Blastoff - An Awesome way to Generate extra income

An awesome new internet home page was just launched yesterday called Blastoff. It's a fully customizable homepage, similar to MSN, Yahoo and Google, but the biggest difference is that it has a shopping portal tied in that pays you cash back for your purchases! Over 400 major online retailers have already linked up with Blastoff to offer their customers cash back for there purchases. Here are just a few of the big ones:

• Best Buy
• Target
• ITunes
• Expedia
• Travelocity
• Southwest Airlines
• Barnes & Noble
• Sears

That's just to name a few of the more than 400 that are available. Blastoff is completely free to sign up. You don't buy from them at marked up prices or anything like that. You buy directly from the retailers themselves. In fact, I've already bought from Best Buy and was able to accumulate my Best Buy Reward Zone points in addition to getting cash back for my purchase.

But I haven't gotten to the best part yet. The best part is that with Blastoff you build a network. Anyone you refer to sign up to your Blastoff page becomes part of your network. And when they buy something online, not only do they get cash back for their purchase but you get a commission too! That's right, you get paid when they shop. And anyone that they refer who signs up becomes part of their network AND part of your network, so you all get paid. Up to 10 levels of separation. That is a serious opportunity to generate extra income.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this. It's completely free to join. You don't have to change your shopping habits to take advantage of this. Anyone who shops on the internet should join Blastoff. If you want to learn more just follow the links. You can see videos explaining Blastoff and sign up.

Once you sign up start telling everyone you know your own Blastoff page and get them to be part of your network.

Real estate investing in declining markets

Okay, here's the thing. You live in a real estate market that you know is declining right now. You've done your real estate timing research and you've seen that the market indicators are telling you that now is not the time to buy in your market. You won't be seeing appreciation for a while yet.

Does that mean you can't invest in real estate?

Should you just wait the market out?

No. There are still opportunities in declining markets. You just need to modify your real estate investing strategy. When a market is in decline probably the single most important thing to do in real estate investing is not to own property. If you own it, you are going to be stuck watching the value go down. But just because you don't want to own doesn't mean you can't be in the game.

Here are four great choices for real estate investing in declining markets.

1. Wholesaling - flip the deals without ever closing on them. Get a great deal under contract and then flip it to an end buyer. The best way to do this is to assign the contract and take an assignment fee. Your other option is a simultaneous closing. This way you are making a profit without having to hold the property. Very safe.

2. Short Sales - let's face it, the foreclosure rate is higher right now than it has ever been in history. It's higher now than it even was last year or the year before. There are tons of short sale opportunities out there. But to do this safely you'll be best off finding an end buyer BEFORE you have to close on the deal. If you are closing and hoping to make a big profit by reselling you'll end up with a much higher level of risk because you are holding in a declining market.

3. Lease Options - Wendy Patton, the nation's leading trainer on lease options, talks all the time about "control without ownership." That's what lease options are. By doing a sandwich lease option you place yourself in the middle of the deal without having to own the property. If you are in a declining market you need to take into account some depreciation as you set up your deals. If the market declines too much you can always try to renegotiate with the seller. But no matter what because it's an option you aren't obligated to purchase, you aren't obligated to close on the deal.

4. Real Estate Timing - If your market is declining then find another market to invest in that is about to go up. The above 3 options are great ways to invest in declining markets, but they can be a whole lot of work! And you really don't need to invest in your own backyard. Spread your wings and find markets that aren't declining. Buy property in markets that are going up so you don't have to do all of that hard work for each and every deal. This national approach to real estate investing allows you to get out of the highly competitive grind of hustling to find deals in your own market and then hustling to find buyers.

See this post at it's original source at http://remarketstats.com/blog/real-estate-investing-in-declining-markets/

New Market Analysis Charts coming

The end of the month/beginning of the month is always a busy time here at REMarketStats as we compile the latest market data and get ready for the next month's charts.

It's also an exciting time though because we get to see those new real estate market analysis charts.

The important thing with real estate timing is to watch the markets you are interested in and seeing what is happening in the market. Is it time to buy? Is it time to sell? Is it time to watch and wait or hold your existing purchase and watch the value go up?

One of the things I really like about the real estate timing market analysis charts is that it really helps me to know what is actually going on in any particular market and filter through all of the media hype and nonsense about what they claim is going on in real estate. After all, if you can see one news article saying the housing crisis is over and another article saying that the foreclosure rate is higher than ever on the exact same day, how can you possibly trust the media?

Instead I can rely on the actual data and the market momentum calculations to tell me when to buy, when to sell and when to hold. This is much better than guesswork in real estate investing.

See this post at it's original source at http://remarketstats.com/blog/new-market-analysis-charts-coming/

Real Estate Investing in Down Markets

Real estate timing doesn't just have to be used to invest in emerging markets. You can also use real estate timing as a way to know how to invest in your own market, based on what that market is currently doing. After all there are limits to how much we can invest in emerging markets based on our available credit and financial resources. You can make a lot of money with emerging market investing but what about investing in your own market at the same time?

You can use real estate timing to determine what is going on in your own market as well so you can determine your real estate investing strategy. For example, if your market is in decline you are going to have a different investing strategy than if your market is going up. Different real estate investing strategies have different levels of success based on the conditions of the market. For example, it's a lot harder to buy and flip rehab properties in a declining market. So let's say that you look at the real estate timing market indicator charts and determine that your market is in decline. What is a good real estate investing strategy for that kind of market?

How about lease options?

Lease options are an excellent choice for declining real estate markets because you are not obligated to complete the purchase if the market changes too much, or you can always renegotiate the terms to still close on the deal. The other thing that is great about lease options is that you don't need money out of your own pocket. They can be truly no money down investing deals.

Investing in Real Estate with Lease Options and Subject To Deals

If you are interested in learning about lease options, I recommend Wendy Patton's book, "Investing in Real Estate with Lease Options and Subject To Deals." It is a detailed hands-on guide to learning how to do lease option investing. Wendy Patton takes you through the whole process, giving examples as she goes. Wendy is one of those who teaches by doing, as she has done over 650 lease options in her real estate investing career. I actually know this book very well because I held my real estate license with Wendy Patton's real estate brokerage for many years before I relocated. If you are interested in learning about lease option investing this book is definitely where you want to get started. Take a look at "Investing in Real Estate with Lease Options and Subject To Deals."

See this post at it's original source at http://remarketstats.com/blog/real-estate-investing-in-down-markets/

real estate investing and historical homes

The first rehab property I ever bought as a real estate investment was a historical home. The home was built in 1929 and the entire neighborhood was deemed a historic district.

This means you have certain criteria you have to meet when making changes to the home. The historical society wants to preserve the character and nature of the home. As a novice real estate investor what this meant to me was that I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. Here is a before shot of the living room. Man, that wall paper makes my eyes hurt :)

The reason I bought the home was because I saw all of the potential it had. I knew it could be restored to glory. And just as importantly I knew it wasn't going to take a lot of investment in materials to do it, just tons and tons of elbow grease. This was good because I was doing this real estate investment rehab on a shoe-string budget.

This was back in the day when I do doing the work myself. It was my first project and the time table wasn't nearly as important as keeping the costs down.

The first mistake I made was to live in the home at the same time I was renovating it. As I said I needed to keep costs down and that helped. The problem with this was that it required living in a home that was in a constant state of renovation. For example, it's a real pain in the butt trying to use a kitchen when you are rebuilding the cabinets and dust and construction debris keeps getting all over your food.

The big thing about these historical homes is all of the great original woodwork and construction elements. 7 1/2 inch baseboards and window trim. Fantastic hardwood floors. All kinds of construction details that really makes these homes great and have a level of character you don't see in most homes today. The problem is that since the home was built in 1929, all of those great elements weren't always in style through the years. So the fantastic woodworking elements were painted over. The hardwood floors were carpeted over (and in some cases linoleum was glued directly to them). To restore these elements to their original glory means stripping off all of the layers to get back down to the original and then refinishing it. Let me tell you, this is really hard, time consuming work. If you are looking for rehab projects to buy, fix and flip and have contractors do the work, I definitely don't recommend historical homes. The restoration work takes a long time and the labor costs would eat you alive.

I removed every single baseboard from the house, labeled them, and used a very nasty chemical to strip 7 layers of paint, all different colors, off each one. I want to know who the heck thought olive green was a good color for baseboards??? I did the same thing with all of the window trim pieces, including every little piece of moulding. I tore out all of the carpets and sanded the floors down. Then I refinished everything. Here is the after shot of all of these historical elements restored.

I was very proud of all my hard work. I thought it looked great. And by the way, I even made a little bit of money off this house. Of course, it wasn't because I bought right. In this case, I actually paid too much money for the house when I bought it. It wasn't because I knew about real estate timing and bought knowing that the market was going up. It wasn't that I kept the rehab costs down so I left myself some equity spread, in fact the rehab costs were much higher than I anticipated even though I did all of the work myself. This was my very first rehab and I really didn't know what I was doing. So the reason I made a little money off this one was because I got lucky!

In this case the real estate timing was right. I bought while the market was going up and the rehab took me so long that the home appreciated in value enough to cover all my costs and even make a little bit.

Certainly this is not how I recommend doing your real estate investing. Relying on luck is no way to try and make a living as a real estate investor.

See this post at it's original source at http://remarketstats.com/blog/real-estate-investing-and-historical-homes/

Is Now the Time to Buy?

I've seen a lot of news coverage lately claiming that the recession is over and that we are on the verge of recovery. Home sales are back up in some areas and home prices have even risen in some areas. Surely this appears to be a good thing, right?

At the same time I have to admit that I'm a bit puzzled at how economists can claim that the housing crisis is over. Because at the same time that I'm seeing all of this news claiming that things have turned around I'm also seeing news like this:

"Mortgage Delinquencies break another record" -According to MarketWatch, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure or at least one payment delinquent has hit an all time high of 13.16% in the second quarter of 2009. This is the HIGHEST EVER rate recorded by the Mortgage Bankers Association. (Source MarketWatch, Amy Hoak, 8/20/09)

Either I'm missing something that all of these top economists understand but I don't or we are clearly not done with the housing crisis yet. If the foreclosure rate is higher than it has ever been that means that there are going to be more bank owned homes coming onto the market than we already have.

Is this happening everywhere in the US? No. Some areas are seeing some signs of recovery. But just as clearly some areas are not done going down yet. If you are a real estate investor I would think that you would want to know which. Because if you buy in one place you may be making a safe real estate investment. But if you buy in another you may still see home prices drop in that area.

There is a lot of opportunity out there right now for real estate investors, but you've got to know where you should be buying. You want to be buying at the right time in the right markets so you can actually make money with your real estate investments - not see them drop in value shortly after you buy. This is where real estate timing comes in. You need to know When to Buy and When to Sell. With the proper resources, like the real estate market analysis charts at REMarketStats, you can do just that.

Before you start thinking it's safe to just jump back into the market just because some economists claimed the housing crisis is over I strongly encourage you to find out more about the markets you are interested in. If the foreclosure rate is higher than it has ever been it means there are some markets out there that are not out of deep water yet.

We are in a time right now where there are some fantastic buying opportunities for real estate investors. Prices have dropped massively in some areas allowing rentals to cash flow that haven't been able to for some years now. But you need to know that those prices aren't going to drop a whole lot more. Do your research, find out about real estate timing.

See this post at it's original source at http://remarketstats.com/blog/is-now-the-time-to-buy/

Buying cheaper than rent - act in the right places

BusinessWeek in conjunction with the research firm Reis, just released a report that indicates that owning is now cheaper than renting in many metropolitan areas.

The top 10 cities according to this report where buying is a bargain are as follows:

1. Detroit
2. Pittsburgh
3. Rochester, NY
4. Memphis
5. Tampa
6. Cleveland, TN
7. Dayton, OH
8. Columbia, SC
9. Orlando
10. Dallas-Fort Worth

(source BusinessWeek, Prashant Gopal 8-20-09)

In real estate investing the best time to buy is when the market is flooded with bargains and you can pick up cash flow rentals. However, we also want to see our purchases increase in value and not decrease in value, which is where real estate timing comes in. While this list may be great as far as properties that will cash flow, some of these markets are still seeing property values decline. If you are looking to buy a cash flow rental property doesn't it make sense to do it in a market that is going to go up instead?

The best way to choose your real estate investments is by picking markets where the market indicators are pointing towards buying, this means the property values are more likely to go up. While you can make money from a cash flow rental property you are going to make a whole lot more money from a cash flow rental in an appreciating market.

The best way to choose these markets is by using the real estate timing market momentum charts, like the ones available at REMarketStats.

See this post at it's original source at http://remarketstats.com/blog/buying-cheaper-than-rent-act-in-the-right-places/