Remember, when you make a call or presentation to a potential seller, you are basically performing and will be judged based upon that performance. The old saying that “practice makes perfect” is especially applicable to the real estate business. The more you practice, the better you’ll be. The better you are, the less scripted you will appear.

When preparing and practicing you need to work on anticipating what a prospect or seller might say. When you prepare for questions ahead of time they’re much easier to answer. Keep in mind that you’ll need to be able to handle objections in a way that doesn’t offend and still gets your point across. When you’ve practiced what to say you’ll be in a better position to respond without hesitating. Try writing down how you would respond to questions that you’ve heard often in the past and use those to practice your responses.

When making a call or presentation you’re likely to face many different types of objections. One way to prepare a persuasive response is to practice your scripts. Using scripts will help you overcome objections, but you shouldn’t totally rely on them. Sometimes you must be able to think on your feet. When practicing your scripts with family or friends, ask them to interject their own questions into the mix so you have a chance to ad-lib your responses.

Practice is good, but you need to remember that during your actual discussions with potential clients you need to concentrate on what they’re feeling and saying. Don’t start your scripted answer when the prospect is mid-way through their question. You practice scripts so the conversation will flow naturally, not because you need to memorize “exactly” what to say.

Every day you must practice your scripts and persuasion skills to get better. Practice perfecting your scripts with the proper tone of speech while incorporating your mirroring and matching skills along with pacing and leading questions. By practicing you can gradually build on all these skills, making you unstoppable. Practicing will give you the confidence and the skills necessary to handle any situation.

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These days it is tempting to cut corners, usually with the idea of saving money. However, a home inspection is a worthwhile investment. If you are planning to sell a home, an inspection can identify problems in the making and suggest preventive measures that might help avoid costly future repairs. A home inspection gives you the opportunity to make any necessary repairs now that will put the house in better selling condition. In the real estate market today, having your home pre-inspected can be a great selling point.

Plus, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you are doing the right thing for the people who will be buying the home. It means a lot for them to know they can count on their new home to be a place they are proud to live in with few hassles. It also protects you from possible problems.

Keep in mind that the home you are selling must signal to prospective buyers that there is nothing to fear by checking out this home. They need assurance the home is in good condition, or even better than that. If your home is listed online, make sure there is a link to click so the buyer can view the inspection for himself.

Put yourself in the shoes of a real estate agent for a minute. You are looking for a suitable home for a client. What would you look for? Would you want to see a home that stands out from the hundreds of others out there? Would you want that buyer to know they can investigate and buy that home with confidence? A home inspection helps give that assurance. It will be easier to sell the home to your client if one of the most difficult steps is already out of the way. Barring unforeseen problems, such as with financing, your job of finding a home for your client is that much easier.

As the home seller, you need to take control of the situation proactively. When a buyer comes along with a home inspector, they may be looking to cut costs. If they are not happy with the condition of the house, they may ask for repairs at an inflated price or terminate the contract altogether. The bottom line – they decide not to buy the house. You may not get a second chance with that buyer. You are left with the house still on the market and with the task of making things right before you can sell to the next prospective buyer. That person will not want any surprise defects to contend with either.

It can be disappointing for you if an inspection finds serious problems. However, dealing with things right away means less chance of alarm or regret on the part of the buyer as well as less chance of a deal going sour. You will make the home even easier to sell by having it inspected again after repairs have been done. Then make the revised report available with the listing. This should make the deal go smoothly.

Here is another helpful tip to seal a deal. Have the inspector print out several copies of the inspection report for you so prospective buyers can take one when they tour the home. Allowing buyers to take a copy of the report keeps your home in their minds that much longer. Your inspector shouldn’t mind printing copies of his report because his name and report is being carried around for the other buyers who did not purchase your home but may call him for their own inspections.

To summarize, many sellers are having a home inspection done at the time of their listing in order to repair or determine the condition of their home. If you do this, you can use the inspection as a sales tool. A seller’s inspection will virtually eliminate all the hassles and blown deals that inspections might cause when the buyer brings in their inspector. It gives leverage back to you, the seller. Most importantly, a seller’s home inspection is the ultimate gesture of full disclosure and will help protect you.

You’ve carefully selected the home you’re buying. Make sure you’re as careful when selecting your home inspector. Don’t get stuck paying for repairs missed by a quick home inspection.

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1. You and your spouse each area allowed a $250,000 capital gains exclusion when you sell your home.

2. To qualify for this exclusion, you must have lived in the home at least two out of the last five years.

3. You must have used the home as your main residence.

4. If your capital gain does not exceed your exclusion, you do not need to report any gain on your tax return.

5. If your capital gain exceeds your exclusion, you then must file the capital gain on Schedule D of your 1040 return. You will only be taxed on the gain that exceeds your exclusion. Currently, the maximum tax for long term capital gains is 15%.

6. If your home has declined in value, you will not be able to deduct your loss.

7. If you have more than one home, you may only exclude the gain from the sale of one home. After you sell your first home though, you can sell your second home if you have lived in it for two years and again take advantage of this capital gains exclusion.

Consider this example, if you and your spouse purchased your home more than two years ago for $100,000 and it is currently worth $600,000, You could sell your current home and receive $600,000. Since the gain does not exceed $500,000, you do not need to pay taxes or even mention the sale on your taxes. If you were to turn around and buy a smaller home for $350,000, you would be left with $250,000 of tax-free income that can be invested to support your retirement needs.

If you are not getting all of the advice that you should be from your financial planner, visit Asset Design Center for free financial planning information.

Gary Lewis’ ideas incorporate more than 30 years working with investments including 20 years experience in the derivatives industry and 10 years as a fee-only comprehensive financial planner. He specializes in designing portfolios that meet the client’s required rate of return with a minimum level of volatility. You can read his writings on financial markets at Stock Market Ideas.

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–Search. The best place to find a local agent is the internet. The others are a local builder association, open houses, local advertising, referrals from other agents, recommendations from neighbors, and suggestions from lenders, attorneys, financial planners, and past clients.

–Interview. Talk with many agents to get a personal “feel” before selecting one to work with. A good agent you eventually chosen to work with could be one of your most valuable resources. The interviewing process will help you evaluate the agent’s ethical stance and trustworthiness issues as well as his or her competency. Agents should have a thorough knowledge of the property market in their communities, familiar with local zoning and tax laws.

There are many factors in considerations regarding locating the right property to buy. You will have frequent contact with your agent for his or her helpful guiding hand. These interviews are a good opportunity to ask about the issues such as training, experience, representation and professional certifications. Look for agents who are actively involved in community affairs. He or she should have a better understanding of the town that he or she is selling than an average resident.

How well the agent knows the local neighborhood? A qualified agent will have many social networks of his and her own and can incorporate other people’s valuable business experience to assist you with your quest. Ask the agent how many listings he or she actually has listed personally? How many homes or properties he or she actually sold? Share with your agents your time limits, your budget, your list of home requirements, your preferences, your dislikes. Be as specific as you can. The more you know what you want, the better it is to find. An agent of your dream will work with you.

–Selection. Your buyer or seller agent should provide you with information detailing current marketing conditions, financing options, and negotiating issues that might apply to a giving situation. New listings or new detail on a deal can come up anytime. Make sure that your agent communicate with you regularly and is available to consult with you on a short notice. Your agent will provide guidance during the evaluation of the properties and guide you through the closing process. He or she also acts as intermediaries in price negotiations between you and the seller.

Unless your agent is specifically a buyer’s broker or buyer’s agent, he or she will typically be paid a commission based on a percentage of the sale price out of the seller’s pocket. If the agent helps you to negotiate a lower price, her commission will be lower too.

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What is sell and rent back?

Although lots of people now use this option and its widespread use have helped this industry to grow in an amazing way but there are people who still no nothing about it. If you are also one of those persons, it is enough to know that it is an option where you sell your home to an investor and start living as a tenant in the same home. What it means it that you get the money you need without saying goodbye to your home sweet home.

Sell and rent back is a very good option to consider in all situations but there are few situations when it is hard to find an option better than this. For instance, in today’s housing crisis it is not uncommon to find yourself dealing with repossessions. In fact, when you will delve more into the details pertaining to housing crisis in America, you will find that almost all of the states are facing certain foreclosure and repossession problems. California is one of the states where you can find a lot of homes listed into the foreclosures.

Now, in this very situation it is essential for you to make sure that you don’t lose your home and that’s when you can consider the option of selling and renting back your home. This is the ideal situation to use the idea of sell and rent back as it can help you to be back on the road of your fiscal freedom.

It is also crucial to mention that foreclosures are one of the reasons behind the housing crisis in America. Actually, when people don’t become able to cope with their mortgage payments, there remains no other choice for them but to face the problem of foreclosure. After the foreclosure, people have to leave their home but that’s the primary reason of devaluation of homes in that entire area. It often contributes towards strengthening the housing crisis.

Actually, people don’t like to buy homes in areas with lots of foreclosed properties and value of home goes down in the entire area. But, in case of sell and buy back schemes you don’t have to leave your home and the value of homes in the entire area stays at the right level.

The bottom line is that the option of sell and rent back your home is good not only for you but for economy as a whole. So, don’t forget to consider this vehicle to stay away from repossessions and foreclosures.

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When confronted with this tough decision, most agents would rather achieve excellence in customer service. They feel that is the pathway to a growing, sustainable business.

In my many years in real estate sales and real estate training and coaching, I have encountered few agents who reach the upper echelon of real estate sales with the exclusive view of customer service. Before you jump to conclusions of my viewpoint, it is essential to excel at both disciplines of customer creation and customer service in order to become a Champion Agent or Champion Team. While trying to climb the mountain of success, one of these sections will be secondary to the other. Your investment of time and energy will be larger with one than with the other. Your staff will pick up on your signals of which is more important to you and will adopt that prioritization, as well. The decisions you make in this one area will determine how quickly you execute your success plan.

In terms of earnings and income, I have met many agents who earn large sums of money who are world class in client creation and down right poor in customer service. While these agents don’t generate the referrals they should because of their customer service, they have developed viable business because of their top-notch skills in client creation. Again, I want to emphasize this is not the ideal platform for success. It is better than a limited focus exclusively on customer service. In the end, you must achieve a balance between these two areas. While climbing the ladder of success, your focus must be tilted to customer creation, however.

I have wrapped up the real word for customer creation in a fancy wrapper to make it more palatable. It’s like the exterior coating they put on aspirin, so it doesn’t upset our stomachs as much. Let me peel off the coating of customer creation and call it what it really is . . . prospecting.

As the leader on the team, your primary job is to be a Champion’s example; to be the model that all your other administrative and sales staff will follow. You need to set the example of prospecting on a daily basis. Let’s have a real truth moment in our relationship. The truth is you are in sales . . . right? Sales is a profession where we have to find prospects to sell our services to.

Champion Team Rule – Prospecting is the first step in the sales process. You are in sales; you need to prospect.

If you don’t prospect, you won’t find prospects. If you don’t find prospects, you won’t be able to make presentations to prospects to create customers. If you don’t have customers, there won’t be anyone for you to serve. You won’t be able to deliver exceptional service, so you won’t be able to create clients. These clients you don’t have won’t be able to send you referrals, so you can acquire new prospects easier.

We really have an unlimited supply of what we can prospect. Webster defines prospecting as “seeking a potential customer; seeking with a vision of success.” In the definition, it doesn’t say waiting for the phone to ring, sending out post cards, hoping someone calls me. It clearly says that prospecting is a seeking activity. Let me share a guarantee from ancient scripture. “Seek, and you shall find.” The guarantee is if you seek, you will find. I hear all the time from people, “Well, what if it doesn’t work?” You are assured it will work because seekers become finders.

The second segment of this definition is that we need to “seek with a vision of success.” Webster must have worked in a real estate office before. He knows how other agents can try to pull you down or away from prospecting. You could even have brokers who try to belittle you because of your prospecting. Webster was saying, get your mind to positive, expect good results, focus on that, and you will succeed. Don’t let others negatively influence your vision of success.

The quandary isn’t should I or shouldn’t I prospect. It’s what method should I use and how much prospecting do I need to do daily to achieve my goals in sales, income, and net profit? What standard do I need to set for my team? What sources do I need to invest my time in prospecting? What sources are most effective based on my market conditions? What creates the greatest short-term revenue? What source creates the most significant long-term revenue? These are all points to evaluate before you begin the disciplined process of prospecting.

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You need to pay attention to certain aspects of your home if you intend to sell it. The asking price is a factor that most people you advice you about. It is an important part of enticing buyers, but there are other qualities or features that make your home an individual entity. Besides the price you can attract a buyer with the beauty, coziness, functionality etc of your home.

Another thing that you could do to evaluate your home is to think like a buyer. What aspects of your home would attract you? What features of your home would convince you in its favor?

Here are some tips that can prove to be useful:

- Get familiar with the prevailing home prices in your area and price your house reasonably
- You can add a premium to your house if it is in a good residential area
- Strategize your marketing options and work out a good plan to promote and advertise your home. You could take professional help or even prepare an ad yourself for the local classifieds or for a property website on the net.
- You could arrange for a home showing in person or prepare a home tour with a visual media.
- A good presentation can make good first impressions and that could make a lot of difference.
- No home can be perfect. So don’t gloss over the drawbacks of your home, be upfront and clear about things.
- You can add to the first impression by cleaning up the mess and clutter from your home, and making some minor repairs.
- Create a buying mood by turning on the heater or a/c, create coziness, light up the fire place, open the windows or even by making spaces. Do not follow this rhetorically. Do, what will enhance your home.
- Choose a buyer with care, so that the whole process moves on smoothly
- Consult a house tax advisor regarding your house tax
- Get the basics about the legal transactions involved, be clear about legal terms like contract
- Garner a few tips about negotiation
- Get to know the difference between an agent and a realtor before you decide to choose one of them to sell your home. Ask about the various processes, fees and commissions involved.
- Choose a reputable agent or realtor.
- Put up a board on your front yard stating the above
- Trust your realtor and let him/her guide you through the whole process. Follow his tips to achieve good results.

Selling your home on your own

By no measure is it an easy task to sell your home yourself. It is not just a missing agent, but whole lot of other factors that make it difficult. It is not easy to cut off from a home which is full of memories. You will want some one who will love it the same way as you have done all these years. It is not easy to see strangers walking through your home evaluating every aspect of it. Are you really up to it?

- If you are planning to sell your house on your own, then you will need to put up a sign saying ” home for sale by owner”
- It is advisable to hire a good attorney to cover all the legal aspects of selling a home.
- The attorney can also guide during the making of the contract form. You will need it to protect yourself and the buyer if you are not going through an agent. Things like buyer deposit and local estate laws need to be settled.
- Pick out the best photo that have you have of your home, if you don’t have a flattering picture then get the house professionally clicked so that you can start with your best foot put forward. Many people ignore this, but it is the first thing that a buyer will see about your home.
- When you put up your house for sale by owner, you will have a lot of potential buyers walking in, in the hope of closing an easy deal that is flexible. Be very careful and investigate each potential buyer.

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1. You’ve Got the Price Wrong
Unrealistic expectations are a seller’s biggest enemy, which is why over-priced property is the most common reason why a property doesn’t sell. Make sure you price is in-line with similar properties on the market.

2. Your Location is Not Right
We all know how important location is when you buy property. Unfortunately, as a seller, there is little that you can do to rectify this. Rather focus on getting the price right and a buyer might just see past the doubtful location.

3. Your Agent is Failing You
Finding the right estate agent is very important, as an incompetent agent might be the reason why your property is not selling. Make sure you choose an agent with a good reputation and a proven track record.

4. You Property Doesn’t Show Well
Ideally you should try to make small amendments in your house, even if it is just screwing in a light bulb. Present your property as an empty canvas and buyers will be able to see your home become theirs. Remember that buyers will turn away if they find out you are trying to hide problem areas, so ensure that your house is in a good condition when potential buyers step through your door.

5. Your Timing is Out
There are certain times when property sales drops. These periods include winter months and school holidays. Try to wait a while before you through in the towel.

6. Your Competition is Too Much
Be prepared to battle with competition especially when market condition favor buyers. This will mean that there will be more sellers than buyers and excess supply will result in lower prices. In times like these you will experience a lot of competition.

7. Your Marketing is Insufficient
Selling a home does not include sitting around and waiting for buyers to walk through your door. Your agent needs to advertise your property and On Show dates in newspapers, via brochure distribution, on the Internet etc. Ensure that you use good quality photographs in all your ads.

8. The Economy Is Not In Your Favor
Tough economical conditions are a major cause of the collapses of property markets around the world. In these times people normally hold on to their money because times are very uncertain.

9. Strict Lending Criteria Gets in Your Way
Banks may enforce strict lending criteria, meaning declined home loans will increase. This will certainly hamper property sales.

10. You Are the Problem
As the seller, you have to be able to take constructive criticism from you agent as well as buyers and you need to be flexible in negotiating a price.

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Professional Home Appraisal – When buying a home you will most likely have to get a professional property appraiser to appraise your home’s value. This is not to protect the buyer, but instead it is to protect the bank that is lending you money. The appraisals normally cost between $250 to $500 dollars depending on where you live and the size of the home. This type of appraisal is fairly accurate. The appraiser will come to the home for a couple of hours, take pictures and then provide a report in a day or two.

Real Estate Agents – You can sometimes get an agent to give you an estimate of your homes value. The agent will hope to get your business and will be willing to provide a free estimate. I recommend finding an experienced real estate agent who is familiar with your neighborhood. I would also recommend that you get two or three agents to give you estimates.

Online Home Appraisals – There are companies on the internet that will provide home appraisals based on historical data. These estimates range in price from free to around $99. Try using some of the free sites first to get an idea of the value of your home or the one you plan on buying. Most of these websites will ask for general information about your home and give you an estimate within seconds.

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Investing in income property can be a stressful experience, but remember, your real estate agent is there to help you every step of the way. As a Buyer, your agent will be compensated by the Seller at the close of escrow. What this means is that while she works for you, she’ll be paid by the Seller for her services. Fees typically average 2-2.5% of the purchase price, so on a $500,000 purchase, your agent will earn between $10,000-$12,500. Some of this money will go to her brokerage firm and to cover costs, but remember that your agent is being well paid for her job. So take advantage of her services to the fullest to ensure the smoothest and most enjoyable experience.

So, what should you expect from your agent? First, once your agent has your search parameters, she will set you up to receive daily updates from your local MLS or other services. This will allow you to see all the new listings that come on the market in your price and criteria range. Most clients like to drive properties on their own, and only bring their agent with them once they’ve identified a property they’re interested in. However, don’t be afraid to ask your agent to spend more time with you at first to help you figure out what works and doesn’t work for you. And, if you’re unsure of the exact geographic location you’d like to settle in, ask your agent to drive you around to show you more about the local neighborhoods, schools, and amenities. This is a great way for you to familiarize yourself with the area and available options.

Once you’ve found a property, your agent will be the one preparing the contracts and negotiating them on your behalf. Ask her to explain everything to you and make sure you understand what you’re signing. She’ll also walk you through the property inspection and all disclosures you’ll have to sign as well as help you with the loan process. If you don’t already have a mortgage broker, ask your agent for a couple of referrals she’s successfully worked with in the past.

Buying an income property can be a long process, taking 45-60 days or more, depending on how quickly your search goes. Once you’ve found the property, be prepared for an intensive 2-3 week process while you do your property inspection and work with your lender. If at any point during the process you feel uncomfortable, take a step back. Remember, making an investment can be challenging, but it should also be fun and as exciting as you’re on your way to securing your financial future.

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