a Real Estate Agent

There are four main factors that influence your choice of real estate agents:

• the reputation of a real estate agent
• the real estate agent’s knowledge on the area or market
• the real estate agent’s associations or connections
• the professional designation held by the real estate agent

Considering all four, it is recommended that you choose a real estate agent who has established a commendable portfolio and is working for a successful firm or organization. A seasoned real estate agent would naturally already be learned on how the market works and has considerable information about the area he or she covers.

Opt to work with a real estate agent who works directly with the sellers. The real estate agent should also be able to know which sellers are in trouble and will most likely accept your terms in investing in the property.

Working Side by Side With Your Real Estate Agent

Of course, you as a real estate investor also have a job to do. You can’t leave everything –– looking for a property, negotiating with the seller, etc. — to the real estate agent. On the contrary, it is you who has to start off fostering a good working relationship with the real estate agent.

A concern among many real estate investors is that not all real estate agents understand what you do and, in the process, cannot fully execute your plans and may not recognize potential deals. Bear in mind that real estate agents are trained in the retail marketing. You may have different marketing techniques which they are not familiar with yet. With regards to this, you will need to be patient and persistent with them.

You can try explaining to the real estate agents what it is you really want and what deals you are specifically looking for. You can send them a letter explaining your concepts and terms, or have a presentation for them to encourage more interaction and concerns. You can also network with them and share what you do and ask for their assistance.

Your main goal is to establish a fruitful business relationship with the real estate agent, wherein he or she will be able to understand what makes up a good deal for you. Given a situation, for example, when the real estate agent meets a seller who is in a hurry to sell his or her home and may willingly accept your terms, the real estate agent will think of you and make a start for negotiating a good deal.

A successful real estate investor would naturally equate to having lots of successful real estated deals. A real estate deal is not considered to be successful if it isn’t completed and you’ve gained a promising profit. What does one have to do to garner successful real estate deals?

The 6 Steps

1. Find Motivated Sellers

Motivated sellers are a very huge part of a successful real estate deal. Without them, you wouldn’t even have a deal. Motivated sellers are especially preferred rather than the unmotivated ones since you’re probably not going to have a very successful negotiation with an unmotivated client.

Motivated sellers can come to you themselves. But most of the time it’ll be you who has to find and target them. Building your own prospective sellers list can do wonders for your real estate career.

2. Is It a Good or Bad Deal?

The next thing you have to look up when you’ve found a motivated seller is whether or not the property serves as a good or bad deal. Knowing if a deal is good or bad is critical. Bad deals have a way of sticking as bad deals. As much as possible, study and analyze the property and determine whether you can successfully invest in it.

When you’ve found that you’ve entered into a bad deal, renegotiate and immediately get off the deal. Getting out of it as soon as possible will help you cut back on losses in money and time. This is better than losing more in the future.

3. Clarify Your Goal: What To Do With the Property

Goal-setting is simple, but important, in real estate deals. What is your goal with the property? Why invest in it? Your answer should be obvious and easy: it’s either to make long-term equity or short-term profit. Either one is the correct answer. Either one will result to you making the most out of this deal.

4. Back End Strategy: How To Get Rid Of the Property

The back end strategy is something that every real estate deal will go through. How will you get rid of the property? How will you profit from it? Are you going to buy and flip it? Or buy and hold it? Are you going to lease or rent it? Any way it goes, just remember to think about your back end strategy before making an offer int eh negotiations.

5. Prepare a Back Up Plan

Some real estate investors don’t prepare a back up plan. It may not even be needed. But having a back up plan would help lighten things up when your original plan goes amok. Bear in mind that even experienced real estate investors make mistakes. For example, the property might not be sold as soon as you’d like. You’d be forced to extend and incur more expenses. Getting a back up plan to counter or adjust to the changes would be a really good boost.

6. Financing

Never get financing out of your system. This is huge part of your business and career, after all. Once you’ve made sure that the property is a good deal, and after you’ve made plans on what to do with the property, it is time to dig in with papers and numbers.

Budgeting, forecasting, and planning will be critical for the development of the deal. You have to make out an offer wherein you can get the property as cheap as possible, and sell it as quick as possible. If you’re going to hold on to the property a bit longer, or if you see that the property needs remodeling or refurnishing, you need to make a strict budget on the expenses and costs. Forecasting your ROI and profitability may also help you determine which course or strategy to take to come up with the highest income.

Success in real estate isn’t just all about the number of deals you get and the amount of profit you receive. It’s also about recognizing whether a property is a good catch for you or not. It won’t matter if you have less deals than others. If your deals prove to be better than theirs, you can certainly surpass their profit margins even if they have more properties.

But what makes an ideal real estate deal? The key word is “ideal.”

I – Income

D- Depreciation

E – Equity build-up

A – Appreciation

L – Leverage

The income refers to either your present income or a future retirement income. In any case, you’re in it for the money, so the income should be one of the center points when looking out for a good deal. Depreciation is a tax write-off or loss on the accounts, but it is actually a tax benefit to real estate. Equity build-up is gaining equity as you pay your debt on the property. You can also opt to force equity on the property by fixing and remodeling it. Appreciation involves raising the value of real estate over time. Lastly, leverage is putting in an investment to get a worthwhile return. Leverage is basically one of the key benefits in real estate. Basically, it’s a dollar-for-dollar basis wherein when the stock market goes up, your returns will go up too.

Determine Risk and Upside Potential

With every deal comes risks and the possibility of having an upside potential. Taking risks is common in the real estate market. There are almost always risks. The less the leverage, the greater the risks. The more you owe, the bigger the risks.

Risks are something that every real estate investor has to be seriously considering about. This is because when you lose in a deal, you do not just lose your money. You also lose the amount of time you spent working hard on that deal, and you also lose your some of your credibility in the field. Your time and effort used in that deal would have been put to waste.

Determining whether the deal has an upside potential is also important. There are actually a lot of properties out there that can be developed and creatively altered to increase its attractiveness and appeal to the buyers.

Risk, upside potential, and IDEAL are basically what will guide you in recognizing a great real estate deal. These will also help in telling you which real estate deals have a big probability of flopping, and therefore give you an early sign to avoid that kind of deal.

Move Out of a Bad Deal!

There are times when we notice too late that we’ve made a bad deal. We may have neglected to check on some things that could prove to be the cause of the problems with the deal. When this happens, it is important not to drag the deal longer than necessary as it will only provide a loss for you. When you’re already in a deal before you realized that it will only cost you more than give you gains, the best move is to negotiate yourself out of that deal.

Add to the criteria (IDEAL, risk, and upside potential) the need for knowledge and research, you will be able to realize at least at an early stage that you have to move out of the deal as soon as possible. Knowledge is a known powerhouse of real estate. The more knowledge you possess, the less risks there are.

Even experienced real estate investors make mistakes sometimes. Real estate investing is such that you grow and learn something in every deal you make. Of course, as time goes by and as you take in more deals, you should be able to have learned from your past mistakes and not do it again.

As experienced as you may be, mistakes are still common. Beware though, because some mistakes can be very damaging to your portfolio and career.

5 Mistakes of Experienced Real Estate Investors

1. Failure to Check the Balance Sheet

In any type of business, the balance sheet shows just about all the operational finances that would show you how to best optimize and utilize your assets. It may not show your cash flows, but it shows the growth of your assets, equity, different expenses, and tax benefits.

Hiring an accountant or having your accounts checked is great, but you have to make sure that you yourself aren’t ignoring your balance sheet. If you cannot understand how to analyze the balance sheet, you can always ask for help from an accountant.

2. Getting Bad Deals and Working With Bad Partners

You should learn how to spot an unprofitable property when you see one. As your experience builds up, you should become increasingly aware of the type of deals that will bring a profit and those that are a loss.

This “bad deal” includes only those properties that will require huge amounts of payments that would only end up swallowing you whole. Properties that only have minor problems like rehab and staging are potentially good. You must learn how to calculate the amount of fixtures and expenses of a property before deciding whether you’ll take the deal or not.

Sometimes, the problem isn’t the property but the people. Being comfortable and trusting your partners is important in making great deals. Make sure you hire people who you can completely rely on to make a good job. Make sure that terms and conditions are entirely agreeable to the both of you, too. Work out any problems before shaking hands upon a deal.

3. Jumping Ahead Without Any Knowledge

One thing that all successful real estate investors have in common is their never ending search for more information on the real estate market. They know that knowledge is important.

It’s not just knowledge, too. Effort and perseverance is also needed. Do not just jump into a deal where you have no idea on how to fix, market, and sell. Make sure you have targeted the type of niche that you would be into, and in what area. Knowing your area well will certainly allow you to gain more opportunities and leads.

Once you’ve mastered all there is to know on one specific thing, or a niche, then you can broaden your horizons and attack another area that you can target, study, and get deals from.

4. Holding On To Properties Incurs Expenses and Don’t Give Much Profit

Sometimes a real estate investor comes into a situation wherein he or she has got more land than he or she can handle. This is basically what happens when you combine the first three mistakes above and hold on to the properties still.

Look over your list of assets, find out which ones are only incurring costs. Look for further improvements that can be made to the properties to make them profitable. Dump the properties that only gives problems and focus more on the properties that are worth your effort and money.

5. Not Using Your Knowledge On the Local Market

While the internet, magazines, and media all talk of real estate, be aware that it generally refers to the national state of the real estate market. Knowing what goes on with it is good, but you should focus more on the local market you’re in.

In reality, all real estate is local. The value of the properties is, after all, determined by the local market conditions and rates. Local markets may also have their own pace and trends. Being successful in your market means to always gather information about your market and anticipate new trends and developments.