Using high quality, multiple photos of your property in a real estate ad is critical to successfully selling your home.

Time and time again property ads that don’t feature photos get overlooked by prospective buyers in favor of ads that are really able to showcase the unique features of the home.

Not only do buyers favor ads with photos, they often times feel a seller is being deceptive by not using them. The consensus is that if a seller isn’t showing the home, there must be something to hide!

The quality of the photos you choose for the ad is extremely important. Use a good camera. A slightly overcast day is great for outdoor shots. A bright sunny day is best for interior shots.

Concentrate on taking quality photos of the features a buyer would be most interested in. Encourage them to imagine cooking in the beautiful gourmet kitchen, cozying up to a  family room fireplace, or splashing in a sparkling in ground pool.

Help peak your buyers interest and motivate them to call by showcasing your home in it’s best light. A well written ad featuring multiple quality photos will be your first step to initiating a successful and rewarding marketing campaign for your home.

Having trouble paying your FHA Mortgage? Great news! You no longer have to be delinquent with your payments to get assistance.

The Federal Housing Administration announced that it will help borrowers before they get behind in their payments, allowing them to maintain a good credit standing.

“The FHA has always required lenders to establish early contact with delinquent borrowers to discuss the reason for missing a payment and to evaluate reinstatement options,” FHA Commissioner David Stevens said in a prepared statement. “Now servicers will have additional options for those borrowers who seek help before they go delinquent, which increases the likelihood that the borrower will be able to retain their home.”

If you can prove your problems resulted from a reduction of income caused by slashed wages, job loss, decline in self-employed business earnings, or even a change in circumstances resulting from a disability or death, the FHA will now provide you with assistance repaying your mortgage.

The first option available is forbearance, where the lender agrees to reduce or postpone payments for a specified period of time. The payments aren’t forgiven, they are simply added to the balance to be paid later in the mortgage term.

The second option is a permanent payment reduction. Reserved for more severe cases, this may involve adding extra time to the length of the loan, possible reduction in the interest rate, or even forgiving a portion of principal. A combination of any or all three are also a possibility.

Foreclosure rates across the country rose dramatically in 2009. Nevada, Florida, California & Arizona were particularly hard hit. Las Vegas topped the ranks in filings with 12%  of households affected, 5 times the national average.

On the bright side, all top 20 cities affected recorded a decline in foreclosure filings within the last three months of 2009. These trouble spots tend to be “bubble” related. In these areas, inflated home prices drove home buyers to take on high risk adjustable rate mortgages. When the market deflated, borrowers began to default on their loans.

The most recent wave of bank home foreclosures can be blamed on more traditional causes linked to an economic slowdown and high unemployment figures.

New York has been one of the states least affected by foreclosures with a mere .63% filing rate.  The bubble related affect was minimal compared to harder hit areas of the country. In addition, the Capital Region’s workforce remains stable with comparatively low unemployment figures supported by state jobs, higher education and technological opportunities.

Check the foreclosure rate in your state

Any informed consumer would immediately see the benefits of selling by owner as compared to paying an agent a 6-7% real estate commission. Why, then, doesn’t everybody sell by owner?

Agents and brokers are notorious for convincing sellers that they just don’t have the knowledge and expertise to sell on their own. The fact is that successfully selling your home involves two basic factors: #1. Pricing the home correctly and #2. Marketing it effectively.

Professional real estate appraisals are available for less than $300.  Albany Real Estate Appraisers will give you an accurate marketing price and also provide you with a selling tool to justify your asking price to your potential buyers. There are many free websites that can also help you determine the asking price for your home based on current market comparables.

For Sale By Owner Albany is a proven marketing strategy that offers unparalleled exposure for your home. Full color photo advertising in For Sale By Owner magazine plus unbeatable web exposure with 8 photo color internet advertising on 518forsalebyowner.com and web syndication on 9 other popular sites!

You’ve priced your house accurately, and have marketed it effectively to thousands of active buyers resulting in a solid offer, now what? We strongly recommend hiring an Albany Real Estate Attorney to handle the closing and any paperwork subsequent to the transaction. Clearly this exempts you from having to be an expert in real estate transactions. That’s what you pay the attorney for, and you would pay him whether you sell on your own, or hire a real estate agent.

Be prepared with the information and resources you’ll need and make a strong commitment  to the homeselling process by allocating time to make appointments, show the house and negotiate with buyers. Saving potentially tens of thousands of dollars will surely make your successful By Owner experience well worth the time and effort you’ve invested!

1. Home prices have fallen making this an excellent time to buy. Purchasing real estate in a down market is an excellent investment in your future. Over the long haul home prices still appreciate more than the stock market.

2. Interest rates are currently at near record lows making purchasing a home NOW more affordable than ever! Lock in on an interest rate that fits your budget.

3. First time home buyer tax credit. If you are a first time home buyer (haven’t purchased a primary residence in the last 3 years) and meet income regulations you qualify for a $8000 federal tax credit! The full amount is refunded to you directly in your federal return. More info at: FederalHousingTaxCredit.com

4. Mortgage loans are available. If you have good credit and a down payment, lenders are eager to work with you.

5. Great selection. With so many homes on the market you can get the fabulous features you want at a price you can afford.

6. Spring has sprung! This is the best time of year to purchase a home. Get settled in time to enjoy the summer months and be ready for the new school year!

We have received many inquiries regarding the specifics of the first time home buyer tax credit. The following information will give you a broad overview. If after reviewing this you have further questions, please consult  with your professional tax provider.

• The tax credit is for first-time home buyers only. A first time home buyer is defined as a buyer who has not owned a principal residence home in the past three years. If a couple is married and one of the spouses has owned a principal residence within the last three years, the couple is disqualified from the tax credit. However, unmarried joint purchasers may allocate the credit amount to any buyer who qualifies as a first time buyer. Ownership of a vacation or rental property not used as a principal residence does not disqualify a buyer as a first time home buyer.
• The tax credit pertains to the purchase of any kind of home, new or resale, that will be used as a principal residence, and has been purchased on or after January 1 2009 and before December 1, 2009 (the purchase date is the date when closing occurs and the title to the property transfers to the home owner).
• The tax credit does not need to be repaid. This is the most significant difference between this tax credit and the one Congress enacted in July 2008. Because it had to be repaid, the previous credit was in essence, an interest free loan. This tax incentive is a true tax credit. However, the home buyer must use the residence as a principal residence for at least 3 years or face recapture of the tax credit amount.
• The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the homes purchase price up to a maximum of $8000.
• Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit. Individuals and couples whose income exceeds these limits may qualify for a partial tax credit.
• Claiming the tax credit is easy! Simply claim it on your federal income tax return and the money is refunded to you in your tax refund check.

2/11 The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has released a report that concludes that people who sell by owner get closer to their asking price and sell more quickly than those who list with an agent.  NARs report 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers was based on a questionnaire of 133,000 consumers who purchased a home between July 2007 and June 2008.

According to the report, homes selling by owner reap 97% of their asking price as compared to agent listed homes which come in at 96%. The report also found that an agent listed property took 10 weeks to sell while it takes just 6 weeks to sell by owner.

While the study didn’t specifically mention the cost of a real estate commission, it did suggest that using an agent would result in the seller losing another 6 percent off the sales price in addition to the 1% lost on the asking price. In response to the troubled current market where home prices are falling, sellers need to know that Realtors own suggest that homeowners will end up with more money in their pocket if they sell by owner than they will if they list with an agent.

The NAR report findings provide further evidence of the benefits of selling by owner.  In separate studies by Northwestern  and Stanford Universities, FSBO sellers were found to be as effective as agents in maximizing the sales price of their homes. After commissions are factored in, the studies reported, sellers who sold by owner actually saved money and realized more equity than sellers who sold through agents. The September 2008 issue of consumers reports magazine reported that FSBO sellers are more likely to get their asking price while agents, on average, deliver a sales price that is $5,000 less than the original asking price.

We have recently embarked on on the challenge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for our website. For those who are unfamiliar with the world of SEO, it is the science (or art) of optimizing your website to become better positioned in the search engines for certain terms.

For instance, if you google “For Sale By Owner Albany” we consistently enjoy the #1 spot for our domain fsbosearch.com. In fact we have literally hundreds of keyword phrases that are in the #1 spot in Google, Yahoo and MSN. I will expand on this in a future post.

Interestingly, we are starting to see some positive results from our efforts. Our traffic is up significantly from this time last year. But the real interesting thing is that we are starting to see more and more traffic from outside the Albany NY Capital Region.

For instance, I was browsing through our traffic logs this morning and looking specifically at the recent visitors by location. Check out the two screenshots below (click on the images to enlarge):

As you can see, 10 of the last 40 visitors were from outside of the Capital Region. Furthermore, five were from outside of the country – 2 from India, 2 from Italy and 1 from France. While we know that 90% of all real estate is sold to local buyers it is encouraging to see visitors from outside the area on our site. Are these visitors on our site because they are truly searching for Albany Homes or because of some of our real estate related content brought them here?

We will monitor the traffic logs to see if this is a trend or simply an aberration. In either event we will post again with our findings. In the meantime, don’t be surprised if your phone rings from a potential buyer with an Italian accent!

Albany, N.Y. was named to the Forbes magazine list of the “Top 25 Strongest Housing Markets” in the country, ranking #21.

According to Forbes, the list is based on analysis done for the magazine by Moody’s Economy. Moody’s analyzed housing forecasts for metropolitan areas with populations over 500,000 through 2011.

Moody’s compared the forecasts to housing prices in the 2nd quarter of 2008 to determine how far prices are likely to drop before hitting bottom.

Albany accompanied it’s Upstate NY metropolitan neighbors Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo on the list. Syracuse ranked #2, Buffalo #4 and Rochester was #15.

Forbes does not anticipate price increases in any of the metro areas before the end of the year, predicting the strongest metro areas will be “flat at best”. That is significantly better than Moody’s forecast of the 15 percent average drop for the entire country in 2009.

For hundreds of years in this country huge fortunes have been made in land. You buy a piece of land in a remote area that you believe is headed for growth and expansion and you sit on it. A wealthy developer comes along and offers you many, many times what you paid for it. That is the lure of investing in land.

But before you go out and invest your nest egg on that piece of property you are sure is ripe for profit you may want to consider the following:

1. Land as an investment is hard to monetize. In general land purchases generate no income and at the same time incur ever-increasing property taxes, thus creating a negative cash flow. So while you are waiting for your ship to come in you are losing money every year on your investment.

2. There is no depreciation allowed on raw land for federal income tax benefits.

3. Development of land is regulated by the municipality in which the land is located. Where land subdivision and development used to be not much more than a formality, it has become increasingly arduous to get approval, mainly because of tighter environmental restrictions.

4. Raw land is the most illiquid of all real estate investments. It can literally take years to sell some parcels – others may not be marketable at any price.

5. It is very difficult to get traditional financing or borrow against equity on land.

While opportunities for profit still exist, most financial advisors generally advise against land purchases for almost all independent investors; saying that it is, at best, a place to invest only money that you’re quite sure you won’t be needing anytime soon. As always, it is prudent to consult your professional advisors before making any significant investments.