Look For Relocation Information For A Energizing Experience
Before considering the overwhelming task of relocating, it is a good idea to check out some relocation information that could benefit you during the move. Just as there are many reasons to relocate, there is also a lot of relocation information out there to help make your move easier and less difficult. Depending on where you are relocating to and if you are married or single, planning a move can be a stressful undertaking.
Luckily, the internet has helped a lot of people over the years when it comes to relocating and is an excellent source of relocation information. There is much that you can find out about a new area by conducting a little online research. If you need to relocate quickly, the Internet can be a great help.
The world wide web can help you locate a home or apartment, give you a general idea of what the area is about, provide contact information for schools, realtors, leasing offices, and other relocation specialists, allow you to rent moving trucks or vans, learn about basic information about electric companies, cable companies, DMV, vehicle registration requirements, tax information, restrictions, and much more.
Another reason to research and gather relocation information is that it can help you spend much less money. The costs to relocate can be larger than expected and many times it’s those unexpected costs that can add up and cause more stress. Common costs associated in relocating include packing materials, boxes for moving, tape, special containers, blankets, shrink wrap, home moving companies to pack, load, unload, and transport items, moving trucks and vans, fuel, transportation, renting a van or truck, temporary housing, and vehicle transportation.
Searching for relocation information on the internet is a good way to find the best prices and referrals to help find the things you will want to have for the move. It will not only save you the stress of doing many things yourself, but also give you a great choice of relocation assistance to choose from and prices that fit your budget. Use the Internet to get an idea of what is available and then start creating a list of possibilities and making appointments.
Another good idea is to gather relocation information that helps you in putting together a guide and time line for your move. There are many great tips that can save you a lot of time and are worth investigating before starting the moving process. These could include valuable relocation information like how to pack your items correctly, break large tasks into smaller ones, share responsibilities with your partner, spreading tasks over time, and creating a budget.
Stress can creep in during the process of relocating. Even those who are eager about moving may find themselves overwhelmed by the small details. That is why putting together relocation information beforehand can help reduce the amount of stress associated with moving and let you focus on other things such as, saying goodbye to friends and family, and taking care of the many last minute details.
It doesn’t matter if you are planning a big international move, a move across the country, or are just planning on moving across town, collecting and researching relocation information before relocating will save you time, money and a lot of stress.
It would be nice to plan to take a few days before starting the moving process to assemble valuable tips and research prices of home moving companies, packing materials and vehicle transportation companies in order to have the smoothest moving experience possible.
Behind every good move is a successful plan. Planning a successful move will come from doing your research and taking advantage of the relocation ideas and benefits you will find by finding relocation information.
Office Rents in Asia Demonstrate Strong Sustained Growth
Asia’s office markets surged ahead in the first quarter of 2007 with most cities recording increases in prime office rents. Expansion in the financial services sector provided much of the impetus for upward momentum in the core districts of the region’s leading international business hubs — Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In Tokyo, a shortage of prime office space and robust tenant demand continued to drive rents north, further reinforcing the strong position held by Tokyo’s landlords during the review period. Average prime market rents, inclusive of common area management fees, reached JPY 56,750 per tsubo (US$13.51 per. sq. ft.) per month, an increase of 2.7% q-o-q and 24.7% y-o-y. Four Grade A office buildings, totalling 2.3 million sq. ft. of net leasable space, opened at full occupancy during the quarter. The Grade A vacancy rate continued to tighten, falling by 0.7 of a percentage point to 0.7%.
Singapore’s office leasing market remained active in the first quarter of 2007 in spite of the tight supply situation, and vacated pocket space was quickly taken-up. Expansion in the financial sector continued to dominate leasing deals. Although the SIF Building (59,000 sq. ft.) was completed early this quarter, it provided little respite to the tight availability situation. As a result, prime office rent rose to an average S$8.60 (US$5.62) per sq. ft. per month, an increase of 10.1% q-o-q and 53.6% y-o-y.
Demand for prestigious office space in Hong Kong’s CBD continued to remain strong, with limited stock available in premium Grade A buildings. The CBD has witnessed rapid rental growth as a result of persistent demand, especially from the banking and hedge fund sectors. For example, during the period under review a hedge fund committed to 5,000 sq. ft. in Two IFC at an effective rent of HK$170 (US$21.8) per sq. ft. per month (lettable).
Mainland China’s first-tier cities will see supply peak in 2007, but all three of these major metropolitan areas saw sustained strong demand, with a collective 4.4 million sq. ft. of net absorption in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou recorded in the first quarter.
In Shanghai, average office rent continued to trend north, increasing 2.5% q-o-q to RMB 203.9 per sq. m. (US$2.45 per sq. ft.) per month. As no new supply came on stream during the quarter, available space was rapidly absorbed and there was significant pre-commitment activity. The citywide vacancy rate tightened 2.1 percentage points q-o-q, to 5.6%.
Relocation or expansion by MNCs continued to drive office leasing transactions in Guangzhou, with the IT and banking industries dominating the active Grade A office market. Teem Tower opened during the quarter, positioned as a premium Grade A facility. Tenants include Siemens, which rented three floors totaling 73,200 sq. ft. as its South China headquarters, and Adidas (24,400 sq. ft.).
Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the BPO/call centre sector in the Philippines is expected to continue to drive growth in the Metro Manila office market. In the Makati CBD, strong demand and limited supply have led to further rental increases, prompting many contact centre companies to leave Makati for alternative CBDs such as Eastwood and Alabang in search of cheaper space.
The office markets in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were robust, with both cities recording positive growth in rentals. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City’s office market continued to grapple with pent-up demand in the first quarter of 2007 as occupancy levels remained at a record high of 97% across all grades, despite the 634,430 sq. ft. of new non-Grade A office space that entered the market. The prime office market in Bangkok remained sluggish due to Thailand’s ongoing political instability and the uncertainty over policies regarding foreign investors. Demand was weak as many companies adopted “wait and see” attitude.
Looking ahead, we expect demand drivers to remain strong in most office markets in Asia. Corporate occupiers requiring more space as the regional business environment improves will have to pre-commit to prime buildings in the pipeline or pay a higher premium in order to stay in prestigious locations.
The trend towards decentralisation will continue in a number of cities as companies seeking lower-cost alternatives and larger floor plates move to non-core or emerging business districts or business parks.
To Hire or Not To Hire A Management Company? That is The Question.
You’ve got some properties in your real estate portfolio and you’ve either discovered that you stink at managing them, you just hate it more than anything else in the world or you were good at it but are just tired of doing it. What are your options at this point?
Well, you could look into a management company that will take care of all of the tenant screening and placement and property maintenance, repairs and evictions. Some questions to ask yourself before you consider doing this might be do you have enough properties or type of properties that a management company will even consider. If you only have two single family homes then you may be hard pressed to find a management company that will want to take your business. If in fact you were able to locate a management company that would take you on, do the services of the mangement company warrant the cost? Are you going to still be able to make a profit after they take their pound of flesh? Chances are you are not going to make a profit with them involved.
If, on the other hand, you have quite a number of properties and they are large enough for a management company to consider there are still some things to think about before signing on the management company’s dotted line. Ask them if they own and manage properties in your area. Chances are if they do, their properties will take priority over yours. Make sure you check their references. Have them give you the names of past and present clients–the more, the better. Call those people and ask them for the good, the bad, and the ugly. You want to make sure that you get as much information on the management company’s performance as possible and the satisfaction level with their clients.
If after all of that you decide to go with a management company, then make sure that you have your attorney look at the service agreement. Once all parties are satisfied with the terms sign it and go. One of the terms of the agreement to keep in mind is setting dollar limits for repairs. If a repair has to be made, you would want the management company to call you for approval if it is going to be over a certain dollar amount. You don’t want them fixing every little thing and then finding out at the end of the month that you had no profit. Another term on the agreement would be the percentage that they are going to charge you. They will most likely base it on your gross rents and it can be anywhere from 5-10% based on your properties, the management company, and your area.
For those of you with a smaller real estate portfolio or predominantly single family properties, put an add in the local paper looking for a maintenance person. Pay them for being on-call. Determine an amount based again on a percentage of the gross rents of your units. Chances are you may find that you can locate an individual who will handle everything for quite a bit less than a management company might.
Management companies can be a lifesaver if you find the right one and if you want to sacrifice some of your profit. If you believe it is worth your piece of mind to hand over 5-10% of your gross rents then more power to you, as it may very well be worth it! Just make sure you do your research, pick a great manangement company and stay in control.
The End of the Sub Prime Lending Market
Recently the most talked about topic in the real estate industry, the quick death of the sub-prime mortgage industry. Ok, that is somewhat exaggerated. The B paper market isn’t gone, just much more strict than it has been in the recent 4 years. Before today, as long as you had a job and weren’t in jail you could get qualified for a mortgage loan. Now, with much tighter lending policies, many B paper borrowers are finding themselves either unable to refinance their houses or totally unable to purchase a house at all.
Is this just the shockwave of the housing bubble bust? During the housing boom that ended in 2005, money was tossed with abandon into exotic mortgage loans that enabled people to purchase homes with little down or without providing verification their yearly income. This was the fuel that stoked the housing boom fire. Mortgage companies were totally aware of what they were doing all along. They had no business offering some of their loan products to people of sub prime credit and in the minds of many people the very act of doing so could be seen as predatory lending. I mean use your head, offering a couple who only makes minimum wage an interest only 3 year loan? Chances are high that this person is going to default on that loan. But the banks didn’t care at all because the investors didn’t care and so long as there was someone to purchase the loans back there was no need to quit.
And that’s when Freddie Mac dropped the bomb. On February 27th, government sponsored mortgage and securities investment organization known as Freddie Mac told the real estate markets that they were tightening their standards and were no longer buying back high risk loans made to those with low, or sub-prime, credit reports. The shockwave of this announcement could be felt all throughout the globe as stocks began to almost immediately sink. Without this government sponsored unit to purchase back loans that lenders were originating, they would ultimately run out of monies to make new loans. And with the rising rate of defaults on previously made loans, that capital would dry up even quicker and soon leave red ink. Due to this fast dropout, many B paper lenders have stopped operations. At current count fourty four mortgage lenders have closed their doors or drastically scaled back their companies, including B paper goliath New Century. Now, lenders, backers and buyers of mortgages are pulling back the reins as well.
The New Century illustration is of unique interest because of worries that trouble in the B paper industry could sweel to good credit home loans, causing hardships for many more lenders. The great question of the industry: What bearing will the B paper mortgage disaster have on the national market? Sub prime mortgages originated in 2006 may possibly end up having more defaults than any previous year, according to research performed by asset bank UBS. Almost 8% of all loans originated this year are 60 days of more late, up from 4.5% less than year ago. Foreclosure numbers have doubled in the past year as well.
The decline will be most severely felt by minority and low income home buyers and owners who will encounter trouble in refinancing exotic loans that they can no longer afford. Those looking to purchase homes with a small down payment or none could also be expected to pay higher interest rates and may not be able to simply state their income without showing documentation such as W-2s and check stubs.
Selling Your Real Estate Book Of Business
When most people first become real estate agents they are probably not thinking about how they are going to get out of the business. They are thinking about how much money they are going to make once they get started and not how much they are going to make when it is time to get out. However, if you are not thinking about where you are going, will you ever get there? Probably not. You will most likely wander this way and that and then when it comes time, you will realize that because you did not plan ahead, you don’t have a plan for making your exit.
Regardless of where you are at right now in your real estate career, whether you are in your first year or a 20 year veteran, now is the time to plan your exit strategy. How many people do you know that have been able to retire from real estate and actually sell their business for any substantial amount of money? I would guess very few, if any. Why is that? A successful real estate professional should be able to sell their list of clients and business just like any other professional.
Anyone that has been in this business for at least 3 years should have a list of clients that they have worked with. This is a salable asset. However, there is no guarantee that your clients are going to be willing to work with whoever it is that buys your business. So what you will most likely do is sell your list of clients for a minimal amount of money or someone will give you a referral fee for anyone that does decide to do business with them. That is not an exit strategy.
Now, what if instead of just being able to show them a list of every client that you ever had, you could also show them how you got those clients? What if you could show them your “book of business”? What if you could show them how much money you made each year and exactly how you made it?
Now you would have something to sell. Now you would have something worth more than a 20% referral fee.
Your book of business should include your list of clients, your marketing strategies and materials, the results from those ads and therefore should show how your success can be duplicated. The key to creating your book of business is tracking everything you do.
One of the best ways to do this is with ad tracking technology like a call capture hotline. This is one of the hidden benefits of these systems that are generally just used for lead generation. With a call capture hotline that also includes ad tracking you can easily track all of your ads that you run and the responses that they elicited. The system will capture each caller that comes in, record their name, address and phone number, follow them through your system, tell you which extension they came to (and therefore the ad that elicited the response), and many times record whether or not they left a message or asked to speak to you.
This is powerful stuff. Now you can have reports that show how many leads each of your successful ads generated, how many of those leads turned into clients, and the name and phone number of every person that responded to those ads. Combine that with the actual marketing materials you used and your list of clients and now you have something.
You have your book of business. This can be duplicated. This is a salable asset. This is an exit strategy.
Flipping Your Way To Real Estate Wealth
Flip Strategy #1: Buy, Fix and Flip
Let’s start with the most common form the good, old fix ‘n flip. This process involves buying a property that needs work, fixing it up, then selling on the retail market, that is, to a person who will live in the property.
This method is tried and true, and works very well. You can easily make $15 - $50k on one deal, depending on your market and how good you are at finding bargains.
The danger in fix and flips is either paying too much or underestimating repairs. Be very conservative in your fix-up costs and length of time it may take to resell. Also, make sure you include in your analysis the cost of paying a real estate agent to sell the property.
Flip Strategy #2: Buy, Refinance & Lease/Option
Rather than sell the fixed up property for all cash, sell for terms. Once you have completed the rehab, refinance the property at its new appraised value. If you did the math correctly, you should have little or no money in the deal.
Sell the property on a lease with option to buy. The rent payment from your tenant/buyer should cover your mortgage payment (if not, consider an interest-only or adjustable rate loan that is fixed for 3 years).
When your tenant exercises his option to purchase, you reap a larger profit, since you don’t have to pay a broker’s fee. If the tenant exercises his option after 12 months, you benefit from a lower capital gains tax rate.
Flip Strategy #3: Buy & Flip As Is
Don’t like to do fix-up work? Consider selling the property “as is” as a light fixer upper. If the local real estate market is hot, you should be able to sell the property in poor condition just a little below market.
This is especially the case with houses in “transitioning” neighborhoods. Make sure, of course, that you acquire the property sufficiently cheap enough that you can sell it below market quickly and still profit.
Flip Strategy #4: Wholesale
Strategy #1, the fix and flip, is very popular, which means there are a lot of investors looking for rehabs. You can buy the property cheap and sell it for just a few thousand dollars more to another investor without doing any work. You won’t make nearly as much as the rehabber, but you will realize your profit quickly.
Flip Strategy #5: Pre-Construction
In very hot real estate markets, prices are appreciating as much as 2% per month. If you time things right, you can put a contract on a pre-construction house or condominium, then flip it to someone else when the development is complete.
If it takes 12 months for the development to be complete, and the condo price is $500,000, you could make $100,000 or more in one year! Of course, the opposite is also true - you could end up losing money if the local economy tanks and you end up with a worthless condo that you can’t sell for more than you paid. Use this approach very carefully.
Flip Strategy #6: Scouting
The Scout is an information gatherer, so not technically a property flipper. He is the “bird dog” who finds potential deals and sells the information to other investors.
Many people get started as a Scout for other investors because it does not take any cash or prior knowledge to look for distressed properties. The Scout finds a property for sale, gathers the necessary information, and then provides this information to investors for a fee. The fee will vary depending on the price of the property and the profit potential.
The Scout can expect to make five hundred to one thousand dollars each time he provides information that leads to a purchase by another investor.
Flip Strategy #7: Illegal Flipping
OK, I am not advocating this approach, because it is illegal. Illegal property-flipping schemes work as follows: unscrupulous investors buy cheap, run-down properties in mostly low-income neighborhoods. They do shoddy renovations to the properties and sell them to unsophisticated buyers at inflated prices.
In most cases, the investor, appraiser and mortgage broker conspire by submitting fraudulent loan documents and a bogus appraisal. The end result is a buyer that paid too much for a house and cannot afford the loan.
Since many of these loans are federally insured, the government authorities have investigated this practice and arrested many of the parties involved. As a result, the public perceives is flipping to be illegal.
The fact is, flipping as I described in the beginning of this article is not illegal. Loan fraud in the process of flipping is what is illegal, so don’t confuse the two. The other six ways to flip are very legal, very ethical and very profitable!
101 Of Estate Planning
Estate planning is a way in which people can ensure that their wishes about their health and assets are carried out in the way that they desire, and that those they care about are provided for in the event of death. Most people are so busy in their daily affairs that they fail to pay attention and act on this important aspect of their lives. A detailed estate plan answers many questions bearing legal implications that may arise after death, such as those related to financial affairs and personal properties. Who are to be the beneficiaries? How are the assets to be distributed? How are minor children to be cared for? What would be the tax implications? How is the funeral to be arranged? And so on.
An estate plan, as is evident from the name, relates to your estate. Your estate comprises of all the property owned by you at the time of your demise. Thus your estate includes real estate, cash, stocks, bonds, securities, bank accounts, life insurance policies, retirement benefits, vehicles, furniture, gold and jewelry, clothing and all other personal property.
By making an estate plan you can identify the people whom you want to transfer your assets to on your death. It facilitates this transfer with the minimum of obstacles and ensures that tax implications are minimized in order for them to get the maximum share. There are many tools like living trusts and payable on death bank accounts that you can use in your estate planning to minimize the efforts, time, and costs of the probate proceedings. The plan will ensure that your wishes about the medical care you want are carried out if you are not in a position to express your wishes at the relevant time. It would allow you to leave instructions about your funeral and related expenses.
You start the estate planning process with your lawyer/attorney, by explaining to him/her about how you want you assets to be handled during your lifetime and after your death, discussing various available options as to what would be most suitable for you. You may be asked to fill up a form listing your assets and family structure etc. Make sure that you have a good attorney who is not merely document oriented, but is a value-based individual who takes into consideration what you want. He/She must offer frank counsel and suggest ways and means through which your wishes can be effectively carried out through your estate plan.
It would prove helpful if you have the following information handy with you before starting your estate planning.
. Names/addresses/phone numbers/birth dates of: a) your spouse, b) your children, c) other relatives (who you want to include in your estate plan), d) people who you want to appoint as guardians, trustees, or executors (if required).
. The amounts and sources of all your debts, including mortgages, loans, leases, and business debts.
. Complete details (including amount, sources and account numbers) of retirement benefits, IRAs, Keogh accounts, pensions, government benefits, profit sharing plans, annuities, and any other financial assets
. Complete details of all insurance policies with the relevant dates and account balances, owner, issuer, beneficiaries, and amounts borrowed against them (if any).
. Documents likely to affect your estate plan like pre-nuptial agreements, divorce decrees, marriage certificates, wills, trust deeds, property deeds, tax returns, etc.
A well-crafted estate plan is the outcome of according balanced considerations to the facts discussed above and duly communicating them to your estate-planning attorney.
