Real Estate Investing

Phoenix Real Estate for Australian Investors Scam

Real Estate Investing

Subtitled “If it sounds too good to be true…” Economist Mish Shedlock wrote about investors in Australia being pitched “hot property deals” in Phoenix. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/02/phoenix-property-scam-targets.html Here’s the short-answer version: First Rule of Investing Hello Greg, the cardinal rule in investing is "If it sound too good to be true, it is." This is what I [...]

20 February 2011 Read the full article →

Buying a foreclosure is hard

Foreclosures

Sometimes buying a bank owned REO foreclosure home is well… hard.  Sometimes it’s very hard. It’s not that the homes are sketchy (sometimes they are).  It’s not that the homes come without any disclosures of condition (they do). It’s not that the seller won’t guarantee anything during or after the sale (they don’t). It’s not [...]

10 December 2010 Read the full article →

Thinking about being a landlord?

Investors

If you’re thinking about becoming a landlord, The Landlord Protection Agency website is a great resource for you. Besides offering a chat forum, advice and free legal forms, they even have a funny Excuse of The Day feature where website members post their tenants’ most ridiculous excuses for not paying the rent on time. RentingAuthority.com [...]

21 June 2010 Read the full article →

Search the MLS, part 3

Buyer Help

Here are the Cliff Notes for part 1 and part 2 of this Pulitzer-winning series on why home shoppers who think they can search the MLS are mistaken: There is no 1 MLS, there are only lots of city-wide, regional or statewide MLSs. Consumers can’t search the MLS for their region directly because that database [...]

21 May 2010 Read the full article →

Search the MLS, part 2

Buyer Help

For those who didn’t read my previous post about the myth of “searching the MLS” here’s the Cliff Notes version: There is no 1 MLS, there are only lots of city-wide, regional or statewide MLSs. Consumers can’t view the MLS for their region directly because it’s private and for subscribers only. (i.e. Realtors, appraisers, etc.) [...]

17 May 2010 Read the full article →

Why you can’t search “the” MLS

Buyer Help

MLSonline.com MLS.com MLSlistings.com TheMLS.com Realtor.com RealEstate.com None of those are “the” MLS, or Multiple Listing Service. Listen up peeps, there are two giant misconceptions out there about consumers’ ability to search the MLS. (and see also our own Kelley Koehler on searching “the MLS”) Consumers can’t search “the” MLS because there is no single, national [...]

13 May 2010 Read the full article →

Tip for New Real Estate Investors

Real Estate Investing

Falling prices and historically low mortgage rates are bringing a flood of new real estate investors into the metro Phoenix market. It’s fairly easy in many parts of the Valley to buy a small house, put a renter in it and realize a positive monthly cash flow immediately. Here’s a very brief tip for all [...]

9 September 2009 Read the full article →

New Rental Scam

In The News

Head’s up, there’s a new scam in the landlord / tenant world. Funnily enough it involves Nigerians emailing you to send them money overseas. Fredericksburg, VA Realtor Sarah Stelmok found her own house (which she was living in at the time) listed online as a rental. She did a little digging, chronicled it on her [...]

8 August 2009 Read the full article →

Real Estate Glossary, Starter Home

First Time Buyers

This isn’t an official definition. I’m not sure there is one. It’s just what I use as shorthand for a certain type of property. 3-4 bedrooms 2 bathrooms about 1200 to 1600 square feet small yard usually no pool usually located about 20-30 miles from anything you can reasonably call ‘downtown’ almost always in a [...]

17 July 2009 Read the full article →

Landlords, Need Help?

Real Estate Investing

Landlord:  “Why didn’t you pay the rent on time this month?” Tenant 1: We all had swine flu and we like you so much we didn’t want to give it to you so we didn’t mail the check. Tenant 2: I don’t have time for this now. We’re all going to see the new Star [...]

14 July 2009 Read the full article →

More on Landmark Towers

Buyer Help

WOW! I’m still getting truly awesome comments from readers over at my old blogsite about the Landmark Towers. (one-half of this blog used to be at www.NorthPhoenixAgent.wordpress.com). I hadn’t paid attention to the old blogsite’s comments in a while and did I ever miss out! I’m reprinting all the comments here. They’re in order from [...]

6 June 2009 Read the full article →