Archive for June, 2011

So You’d Like to Be an Estate Agent?

Working as an estate agent is a varied job; fast-paced and interesting with an often demanding schedule. Selling and buying houses are thought to be some of the most stressful experiences in a person’s life, and a good estate agent can make all the difference, helping everything to run smoothly and with minimum stress for the customer.

An agent’s day is typically very varied, and many only spend around half of their time in the office. This is a very client-facing profession, and as an estate agent you can expect to spend a large portion of working life with clients, discussing their requirements and showing people around houses. You’ll also spend time at properties to assess their value, as well as photographing them.

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Property Lettings Helping Out the Real Estate Industry

It seems that more and more home owners in the UK have taken heed of the state of the housing industry and are opting to not sell their homes just yet. With house prices still in a slump compared to previous years the letting option is now looking more attractive for a lot of people.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) published a report in August of this year stating that frustrated owners have been letting their properties after not being able to secure sales at the desired valuations. Surprisingly rents have increased which has left the lettings arm of the housing industry as a desirable source of income while house prices recover.

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Boost Your Clientele With Real Estate Postcards

If there’s one in a field that is highly competitive, in fact fiercely competitive, it’s the real estate industry. Pretty much anyone can apply for such a license, making the competition open to anyone who acquires the license. So, for someone to be successful in this field, they have to find ways in which they can market themselves accordingly to have the phone ringing off the hook, amassing listings and increasing sales. One way to do that is to increase clientele with real estate postcards.

It is amazing that these little postcards sent out to neighborhood farming areas will keep your name on the mind of all potential vendors. So, when the time comes for them to sell their homes, it will not be unlikely for them to call you for an estimate.

Through these postcards, the real estate agent is able to show residents in the neighborhood just how often they sell properties. Any vendor who wants to list their home always wants to do so with someone who is capable of getting it sold, and nothing shows them that better than a reminder of each time one of your listings is sold.

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What About 2010 and Beyond For the Mortgage Industry?

I started my employment in the consumer residential real estate mortgage lending industry forty-five years ago; I’ve been an eye witness to four (4) serious housing/mortgage lending ‘corrections’ during this time period. Industry historians and those veterans, who have been around for a similar period, all know what happens next… and it’s good! Our business is cyclical – up and down in an approximate 10 year cycle.

The correction in the fall of 1998 all but wiped out the ‘subprime’ lending sector and brought Fannie & Freddie and their ‘conforming’ products to their knees; only their ambiguous Government backing saved them at that time.

Today the media touts the fact that something like 150 Banks have failed recently, which is nothing like the several thousand which collapsed resulting in the entire secondary market (it was mostly thrifts and banks at that time with FNMA and FHLMC picking up no more than a small market share) being severely hammered in the late 1980′s and early ’90′s.

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Trends of the Real Estate Industry

A real estate trend refers to the patterns that investment in real estate would be following, in areas of development or price etc. These trends are sometimes universal trends which could be applied to anywhere in the world and sometimes these are trends that are unique to an area or even a time of the year. However, what is most important to remember is the fact that these trends are actually quite fickle and could change anytime.

There is actually no particular reason that could change an existing trend or build up a new one in the Real estate industry. These trends usually are however based on the economic conditions of a country or an area or during a time of the year; therefore something significant in the financial world such as a sudden rise in the interest rate could affect the trends in property investments altogether. As discussed before thus these trends can come a Read the rest of this entry »

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