Free Real Estate Leads May Not be Free After All

To generate sales for a real estate business, free real estate leads are a very attractive and potentially lucrative way to go about it. If handled with proper care, each lead a real estate agent receives has the very real potential to turn into an actual sale. Here's how free real estate leads work: companies find people in designated areas who are considering the possible purchase of a house. Then, the information is distributed to licensed real estate agents who do the rest of the legwork. It's that simple! This method of generating potential clients quickly has become a great way for new real estate agents, as well as seasoned ones, to gain new clients.

In order for a company to be able to provide free real estate leads, the agent must commit to financing any sales they make from the free real estate leads through the company from which they received the original lead information. If the interest rates are lower somewhere else or the closing costs will be covered if the buyer finances at his own bank, and the buyer chooses to use another available financing option, the company that supplied the agent with the lead will charge the agent for the information that was initially received at no cost. The contract for a no-cost lead is broken once a buyer decides to finance with someone else.

This is the reason why so often, there are "preferred lenders" that a potential home buyer is told they must use. Or if not a requirement, often the discounts or other incentives are so large, that pretty much anyone would choose the recommended lender in order to receive all those freebies. This is a practice that may or may not actually be legal in some locations, so it would be wise to look into that. A consumer should never feel "trapped" into using any particular lender - you always have the right to use whomever you wish, though it's possible you will forfeit certain extras as mentioned previously.

Signing up with an exchange program is another way to receive free real estate leads. The exchange program works similarly to a referral partnership, except that the assurance of the no-cost information depends on the buyer signing papers to finance with the appropriate financing service. The real estate agent again must pay for the information they originally received, if a buyer decides to go a different route. The cost can be a percentage of the sale, or sometimes it is a preset amount of money. The bottom line: if the financing isn't agreed upon, the agent isn't getting a free real estate lead after all.

Companies that provide free real estate leads come with perks such as no- and low-cost advertising, available resources, and someone to work with while building your business. Although not all of the free real estate leads will necessarily be a guaranteed sale, the real estate agent can be assured that it will be worth pursuing. The companies that disseminate free leads are in business to connect people with what they need, intending to make their money back during the period of the client's financing.

Myrtle Beach Investment

Montreux is a unique, luxurious experience in new home development. Situated just minutes from the Charlotte area's most popular real estate events, HomeArama 2005 & 2006, Montreux is an upscale private community that will feature some of Charlotte's finest homes of 2007.

With an entrance framed by stone guard houses and lush landscaping leading the way to winding lanes softly lit by beautiful gas lanterns, Montreux will feature Old World architecture on beautifully wooded, estate sized home sites.

Just moments away from the fun and sun of Lake Wylie, as well as the restaurants and shopping of Charlotte, Montreux will certainly be admired as one of the area's premier communities. An elegant haven of stately homes…a graceful vision in an already beautiful setting.

Search no more – Montreux represents the finest in new home construction, design, and quality available in the North Carolina real estate market. Contact us today to learn how you can become a part of this timeless community.

Price & Company Realty strives to be your one-stop resource for all information about Myrtle Beach real estate. Wherever your real estate search may lead you, you can peruse the entire Multiple Listing Service (MLS) quickly and easily.

In addition to the MLS listings search capability, our agents scout the entire Myrtle Beach and Grand Strand areas for new and upcoming projects, existing homes and communities, and deals you just shouldn't miss.

Interested in condos in the Myrtle Beach area? Price & Company has discovered a brand new pre-construction project in Little River, South Carolina, just a few miles north of Myrtle Beach. Shepherd's Cove is an exclusive gated condominium community offering lake, marsh, and Intracoastal Waterway views, as well as the finest amenities and refinements – both inside the condo and out.

Currently in Phase I, there will be no better time to secure one of these luxurious condo homes. This ground-floor opportunity will not last! Click here for more information, or to schedule a private viewing of Shepherd's Cove in historic Little River, South Carolina.

What Properties Can Be Used For a 1031 Exchange?

In addition to the strict time limitations on 1031 Exchanges, there are certain properties that can be used. These properties must satisfy the Internal Revenue guidelines.

The idea behind the 1031 Exchange provision of the Internal Revenue Tax Code is that when a Real Estate property is sold and the proceeds of the sale are used to purchase a property of "like kind", no real taxable income is being generated. What is actually happening is that no form of investment is being exchanged for another. This allows the tax payment to be deferred.

This is a process that is considered no different than shifting your investment from one fund to another within a 401K or other type of tax deferred retirement fund. In this case, one mutual fund is being sold and the proceeds being used to buy another. The only difference is that while the exchange of mutual funds or other holdings in a retirement fund can be exchanged quickly, Real Estate transactions require a rather longer closing process. This is why taxpayers are allowed 45 days to identify the new property and 180 days to complete the transaction.

What properties can be used for a 1031 Exchange? The property can be just about any form of Real Estate. It is the purpose the Real Estate is being held that determines the suitability of it for inclusion in a 1031 Exchange. The property must be held for a business purpose or another income generating reason. A rental property would be an example of an income generating purpose. The property can also be held for investment purposes. This is a rather general concept, but it no longer applies to a personal residence. Although at one time, a personal residence was considered as being an investment, the Tax Reform Act of 1997 changed this.

It is important to understand the concept of like-kind properties. This does not mean physical similarities at all. It refers to the purpose the property is being held. The 1031 Tax Code does exempt improvements of properties already held by the taxpayer. For example, you could not sell a home used for rental income and use the funds generated to build a new rental home on a vacant lot that you already own. Although this appears to be a like-kind exchange, the ownership of the lot makes it an improvement and not a new purchase.

It is absolutely essential that a tax professional be consulted to insure that the property that is planned to be the exchange property qualifies under the 1031 rules. The Internal Revenue Service will not be sympathetic to good intentions or honest mistakes anymore than they are forgiving of exceeding the time limits for the identification and completion of the transactions. The tax implications of major 1031 Exchanges are quite serious and it is necessary to be very sure of what you are doing every step of the way.

Why It Is Better To Deal Directly With A Flat Fee Real Estate Company?

With the advent of the internet, many companies have found a niche to market their services. Yes, this is the information age, and people pay for information. In the internet world of real estate, referral companies play that role. Here is how it works. They were lucky to register domain names that they own, Ex. Flat Fee Listing, For Sale By Owner, Sale By Owner, FSBO, etc. If someone types in these names or other names that are similar, their sites come up. These are not real estate companies usually, or not in your state if, they are. They offer for sale by owner exposure with multiple listing options. That is where the local flat fee company comes in. The referral companies are like dating services. They match the seller with the local flat fee company who can list your home.

What is the problem here? Some sellers think the national website will sell their home. Low per-cent chance. People are looking more at realtor sites than for sale by owner sites. The second problem is misperception of the seller. They think the referral company is the real estate company. Wrong! They are national referral company's not local flat fee companies. So, what is the problem? The problem is they sell you services and products that you may not be able to use and don't inform you of local rules of the multiple listing and state laws regarding your listing.

Some examples, yard signs, in our state of the MLS does not permit a for sale by owner sign in the yard. That is the way it is, period. For sale by owners are the enemy. If you get a buyer in some markets, you must use the listing agent services for additional fees. The referral companies can sell you lockboxes that are not the best to use as far as safety and are not as user friendly for realtors. These lockboxes are not allowed in some MLS's they don't tell you your phone number and address is not in realtor .com. In some markets, the seller's number is not permitted even in the listing. In some markets, it is not limited services. The agent must be a full service agent to comply with the local MLS's rules, which necessitates more fees.

Unfortunately, this miscommunication can lead to hostility towards the listing broker who is trying to help you, but must comply with the rules of multiple listing, state law, and other sites like realtor.com. Bottom line, Caveat emptor- buyer bewares. Know whom you are dealing with and what you are buying. Go to the flat fee company directly. Cooperation and understanding is the key in getting your property sold. You don't need a referral service to get you listed!

Selling Real Estate - How Working Within A Niche Market Can Bring You More Business In Real Estate

The question I am most often asked is about deciding on a niche market. You will have the most success by specializing in an area where there are many interested people, people who are hungry for information, and people willing to spend money to learn more.

The easiest way to choose a niche market is to make a list of all of the areas of your life where you have both interest and some knowledge. You do not need to be an expert in this area. If you know enough to hold a conversation about the topic it will be an area that you can expand upon. Also, remember that you will have many niche markets over a period of time. You don't need to choose the very best niche because it will end up being only one in a series of many niche markets.

For an example let's say that you sell real estate in a city of about 200,000 people. You may think that your niche market is anyone that wants to buy or sell a house or condominium in your city. That is not a niche. That is an entire market. You will be far more successful if you choose a smaller section or part of this entire market as your niche market.

Look a what you do on a weekly basis in your work as a realtor. Imagine that you have many clients who need your services but you are only able to choose one of them to work with. Who do you choose? Is it someone who wishes to list their home? Or is it someone who is looking for a condominium to use when they are visiting your city? Think about what your ideal client would be like and what they would want and you are closer to knowing what your niche market should be.

Working within your niche will quickly make you a specialist in your field. People who fit into that niche will come looking for you to serve them. Others will refer people to you who will best be served by your expertise. You will get more business and, more importantly, it will be business that you want because it will be within your niche market.

The Final Walk Through

Many buyers have wondered about the necessity of the final walk through. The logic is that they already know what they are getting, there is little time to organize things with the upcoming move and closing is imminent. Why take the time to go and view the home one more time? Easy. To make sure everything is as it should be. Sometimes things happen to a home during the time that there is nobody there. Do you really want to take that chance?

Let's say that you are purchasing a home and have made it through the offer process and are now awaiting the closing. There were some repairs that needed to be done by the seller and there have been workers in the home seeing to the fixes. What if one of those people caused some damage in the home? Maybe a tap was left on and you now have an indoor pool? This is of course, a worst-case scenario but with such a large purchase can you really afford to take that chance? Here is another scenario; what if the seller was covering up damage with art or wall hangings that you could not see during the previous showings? Because the final walk through is done after the sellers have moved out, any hidden damage will be uncovered and visible. What if the sellers caused damage to the home while moving particularly large objects from the home? You never know what can happen.

You will also be checking to see if all of the subjects of the contact have been fulfilled by the sellers. Hopefully you are dealing with sellers that are above the board, but there is always the chance that something may have been overlooked either by mistake or on purpose and the final walk-through is your last chance to make sure that you are getting the home that you paid for, in the condition that was agreed upon in the sale. Don't sell yourself short and take chances with such a huge purchase. This is going to be your home, likely for many years and you want your home to be safe, clean and in good repair and that all appliances, fixtures and other odds and ends work properly.

Property Market Overview 2006

In 2006 the City and Docklands residential market experienced the highest rate of price increases since the dot.com boom of 1999-2000, with prices up by 22% in the City and 26% in Docklands (Figure 1), compared to a national average rate of around 9%. This built on growth in 2005, such that prices rose by a remarkable 30% in just two years.

Figure 1 illustrates that between 2000 and 2005 residential prices changes in the City and Docklands were unremarkable, but moved within a narrow range of +/- 10% in response to housing market factors and external economic and political stimuli. In 2006 the market made a definitive move outside that five-year range, taking prices in the City and Docklands, along with other parts of central London, into un-chartered territory, as we predicted in our end of year Residential Review 2005.

Rising house prices combined with high rates of employment growth in the City and West End also increased demand for rented accommodation, with an 18% rise in rents in 2006 taking rents to record levels. Rents have now been on a rising trend for three and a half years from mid-2003. Hurford Salvi Carr, alongside the majority of estate agents in London, experienced a trend towards transacting more leases than sales in 2006, illustrating the growing importance of rental property in the City and Docklands, where a fluid labour market continually attracts new, often young, workers.

This major market trend is set to continue as fewer properties will be offered for sale for the following reasons:

• Many developers are now undertaking "build-to-let" schemes, retaining new homes for their own investment portfolios. If these properties are eventually sold, it is likely that they will be sold to other investors rather than broken up for sale to owner occupiers.

• In turn, a very significant proportion of new homes that are not retained by developers are being sold to all categories of investor, from individual buy-to-lets to discounted bulk sales. Investors, for example, are typicallyable to out-bid first time buyers.

• In the second-hand market, there is a growing trend for owner-occupiers to retain their existing properties when trading up, in order to establish or enhance a property investment portfolio.

Aside from price and rent increases, the distinguishing feature of the market in 2006 was the speed of sales and lettings of individual properties. Consequently, there was a shortage of choice of accommodation for sale or letting at any one time. The absence of an extensive number of properties for sale, however, did not imply low rates of turnover. The imbalance of supply and demand meant that

sales negotiators were able to put newly available properties to a large list of applicants, with the internet and email themarketing vehicles of choice, although in the two weeks it takes to list a property on a web site, many had already been sold. Advertising in the property supplements thinned, with the

bellwether Evening Standard New Homes section carrying fewer advertisements than normal, with the majority being offered outside London.

The market "paused for breath" in May and June 2006, as reported in our 1st Half Residential Review, but by every measure the market has been "hot" in the second half. London's economic mini-boom and accompanying house price growth, and its spread into the wider south east, was one factor behind the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee's decisions to raise the base rate to 4.75% on 3rd August 2006 and to a five year high of 5% on 9th November 2006. The first increase evidently had no impact on the City and Docklands market, where the drivers of employment growth, pay rates and annual bonuses were not dented by a quarter point increase. Nor did the November increase in itself have an immediate impact, given the imminent payment of City bonuses and general level of confidence founded upon a strong economic outlook.

Confidence, rising prices and rising rents can be attributed to a number of key factors:

London employment boom – The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)/Royal Bank of Scotland monthly survey shows that London firms added to employment consistently from the beginning of 2004, with a strongly rising trend from mid-2005 onwards. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) reported in August 2006 that City jobs growth of 4% in 2006 to 335,700, would take the number mployed past the previous peak in 2000 of 324,100.

Stockmarket – One of the factors that took the heat out of the housing market mid-2006, was a sharp 10% fall in the FTSE 100 index from 6,100 to 5,500 points in May. Since then the index recovered those losses rising to 6,256.8 points on 16th November 2006, a gain of over 10% on the start of 2006.

City bonuses - Within London, the City's financial and business services are growing very strongly, backed by high volumes of share trading, merger & acquisitions activity, trading in derivatives and hedge funds. According to recruitment consultant Morgan McKinley (September 2006), most City workers expected their bonuses to be 50% higher than last year, with almost a quarter expecting them to double.

Stock shortages – Our research shows that the majority of estate agents in the City and Docklands typically had under ten properties available for sale at any one time at the end of 2006, compared with 15-20 at the start of the year. In EC1, only 72 properties were for sale at the end of November in an area covered by 25 London estate agents.

This is an indicator, given that transaction levels are still high, that properties are not even reaching web sites and that supply has been affected at all levels of the market. London Estate agents are using old fashioned techniques like the telephone to sell properties! High prices In the sales market high and rising prices became a self fulfilling prophecy in 2006. The high entry prices for one and two bedroom flats, at £330,000 and £425,000 in the City, reinforced demand for rented property and contributed to rising rents, which in turn supported capital values in a market where investors form a high proportion of buyers.

Taken together, the above factors created a "virtuous circle" with economics, employment, supply constraints and confidence mutually reinforcing the market. No doubt there are some who will see the latest data from 2006 as evidence of over-exuberance and an asset price bubble in the making. Such theories must not be dismissed out of hand. The fact is, however, that the City and Docklands market is underpinned by the highest paid workforce in Europe, a workforce that is currently riding the up-cycle of a cyclical wave. It would take a major external economic shock to prematurely dampen that wave. In addition, there is the added comfort that while UK house prices rose above trend for most of the early 2000s, in London there was a much lower rate of growth (Figure 1). We would argue that London, including City and Docklands, is now "catching up" after a five year period when housing became increasingly affordable.

Our forecast for 2007 is that sales prices in the and Docklands property will increase at a rate of 10%, with the majority of the growth in the first half of the year. We consider that the rental market will perform strongly in response to continued employment growth and the high entry price of owneroccupation, and we forecast an increase in residential rents of 15% for 2007.

Investment Property In Spain For Sale

The Resale Centre (Jubilee Estates S.L) specializes in low commission cheap Spanish properties, we have hundreds of properties for sale that are in need of quick sales ensuring you find a bargain property here in Spain. We have some properties available to purchase that would value well enough to get you a 100% mortgage, please contact us for more information on our hundred percent properties available and for terms and conditions.

The Resale Centre are specialists in the following property areas: Albatera, Algorfa, Alicante, Almoradi, Benferri, Benidorm, Benijofar, Cabo Roig, Campoamor, Campoverde, Ciudad Quesada, Crevillente, Daya Nueva, El Chaparral, Elche, Guardamar, La Florida, La Marina, La Mata, La Siesta, La Zenia, Las Ramblas, Los Altos, Los Dolses, Los Montesinos, Monovar, Orihuela, Orihuela Costa, Pilar de la Horadada, Pilar de Campoverde, Pinoso, Playa Flamenca, Punta Prima, Rojales, San Miguel de Salinas, Santa Pola, Sax, Torremendo and Villamartin.

We are also great promoters of new off plan building constructions within the Costa Blanca south region and Murcia (Costa Calida) regions of Spain, offering great value and massive savings for your investment property in Spain be it a golf resort property, country property or coastal property.

Spain at the moment is going through a property price fall seeing home owners in Spain dropping prices by thousands of Euros to ensure they are able to sell their property, the time is now if at all to get yourself over here to view for yourself the property bargains that are for sale. We will offer you the chance to have a free property inspection trip / viewing tour when you purchase through the Resale Centre – we will cover the costs of your journey to Spain and your stay, please contact us for details of this great offer.

We have new off plan properties for sale with guaranteed rental available for one year to help towards the first years mortgage payments whether we are able to rent out your property or not. These properties are many based on and around Torrevieja, Quesada and Murcia.

So what are you waiting for take a look yourself…