The Spot for informarion on all aspects of real estate in Billings Montana

Hello and Welcome to the Billings Mt Blog For real estate investors and any one with real estate questions. Whether you are a buyer or seller in Billings Montana, this blog will have you answers. I am a real estate expert in Billings Montana.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Real Estate Investing Marketing


What is marketing? Marketing in real estate investing is just simply ways for motivated sellers to find you. Finding leads I believe is what real estate investing is all about. If you have no leads coming in then you have no deals and no money. This is why marketing is key to your success. We are not in the real estate investing business we are in the marketing business. You need to get the word out about what you do and let your whole town know that you buy houses. I am going to talk about what I think are some of the best ways to market for real estate investing.

Networking

Networking is a key to success in real estate investing. 99% of other investors out there hate to network. Networking like a mad man will give you an advantage over most of them. A real estate investor needs to be going to every networking event possible. REIA’s, Chamber events, BNI, mastermind groups and every event you can go to. You need to be giving your card out to everyone you meet. The more cards you give out the better chance of getting leads. You will most likely get I lead out of every 50 cards you pass out. Most people just through the cards away or stuff them in a dresser. But that 1 lead could net you $10,000 or more. A good thing about networking is that it gets the word out about what you do.

Classified Ads

Classified ads are a great place to advertise what you do. It is a must for every real estate investor to have an ad somewhere. Start off with a local paper like the thrifty nickel or one of the free papers. Its costs around $15 a week to have you ad in their but you get lots of great exposure. I know what you are thinking there are tons of other investors in the paper and in the classifieds. But I have called all of them that advertise and I will tell you that only two of them have ever answered their phone. The rest I am still waiting for them to return my call.

Your ad should just be something simple like I Buy Houses Cash, with your phone number. You should get a little creative and make your ad stand out from the others. Its real simple and remember to answer you phone.
Bandit Signs

Bandit signs are just simply signs that you put up around the community on telephone poles that say I buy Houses and a phone number. Most places hate them and you could get fined for putting them up. I had some up for a while and had great success with them, they work. If you do get a call from the code enforcement just comply with their wishes. Some people have told me to put them up on Friday nights and take them down Sunday nights. If the code enforcement harasses you I would recommend doing this.

Flyers

Flyers can be a great source of leads. What I do is make up flyers that just simple say Cash for you house. I list some things like have your been transferred? facing foreclosure?, behind on payments?, getting divorced?, etc. Then I put my phone number and web site.

I put these flyers out all over the place, at local businesses, and just find places that allow me to put them up. There are hundreds of businesses out there that have bulletin boards and allow you to put flyers up. Do this every week because that’s about as long as your flyer will last. Most get pulled down by others putting up flyers.

Mailers

Every big real estate investor does mailers. The most successful marketing in the world is direct marketing. Mailers are a pretty simple thing to do, that a lot of people do not do. It does take time to put together a mailer, print them out, stamp and lick all the envelopes but you will have leads coming in like crazy. So who should you send mailers too? People in foreclosure, landlords, vacant property owners (not the vacant house), people getting divorced, people late on payments, and really anyone that you think is motivated to sell.

The letters should just be one page saying that you would like to purchase the house they own, and that you can pay cash and close fast. Every real estate investor needs to be sending out some sort of mailer weekly.

Online Marketing

The internet is becoming the biggest place to find deals and for motivated sellers to find you. Statistics have shown that over 80% of home sellers and buyers start their search online. This means that if you do not have an online presence you are losing tons of business.

What should everyone have when doing online marketing? Every real estate investor should first off have a Seller and Buyer Squeeze page. These are pages or sites where sellers and buyers can give you’re their information. An investor should also have a word press blog. This helps to build your online presence; it’s a place where you can put articles and tips for sellers and buyers. Real estate investors also need to have ads all over the free online classified sites. This is just the basics for online marketing. I could write a book about it. Just learn as you go and read everything you can on online marketing. Also social media is a must. Get on all the social media sites.

All of these marketing venues are pretty inexpensive and should be done by everyone. There are several other ways to market your business but I would start here and work your way up. The key to all of this working is doing these consistently. To run a successful real estate business you have to be doing each one of these things weekly.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Billings Mt Home Selling Guide


Selling your home in Billings Mt can be a daunting task. You need to pick the right sales associate, estimate what you think you can sell the house for, fix up the house, show the house, and cash your huge check. One thing that a lot of home sellers over look is understanding what the market is doing. You have to know what is selling, how long homes are staying on the market, prices, and what your competition is.

If you are working with a realtor in Billings Montana he has probably helped you set the price to list your home at. Even though this price right on with what people are paying for homes like yours. You still have to know that the price or value is going to be determined by what a willing and able buyer will pay. There might be a home that looks exactly like yours down the street but your home might not sell for the same price or sell as fast. Real Estate can be crazy at times.

Sell Home Fast Here

This is why determining your asking price can be the biggest factor in getting your home sold. All real estate agents can give you a market analysis that provides details on recent sales of homes similar to yours, as well as the asking price of homes currently on the market.

There are more factors to deal with, so that you can fully understand the process of selling your home and what really determines what you are going to get for your home.

One factor to look at is the location of your home. What are the tradeoffs and advantages of your home? A house on the west end is going to sell for more than a house on the south side of Billings. Yes that is pretty obvious. Does your house back up to a busy street or is it in a quiet neighborhood? This is huge and can drop the value of your home by over $10,000. Area is huge factor in selling your home. Also know what is going to detour potential buyers from your home.

Next thing to look at is the features of your home and features of other homes on the market. I like to call this the sizzle factor. What features separate your home from others on the market? Does your home have an amazing view, new kitchen, overhead microwave and just things that people love.

Another one is condition of the house. If you are going to try and get full market value make sure you home is in amazing condition. Retail buyers want a house they can move right into and not have to do a darn thing. If you don’t want to do any work a sell your home, call Big Sky Property Solutions LLC in Billings Montana. Otherwise fix up the house and get it looking like a new place.

Lastly just understand what the market is doing. Is it a buyer’s market, a seller’s market? Study what is going on out there. Do not watch the news to find this. They will tell you that no one is buying and that you are better off to bulldoze you home. Just ask realtors, go to open houses and really just open your eyes.

Intro to Real Estate Investing


Why do people spend money on real estate seminars, read every book they can find, and hire expensive coaches? It is because real estate investing can be the fastest way to financial freedom and everyone wants to learn how to make more money.

There are so many individuals living pay check to pay check living in the rat race. If you think that living pay check to pay check is fun than I feel sorry for you. You need to get out of that I am secure mindset and do something today. I believe that real estate is the best ways to become financially free and not have to worry about how you are going to pay the bills, worrying what things cost, cutting coupons, shopping at discount stores, and just being Broke! If any of these things hit home, then read on and learn how you can achieve your dreams. It does not matter if you are love real estate or know anything about it. Real estate can be an avenue for you to become financially free, so you can do other endeavors you want to do.

Real estate is a tried and true investment vehicle. In the long run real estate will, with few exceptions like the recent rescission, go up in value. In the short term real estate values can go up, down, and make your head spin in the process. There are places like Billings Montana where historically real estate has risen around 3 percent every real consistently. You do not have to worry about crazy swings over the years.

There are hundreds of different ways to make money in real estate today. You can buy and hold, fix and flip, wholesale, lease option, subject too, bulk reo’s or simply loan out your money. All of the other options are great and can be a great way to earn profit. Buying and holding strategy should only be used when you have some good cash reserve built up first. The buy and hold strategy is used to create long term wealth through rental property and rental income. Unless you have a lot of money saved up then start in other places and work your way up.

So if you are looking to just start out in real estate investing, I would recommend that you start off wholesaling. This method is simple and uses no cash a lot of times. All you do is find a property, get it under contract for a good price, and then assign the contract to another investor. It’s simple enough. Preston Ely’s wholesaling course is the best on the market today.

You can use this strategy to build up your cash reserves, so that you can start buying and holding for long term wealth. I recommend that you whole sale ten properties then buy a property to hold. Wholesale another ten and then buy one to keep. This way you will not become one of those land lords who is cash poor. You have to have substantial cash saved up to make sure you can pay for necessary repairs, make the payments if you do not have a tenant in the property and just have money if something unexpected comes up.

If you want the best wholesale properties in Billings Montana click here

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Finding Motivated Sellers in Billings Montana

Finding Motivated Sellers in Billings Montana

So you decided to buy a real estate course on late night TV, studied up about real estate investing and then realized that you have no idea where to find houses to buy. Then after a month of looking you give up, it happens more than people think. How do you find people that you can help get out of foreclosure and get on with their life?

If great deals where easy to find then everyone would be multi millionaires and Billings Montana would look more like Aspen. Maybe the Aspenites no where we can find motivated sellers? I don’t think so buy ill look into it and find out.

Some say that you only find deals once in a while and real deals only come around every few years. Do you believe that? If I did I would not be in real estate. There are hundreds of people out there just in Billings Montana that need our help, they need to get their foreclosure stopped, get rid of an unwanted property and save their credit. If you are one of those that need help Click Here!

So what makes a seller motivated to sell at a discount?

There are many reasons divorce, death of a family member, job transfer, job loss, bills piling up, or just some serious financial distress. These things happen to people every day. I bet these things have happened to several of you reading this article. Your job at as a real estate investor is to help these people and create a win-win situation. I stress to everyone to always leave a seller better off after you help them then they were before. If you do this people will want to work with you and in a small city like Billings word spreads when you help people.

On first place to start your looking is the paper. It’s easy, cheap and a good place to start. Look through all of the for sale by owners. Most will want more that you can buy the property at but every once in a while you will find a gem. Look for key words for fixer upper and handy man special.

Next go to the local court house and look up foreclosure listing. The county court house has hundreds foreclosure records for Yellowstone county. You know these people need help, so this is another great place to find leads.

Another great source is real estate agents. Realtors are dealing with sellers every day. Some sellers want to get full price for their home and others just go to them because that is the only thing they know. They do not know that there are real estate investors out there who can buy their house all cash and close fast. Contact several realtors and find one or two that will work with investors.

Place classified ads. I have had great success placing small classified ads. Believe me place one and the phone will be ringing with everyone wanting to sell a home.

Also you can find that other investors want to sell their rental properties. Sometimes land lords just get fed up with dealing with bad tenants. Network with land lords and ask around to find out who is selling off their property and tell people that you are looking to buy a few houses in the next few months.

Networking is highly under rated when finding motivated sellers. Just start asking everyone if they know anyone who has a house they need to sell fast. I am sure you will find a few that do know someone.

Wholesalers

Wholesalers are a great place to find deals. Wholesalers do all the marketing for you, find the deals, deal with the seller and lay the deal out for you. You do none of the work and still get the same deal. Most people think that wholesalers mark up the price too much, but that is the opposite. They can get deals lower in price than you probably can. Big Sky Property Solutions LLC is one of the best wholesalers in Billings Montana. They have several forms of marketing directed towards sellers. Click Here for smoking hot deals

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Selling your Home in Billings Montana

Your home is more than just a place to keep yourself out of the rain and snow. Your home is a place that you have made a lot of great experiences, and made a lot of great memories. This is why selling your home can be a very emotional experience for a lot of home owners. There are some that just want to get out and would torch the place if they could. But selling can be an exciting time and a time to more on to new and better endeavors.

When selling your home in Billings Montana you need to try your best to transition from being an emotional seller to being a cold hearted blood thirsty tyrant. Well maybe that’s a little much but you get what I am spitting out. You need to not involve your emotions in the selling process, do not make decisions based on emotion and just stick with cold hard facts. You need to know what the market is doing, how to sell your home and really have a plan of action to sell your home.

Selling a home in Billings Montana involves a lot of homework whether you are going with a Realtor, selling yourself or selling quickly to an investor. Click here for investors in Billings Montana. Investors can help you just get the house sold fast and you don’t have to worry about fixing a thing.

So what kind of homework will you need to be doing? First you will need to either select the right agent for you. There are several great agents in Billings Montana. If you would like a good honest opinion get a hold of the author, he can give you good recommendations. Agents are great because they can help you go over the latest market trend in Billings Montana and determine the right selling price.

Make sure you are going with an agent that is honest with you and does not just want to list the property at a high price to get the listing. Go with someone who is going to give you his/her honest opinion. Watch out for agents that just want to please and will not just be honest with you.

Next you will want to arrange for inspections on the property to make sure there is nothing major wrong with the house. Sometimes you will have something wrong that you never even knew about. Then take the inspection list and make any repairs that are needed.

I also recommend that you get your house in tip top shape. Paint the walls, put in new carpet, update the place and just make it into a new buyers dream house. This will really get buyers excited about your home and get it sold doubly fast. If you don’t make your house stand out, then it will just be a hot spot for open house junkies to hang out on Sunday.

You also have to determine what you want to make on your home. This could be determined a lot of reasons. Maybe you are moving into a newer home, need to sell fast to pay bills, or retiring on your own island. Whatever it is you need to figure out how much you want to make. Some sellers just need to get out of the house quickly because they are behind on payments and are facing foreclosure. So they need to price it aggressively to sell fast or contact an investor who can close fast and pay all cash. Click here for investor.

Others want to make as much as they can because they are moving into their dream home and don’t have to worry about how long it will take to sell their home. Talking with a realtor is the best way I believe to get the most out of your home, but it also can be the longest if you are really trying to get the most, like I said earlier make sure your price is competitive with other houses on the market. They can really market it well and get it out to everyone in Billings Montana.

Price it right and the home will sell. If would like any more information about selling your home in Billings Montana contact Big Sky Property Solutions LLC. They can help with buying your home, referring you to a good realtor or just giving you tips on getting your property sold faster.

Real Estate Wholesaling In Billings Montana

What is Real Estate Wholesaling?

Wholesaling is seeking out affordable properties and put them in the hands of other investors or buyers. For your trouble of marketing and finding the property you get paid a nice profit that is almost like a finder’s fee. The process of wholesaling houses is one of the most simple and straight forward investing practices out there.

Why in the world does the world need wholesalers?

It seems like the buyer or investor could easily search out cheap properties on his own or her own with no need for the wholesaler. These buyers often do seek out and find some properties but cannot always find the best deals out there or don’t have the time to. Buyers who seek out wholesale deals are usually always on the lookout for more properties. As a wholesaler you have to become a monster marketer. This is what separates wholesalers from your regular investors. Regular investors doing want to do the dirty work and sort through the 50 sellers calls and non motivated leads that come in a week.

Wholesalers do the dirty work of searching in every little crack and crevice to find the deals. As a wholesaler you have to be proficient in marketing, negotiating, rehabbing (because you will be flipping to another investor), if the property cash flow and knowing the market. Learn everything about real estate investing you can.

Here is the wholesaling process the simple version.

Find a motivated seller and negotiate a sales price around 40-65 percent of the after repair value (the value of the house if it were in perfect condition). We have to buy properties at this low price because we consider in rehab costs, carrying cost, closing costs, wholesale fee, and the rehabbers profit. Put the house under contract at a price that will work out with all these expenses added in.

Take the contract to a title company. Let the company know that you will be bringing in an assignment document and another copy of the purchase agreement at the time of closing.

Take the price you agreed on and mark it up anywhere from $2,000 to $100,000 (it will take some time to get a feel for what you think you can wholesale the house for quickly).

Market the property to all investor buyers, landlords and wholesale buyers you know.

Once you find your buyer, simply assign the contract to them with your profit documented as an assignment fee.

Attend the closing deal with the buyer and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Collect you check and then move on to the next deal.

The process is simple enough and can be a great place to build up cash for other investing strategies.

Keep your priorities straight.

As a real estate wholesaler you always have to keep your sellers and buyers best interests first and foremost. This helps the homeowner because you are the one doing the legal work of and saving them lots of time. The reason you are buying from the homeowner is because they were unable to sell on traditional markets and the house is in need to some tender loving care. You are helping them move the property and get rid of the burden.

Homeowners willing to wholesale property are people that have old rundown homes they cannot sell on the market without first fixing up the place. People who have inherited a house and literally have no desire for it or the carrying costs needed to keep the place. Just people who need to or want to get rid of a property. Never take advantage of anyone of these people, figure out what they want out of the transaction and help them get that.

Want to Learn More About Wholesaling and How to become the Best.

Click Here Free Guide

Click Here for Smoking Hot Wholesale Deals in Billings Montana

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Network Your Way to the Top


Network Your Way to the Top

So you want to get started in real estate investing. What do you need to be successful? The goal is to be getting in a hundred leads a month which will amount to around 2 to 3 deals. You want Billboards, Commercials, and mass mailers going to everyone in town. So what is the problem?

Oh you only have $290 a month available for marketing and a book of stamps. What do you do when you have a champagne taste on a malt liquor budget?

You must start slow and work your way up to where you want to be. Where you are right now is BROKE, just admit it. Let that motivate you to want it more. Its comfortable to be broke isn’t it, just having enough to pay the Bills, and you’re scared to getting up and change it. All your excuses for not changing are actually you just being scared. If you stay in that comfortable little box you live in, you can never truly grow.

Does this sound like you? It’s ok to admit it; no one is judging you and who cares if they do.

To get out of this rut you are in you need to become a networking machine. You need to start networking so consistently and constantly that you literally hand out 56 business cards to imaginary people in your dreams at night.

I know what you are thinking, that does not sound fun. Well how fun is being Broke? Would you rather get out of your comfort zone and grow or stay Broke. Your answer will determine whether or not you get off your lazy butt and do something great with your life. It does not matter if real estate is not what you want to do, this applies to anything.

Believe me success does not come over night. You have to pay your dues. In real estate investing your entire community needs to know that you buy houses and close fast. They need to know that you are the “Go To” person when someone needs their home sold quickly.
So how do you accomplish this feat?

Are you willing to work? How willing are you to put in 10 to 15 hour days to really get this thing off the ground? Do you doubt yourself right about now? Or are you one of those rare souls who actually will make something happen in this world?

Get out there and make some friends. To be successful you have to hand your card out to everyone. Make sure you have cards for your real estate business made up. And not cheap ones get some good cards that stand out and let people know what you do.

Believe me when I tell you for some people this can be one of the biggest challenges ever. I don’t enjoy meeting new people; I would rather just sit at home. It’s a lot easier to just sit at home and play the play station all day long. But I realized that if I want to become successful, I need to put new habits in place and get out of my comfort zone.

It’s really not as hard as you think. It will take practice and trial and error, to get it down. I just ask everyone I meet, even at subway, if they know of anyone’s house I can buy. Sounds simple doesn’t it. Make yourself up a few little pitches to people and practice them. Then go out and do it. You will chicken out a few times; I have chickened out 50 times in a row. I will tell you not one person has ever not taken my card. Some give me a weird look at first but everyone has took my card and said they would let me know if they ever hear of anyone who is looking to sell fast.

Until you have a large bank account for big time marketing, you have to network your way to the top. I would rather die doing something than live doing nothing.

Bad Investors to watch out for

Bonus material: Watch out for

#1 The Old Bait & Switch Routine

9 times out of 10 these companies (er ? people) will want to make an appointment to see you in person, and they’ll promise a cash close to get you to let them come over. But when they get there, the offer starts getting complicated.

Now all of a sudden they don’t want to pay cash. They want to take over your payments and possibly (but preferably not) give you your equity sometime down the road when (if) they sell the house. They will even ask you to deed your house over to them while keeping the mortgage in your name. My advice to you of course is to not go down this road. You are setting yourself up for certain disaster.

#2 Asking For Money Up Front: The Auction Scam

Again, Mr. I Buy Houses will promise cash close to get the appointment, but this time he will propose a much different scenario. He will tell you that what he wants to do is auction your house off for you. He is not a realtor. He is not an auctioneer. 9 times out of 10 he has never even done an auction before. He simply read about it and is trying it out on you.

The Catch: He needs money up front to do the marketing.
My Advice: Run, don’t walk, RUN to church and pray for this man.

#3 Promising Cash but Contracting For Financing

This is probably the most common trap sellers fall into. The contracts these guys tend to be long and cumbersome (ours is just 1or 2 pages in big letters) so you don t really see that they have a financing contingency checked off in there. So they tell you they’re paying cash, try to get financing, don’t get it, and then come back to you saying, sorry, we can’t close. This happens all the time. You lose 30 days of your life.

There are many more scams going on out there, but these are a few of the more common ones. My advice, Sell your house to someone who has a proven track record of giving sellers exactly what it is they want cash for their house.

If you are in Billings Montana I recommend going with Big Sky Property Solutions LLC. They will give you what you want and make the process as easy as possible. No more late nights sitting awake worrying about what is going to happen next.

Best ways to stop Foreclosure In Billings Montana



Seeing your name in Billing Gazette is always exciting, unless next to it there are the words Trustee Sale. If you do see your name there believe me you are not alone. There is hundreds of trustee sale notices given out every year in Billings Montana. I don’t know anyone who has not gone through some financial troubles at one time or another in their life time.

The key to stopping foreclosure is to take action now and find out what options you have. There are options whether you want to save your home or just want to get the property and whole situation far from your.

A loan modification is a wonderful option for anyone who no longer can afford to make their house payments. The great news is that a lot of people qualify for them. You do not even have to be in the foreclosure process to qualify or even late on payments yet. If you lost your job, had your pay reduced, some unexpected expenses came up, or just have something happen where you can no longer afford to make your payments in full. If you want to learn more about get one done in Billings Montana go to Big Sky Property Solutions LLC and they can help. There are other articles about loan modifications in detail on christopherseder.com Click Here

Another option is to call an Investor

No, not all investors want to seal your home, some do and I am hunting them down to crush them right now. Do not worry they will not be in business long. I will tell you there are some great investor in Billings Montana who really want to help you get the foreclosure stopped and help you move on with your situation.

Most investors have several creative options they can use to help with the situation you are in. The methods include short sales, lease/options, negotiating with the bank, finding a buyer, or buying your home from you. You may not know what all these mean but they can be some options to help get the foreclosure stopped and help you get on with your life.

Big Sky Property Solutions LLC is the best place to go to when looking for an investor to help you out of your situation. They will give you their honest opinion about what you should do, or how they can best help you. They have a track record with 30 years of experience in the real estate industry.