LEARN HOW TO SEARCH FOR PROPERTIES AND TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF THE SAVINGS POSSIBLE WITH U.S. REAL ESTATE DEPOT ON YOUR NEXT
REAL ESTATE TRANSACTION.
MAKING AN OFFER:
Learning
Market
Dynamics
Steps To Take
(quick reference)
What Is
The Best
Offer
What Really Determines A Property's
Value
SEARCHING FOR A
HOME:
Drive
By
Online
Previewing
Who Should Show The Property?
Steps To Take (quick
reference)
Traditional Methods (newspapers, home magazines, mailers,
etc.)
THE INTERNET
AND REAL ESTATE
DEFINITIONS - COMMON
REAL ESTATE TERMS - CLOSING
EXPLANATIONS
One of the best ways for you
to learn about the market is to simply watch and catalog
properties that are located in the area of your interest
and track the prices. You will want to start
doing this as early as possible in your property search
process. There is no time too soon to start watching the
market. The market is constantly changing from buyer's market to
seller's market to neutral and back again. The only way to
be informed is to continuously monitor what is happening
to properties on your own. We are in no hurry to rush you into
a purchase so if it takes two years for your search and you end up
with your dream home that is what we
want!
Using
our "Webtools" page you will want to check the neighorhood out with
the many links provided to inform you. You can get information about
the city, schools, sex offender locations and other pertinent
information that may affect your home purchasing decision.
With so many sites available with real estate information, (we
wish there was only one) you will have to spend some time weeding
out the useless and saving the useful in your favorites. Any true
MLS will be of great value because they have standards and criteria
the agents are held accountable to and must follow. It is monitored
by the members and there are violations that are reported to keep
those standards possible. Many of these other rogue sites that
are just aggregating information already available are just a third
party adding no real value to your search. They aren't going to
provide you with anymore information than the agents in control
of the MLS board will allow or the agent that loads the information
initially. Unfortunately, the information agents will allow will not
always be what is in the best interest of the consumer. But,
you can contact us via email for any information you may
need to help you. Not only that, but on those third party sites
there is no policing of the information you will be viewing so
it may be completely wrong, or it may be outdated, or it may be an
unscrupulous brokerage trying to get their name out there by
claiming a listing is theirs when it never was. This cannot happen
with the MLS because agents can click a violation button that
is on every listing and report any listing that they believe may be
violating MLS rules. This is good because it keeps the integrity of
the information as clean as possible. All the other rogue
sites that agents use as marketing gimmicks do not have this
capability.
1) Study the market dynamics for the
neighborhood and surrounding areas that the property you are
interested in is located. Don't forget to check about the city,
schools and sex offender locations
etc.
2) Based on those dynamics
and information that you can get from us you will
consider what price to have in mind for your
offer.
3) Be financially prepared and ready to
purchase within the shortest time period
possible.
4) We will need you to get us a
pre-approval (not pre-qualified) letter, proof of down payment funds
or pre-approval letter if financing 100%, proof of down payment (if
not financing it) and closing cost funds and a minimum 1%
good faith deposit check to place the
offer.
5) Once we have your information you will be
able to log onto our online transaction management system and
review a blank purchase contract that will be used for
your offer so you can consider the contingencies and other items you
want included in the
offer.
6) Contact us for help or guidance with any
contractual question or concern you may
have.
7)
We will use the details from our discussions
about the property and write up the contract with your
specifications.
8) Once they documents are ready for
signatures they will be sent to you via a secured electronic
signature site where you will review the documents, contact us with
any questions or concerns, and if all is acceptable then sign
them and you only need an email address and web browser. You do not
need to install or buy any
software.
9) We will review the documents and then fax
them over to the listing agent for review with their clients (the
sellers).
10) If we receive a counter offer we will contact
you to review it and decide how to proceed. This will continue
until the offer is accepted or
declined.
11)
We include 5 different and separate offers in the $5000
flat fee. After 5 offers there is a $250 charge per
separate offer to be prepaid before offer is presented. This is
to keep the cost down and preserve the flat fee commission. An offer
consists of the CMA, the initial documentation and all counter
offers involved until the offer is accepted or rejected. If the
offer is accepted we handle everything else through the close of
escrow just like a normal transaction.
Full price, all
cash and no contingencies, but that is where negotiations come in
because offers like that are few and far between. Real estate
is worth what someone is willing to pay. Everyone has their own
opinion of what the value of a property is. All you can do is try to
analyze the dynamics of the properties that are similar to the one
you are interested in and use that information along with the
competition (other similar properties for sale within the same
area). Next it depends on how much you like the property. If
you really like it, the money is not going to be as
important as it would if you do not care much for the property or
its location. Saving $10k-$20k on a property is meaningless if your
next door neighbor parks old cars on blocks in his front yard
and doesn't take good care of his property. This is why the drive
preview is so important. So, you liking the neighborhood and
the location of the property are certainly one of the
most important things to consider. Our service is there to save you
money. We do not want you paying high commissions and junk fees that
most real estate brokers charge because uninformed consumers will
pay it. We want you informed. With our client being
informed and taking a more pro-active role
in the their purchase we feel confident that the decision our
client makes will be without any regrets and at a price they
are happy with.
This is a million dollar question and no one has
the answer. If they did have the answer then they should be living
it up in Belize instead of working as an agent. The best
anyone can do is watch the activity of the market in that area
and by using comparables and the prices of the competition (other
homes for sale in the area) get an approximate value of the
property. Other details like condition, upgrades, size, number of
rooms etc. will affect the value and will have to be taken into
consideration. However, one property may be worth more to one person
than another and that is the last thing that really determines the
value and how much you would pay for it; how much you truly like the
home and/or its location.
SEARCHING FOR A
HOME:
After you have decided on the neighborhood you are
interested in, searched online and found 5 or so
properties that are near each other you will want to drive
by them and make sure you want to pursue them further. Here is a property profile
sheet
that you can download and print out what pages you think you
will need to keep track of each one. If you can include pictures it
will help for reviewing the properties later. Some people
see a property online, they like the pictures and want to make an
appointment to see the inside without knowing what the neighborhood
is like. If there is a run down house two doors down are you
really going to care what the house looks like on the inside?
It is not very likely so you will be able to cross it off your list.
Whatever the reason, once you drive by the properties you will
know whether you still want it on your list or not. As you
drive by and preview the properties you will want to take notes
about it. Anything you like or dislike so you won't waste time
looking on the inside if it isn't going to be a keeper from the
outside. You should also drive by at different times and different
days. A few good days and times would be during the week in the
morning which will probably be the most quiet. Then on the weekend
in the afternoon and also in the evenings after or near 10pm so you
can see if it is quiet or a party place. All these options are up to
you, but the more you find out early on the better choice you'll
make and be satisfied with. If there is a sign in the front
yard you will want to get all the phone numbers on it for
future reference when you are ready to see the inside.
Searching online is getting more and more popular. It is
becoming the future of real estate searches and 80% of home buyers
are starting their searches online without an agent. With all the
information you can get including pictures, location, and most of
the other pertinent details it is the staple of the U.S. Real
Estate Depot business model and the savings it provides consumers in
their real estate transaction. Unfortunately, there are a lot of
opponents in this business of providing information about properties
for sale or that have been sold to the consumers. These opponents
believe it takes away their value and they are right. So, searching
online will take some work on your part. We are trying to provide as
much information as possible for free while absorbing the cost of
providing some of that information. Regardless we do not require
that you sign up or commit to us for anything. You have complete
free unlimited access to all property search sites we can provide.
The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) was first created so that agents
that had a listing could let other agents know about that listing
and then be offered a percentage of the sale typically 3% to
represent the buyer in the transaction. This information was first
in books, kept in agent's offices and now it is online. However, the
MLS is regional and some are very protective of the information. The
fear of a Microsoft creating a private online MLS to compete with
the current system as they did with Expedia and the travel industry
has opened up a few of the MLS boards to provide a larger region of
accessibility for agents. We hope this move will also benefit the
accessibility of information for the consumer and we are pushing for
that also. We want every property to have an equal chance of being
seen by you. Every property is equal in value to us so we want you
to have the property that you like best. The problem is the
convoluted method of providing information to the consumers. Some
sites will place properties higher in the search rank
because an agent paid a fee for that placement. That agent may
use the expense of that fee to justify the higher commission they
will receive if the property sells. When agents show clients
properties based on the amount of commission they will receive,
the consumer's best interests are compromised.
Tips for your
online
search
Remember that searching online will require thinking a bit outside
the box. If there are options to edit or modify the search take
advantage of that to make changes and see if your results are
better. Try different methods of searching. MLS's are regional and
they overlap cities and counties so when you are searching we
suggest that you use city and then zip code separately in your
search criteria. If one of those two things were entered wrong you
may not see that one property that would have been "perfect". Also,
it would be most efficient to check a few different
places. We have supplied as many as we can for our coverage area.
The MLS search sites we supply have all properties with special
preferences given to none of them. If they are on the MLS you will
see them just like an agent would. Right now most cities have over
250 properties total listed so if you visit a rogue site and it
shows only 30 properties for sale it is possible that they don't
subscribe to the MLS that covers that particular area and they have
just the spillover properties that overlap into it. If you are
searching an MLS site that is only showing a few properties in that
city it may not be the main site for that area, but only overlapping
it. Check another site until you find one that you like. Here are a
few links to properties that are on the MLS by county and area,
take enough time to search so you are happy with your
choices. Some are easier to use than others, but experiment with
different criteria and use the links that work best for you. The
first link is our IDX feed which is probably the nicest to use. It
needs less keystrokes to get the information you need. You can even
sign up for the latest listings entered matching your criteria to be
emailed to you as they come up. Don't worry about being bothered, we
are no pressure and won't bother you with high pressure tactics that
many traditional agents employ. Just call or email us when you are
ready or if you have any questions or problems with the search. If
the area you are searching in has only a few listings then you may
need to use the second link which covers a larger area but requires
more clicks deeper into each page to get the details about the
property. We hope that in the future we will be able to supply a
single online source for all areas, giving every property equal
placement so your search will be easier and we will keep working on
that. In the meantime, you may have to make a few more mouse
clicks to save all
that money!
LOS ANGELES,
ORANGE, SAN BERNARDINO, RIVERSIDE COUNTIES AND PASADENA,
GLENDALE, BURBANK, SAN FERNANDO VALLEY
VENTURA, SANTA
BARBARA COUNTIES
REALTOR.COM FOR OTHER
AREAS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Alright, here is where your personality will probably determine
which route you will take in your previewing of properties for
sale. You have two choices; have the listing agent show you
the property if you can be assertive enough or have U.S. Real Estate
Depot show you for an up front flat fee. Let's start with the way to
save you the most money; assertiveness. At this point you should
have completed all the steps necessary to be qualified or ready to
buy a property. You should also have taken down the phone number of
the listing agent on the sign. You will then call that number and
ask specifically for the listing agent. Tell the listing agent
your situation, that you have seen the pictures online, driven by
the property, that you have been pre-approved, have the down payment
funds ready, you are already represented on the buyer's side by
U.S. Real Estate Depot which is your legal right and that you'd like
to know if he/she could get you inside to preview the
property. Most agents will be very cooperative and get you
inside the property somehow. However, some agents will make excuses
because they don't want to do any extra work and some agents
will flat out lie to you, (oh no, did I say an agent might
lie?) about showing you the property. I have heard them all,
but I don't know if the agent is just ignorant or really just
greedy. There is the agent with the audacity to say he/she does
not want to do any more work for their 2-3%+ commission, to the
agent that will flat out lie and tell you they have to write the
offer if they show you the property. You must decide if you have the
assertive type of personality to deal with these types of agents.
Either way we can get you into the property one way or another.
We believe the listing agent has a fiduciary duty to do anything
necessary to get their client's property sold including showing it
to a qualified buyer that may already have representation
for their side of the purchase. We will show our
properties to pre-approved prospective buyers and they should too.
Here are the facts directly from the Appendix ll to Part 10 of
the N.A.R. Code of Ethics and Arbitration Manual. It give a basic
definition of "procuring cause" which is what agents claim is the
basis for being paid a commission. The definition is "the
uninterrupted series of casual events which result in the successful
transaction." Neither showing the property nor having a buyer's
representation agreement with the purchaser automatically
demonstrates procuring cause. I just wonder if the listing agent's
clients were told that someone qualified to buy their property
wanted to see the inside of the house and their agent wouldn't show
it because they don't want to do extra work unless they get another
2-3% of the purchase price of the house, would the seller keep the
listing with that agent? Do you think opening a door and showing
someone the inside of the property is worth 2-3% of the
purchase price? We sure don't.
1) Narrow down your area to a few local
neighborhoods.
2) Look for properties online in these
areas in your price
range.
3) Make a list of at least 5 properties near
each other that you can drive by and preview from the outside,
including the surrounding
neighborhood.
4) Drive by, stop and take notes and/or
pictures and decide which properties will make your list to
previewing of the
inside.
5) Take down the listing agent's phone
numbers from sign so you can make contact to
preview.
6) Once you are pre-approved, have seen all
the pictures online and driven by the property you are qualified and
ready to be considered a serious buyer and you should have no
problems making appointments to see the inside of these properties.
Unless you are using an agent that will receive the
full buyer's agent's commission you do not want to take
their time unless you are ready to buy. There is enough information
online and with drive by's to get to know the market without
taking someone's time to see the inside unless you are prepared and
ready to buy now. Sorry, but that is a fact. Everyone's time has
some value so taking someone's time to see a property when you
aren't ready to buy just isn't
right.
7) You will call the number from the listing
agent's sign and ask specifically for the listing agent. The number
may go right to a buyer's agent or they may try to hook you up with
a buyer's agent from the same office. This will benefit the broker
as he will get a piece of both sides of the commission called "dual
agency".
8)
Ask the agent if they will be holding an open house or if they
can get you into see the
property.
9) They may be very cooperative, this is the
usual case, or they may be uncooperative and you will have to be
assertive to see the property. If they give you any problems and you
have supplied us with your pre-approval letter, proof of down
payment funds and you don't have a house to sell we will call
the agent to get you
inside.
10) Here is a letter
that you can print out to give to agents that
show you properties to assure them we do our share of the
transaction and that you are being represented by
professionals.
11) If you are not very assertive, enough to
deal with some of the less cooperative agents, U.S. Real Estate
Depot will take you to preview properties. However, this
service must be prepaid under these conditions in order for you
to still qualify for the flat fee $5000.00
commission.
a) The first property will be $175 and each
property within a 5 mile radius of the first will be $25
starting over each new day of previewing. This fee is to
be paid right after service is
rendered.
b) The charge will be levied only if you get
to preview the property, so you will have to get us the list so we
can arrange for the times and make the most of your previewing
expenses.
c)
The agent showing you properties may be a newly licensed agent,
rather than a more experienced agent that will be involved
in the transaction. The showing agents may
vary.
12) In order to keep our commission a
flat fee instead of a fraction of or percentage of the value of
your home we have implemented these cost saving measures to
benefit our clients and their assets. It also helps keep
buyers a little more serious and aware
of their property previewing activities.
We believe
the traditional methods of advertising mentioned above are used by
agents to advertise themselves more than the property. This is
especially true if the most important aspects of the property are
not included in the ad, like location, price etc. We do not believe
these methods are effective in selling properties. We believe the
extra costs are already factored into the price of the property
getting all of this extra advertising. Just ask around and see if
any one you know has purchased a property because they found it
through any of these methods. The percentage of people you will find
will most likely be in the single digits if not just zero.
If you are here
reading this you do not need to be convinced that the internet is
changing commerce including the real estate business. It will be
your decision whether or not to take advantage of the
savings the internet and U.S. Real Estate Depot can
provide you. You will have to decide if you want to do the search on
your own although most people are doing themselves anyhow. You will
have to decide if you want to deal with agents that are arrogant and
are offended that you dare to become pro-active and involved in
your own real estate transaction. You will have to decide that you
want to do the work that is in your best interest and not that of an
agent with a different incentive, like a big commission, than you
have. With our company and your pro-active involvement in the
transaction we can create a partnership where everyone will benefit,
where there are no incentives other than the most important one, you
getting what you want, and where your best interest is paramount. If
buyers or sellers don't want to participate in their transaction
then they should pay the full commission agreed to whatever amount
it may be. We know there are people out there that won't be a match
for our company's business model, but there has to be options out
there for those that want choice and the freedom to make that
choice.
HOMEPAGE | FLAT FEE
COMMISSIONS | BUY
| SELL
| FINANCE
| LEARN
| WEBTOOLS | REAL ESTATE
NEWS | PROPERTY
SEARCH
OUR
LISTINGS | CLIENT
LOGIN | CONTACT
US
U.S. Real
Estate Depot, Inc. is a licensed corporation by the California
Department Of Real Estate #01522735
COPYRIGHT ©
2005-2010 U.S. REAL ESTATE DEPOT, INC.
|