It is important that you consider all of the home staging companies in your area and select from the companies that stage homes in the price range of the property you are trying to sell. Some individuals attempt to hire the most expensive company possible under the assumption that higher prices mean a better quality. This is not necessarily true. Many home staging companies specialize their work based off of the price range the seller is targeting. Home staging companies that target multimillion dollar homes use different strategies and budgets than home staging companies that target lower price bracket properties. Because of this, you will want to make your selection of home staging professionals carefully.

Once you have determined which home staging company you are interested in hiring, you need to understand the process of a home staging. There are three aspects to preparing a home for the market. The first step is to make certain the property is entirely cleaned. A clean property leaves a much better first impression. However, the level of cleaning is far above the normal home maintenance put in by the average resident. Every surface should be cleaned until it is in as new a condition as possible. Furniture should be cleaned and polished, as well as moved so that the flooring beneath it can be made clean. Once the cleaning is completed, the exterior and interior design aspects of a home staging project can be completed. Landscaping is vital to ensure a good first impression. As impressions are made on a property within a minute of seeing the exterior and entry, a sophisticated, unique appearance is required to make your property stand out from the other homes the buyers have gone to see.

The final aspect of home staging that companies will handle, and often the most time consuming, is the interior decorating portion. This is where the stagers will go through the things you own that are left in the open for guests to see and find ways to best present them. Items such as photographs and personal travel keepsakes should be stored away, as home staging companies will recommend their removal. This is due to the fact that buyers are not interested in your personal items and wish to imagine themselves in the property.

A good home staging company can help you sell your home for a higher price much faster than you could on your own, so long as you take the time and effort to follow the company’s recommendations on staging for the property.

There are two basic types of loans you will take if you are a fix and flip investor. There are the acquisition loans, and then there are the rehab loans, which have a fund control feature incorporated.

The most basic of the loans rehab investors will use is the straight acquisition loan. These loans will typically fund anywhere between 50-70% of the acquisition cost. They do not require a fund control account, and do not fund any of the rehab work. They allow an investor to take a loan to leverage his or her money and do the rehab work using their own cash out of pocket. The upside to this is it is very hands off, there is no fund control to work with, and you can do the rehab at your own pace. The downside, however, is that you need funds for a down payment, plus funds for the rehab.

A rehab loan, on the other hand, will loan based on the after repair value, or ARV. Typcially you are looking at private money lenders going to about 60% of the ARV on a loan amount. In order to do this, they build in a builders control or fund control account. By doing this, their risk is limited. If you walk away from the project, they have a fund contol account that allows them to rehab the property without having to invest additional funds.

The upside to this type of loan is that typcially, an invsestor can work with less cash. Instead of putting 30% or more down, plus paying for the rehab work with cash out of pocket, an investor can come to the table with 20-30% of the purchase price, and get the rest of the money needed for the project financed (including an interest reserve account, take a look at this investor rehab loan program).

The downside is that you will have to work with a fund controlled account for the rehab work to be done. This means you put in requests for the disbursement of funds to do the work. Some fund controls will allow for advances so that you can start the work with no out of pocket costs. Others require you to do work, then submit invoices to be paid. Having a fund control that will work with your needs is important, be sure to ask who you will be dealing with, and what the general process is. Having an individual you can speak with and work with directly on the disbursements is a huge benefit.

Working with a builders control does not have to be difficult. In some cases, with residential rehab projects needing only light rehab, you don’t even need inspections. Pictures of the completed work can suffice, especially if you start to build a relationship with a particular rehab lender or investor.

One of the most important aspects for a rehab investor should be knowledge of the prepayment penalty involved with the rehab financing. Most rehab loans have an interest reserve of some type built in, but you need to differentiate between that interest reserve and your prepayment penalty. Let’s take a look at the various options typical of these types of loans.

Prepayment penalty – There are two basic types of prepayment penalty, a straight prepayment penalty and a guarantee of interest. A 6 month guarantee of interest is not the same as a 6 month prepayment penalty.

Typicaly prepayment penalties equal out to 80% of 6 months worth of interest. With a 6 month prepayment penalty, if you pay the loan off in month 5, you still owe the same penalty as if you paid if off month one.

Guaranteed interest, however, is different. It guarantees the investor that you will pay interest for a given period of time. Using the above mentioned example, a 6 month guarantee of interest paid off month five would cost you only one month worth of interest.

Finally, we get to the interest reserve. An interest reserve is not guaranteed interest nor is it a prepayment penalty. It is a reserve account set up to make your payments for a set amount of time. Interest reserves are great, as you can typically get them financed into the rehab loan, and if you pay the loan off before the interest reserve runs out, you get that money back (unless you have a prepayment penalty of one type or another). When combined with a builders control account, you can rest easy (and so can your investor), knowing that you should incur no out of pocket expenses for a period of time while the rehab is being done.

Most rehab investor loans for residential fix and flip transactions should have no prepayment penalty. Be sure to ask your investor how yours is structured, and remember to make sure you differentiate between a prepayment penalty and an interest reserve.

If you are interested in buying a foreclosed home, then you can start searching for one on a foreclosed homes list. A foreclosed homes list is the best place to start such a search as this list indicates all relevant financial details attached to the house.

There are a few types of foreclosed homes lists available these days. The largest is the bank owned foreclosed homes list. This list includes all foreclosed homes that the banks took back. A bank owned foreclosed homes list is usually updated pretty regularly.

There are a number of bank owned foreclosed homes lists available for the general public. Major banks maintain their own foreclosed homes list, so people can easily search what they want. Although these lists are supposed to offer the same information for the people who look for houses, the usability offered for the end users are different. As an example, some foreclosed homes lists offer the ability to browse the banks database based on the state or locality of the property, while others offer more advanced search functions, or even no search functions at all.

The next list of foreclosed homes is the asset manager foreclosed homes lists. These lists are managed and maintained by asset managers located throughout the country. Usually, asset managers are involved in valuations and inspections related to foreclosures. Therefore, asset managers have a basic level of information pertaining to the foreclosed homes. Sometime, it is safe to assume that asset manager foreclosed homes list offers more information about the house than the rest of foreclosed homes lists.

The third foreclosed homes list is the government owned list. Currently this list includes all the federal agencies related to foreclosures. Additionally, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also included in the list as these entities are currently supervised by the government.

If you are looking to get into the foreclosure market, finding a good list source that you can work with will help you in your efforts.

Free Home Staging Checklist – The Exterior:

1: Clean the driveway and walkways (pressure washers work great)
2: Trim any bushes, trees, shrubs
3: Pull weeds, add black mulch to flower beds (inexpensive and looks great)
4: Paint the exterior if it is needed
5: Cut and edge the lawn
6: Clean all windows

Free Home Staging Checklist – The Interior:

1: Dust everything
2: Sweep and Mop or Vacuum
3: Remove any Large, non-furniture items or anything that may look like clutter
4: Paint if needed, choosing neutral colors
5: Bring in a few furniture pieces for show

Not every room is created equal when showing a property for sale. Concentrating on staging these rooms well will improve your results:

1: The Entry Room

This room is the first thing people see when they come inside the property. First impressions mean a lot. Remember, curb appeal helps properties sell, this is an extention of that curb appeal.

2: The Kitchen

Everyone loves a great kitchen. Even those who don’t cook! A bright, open, airy feeling kitchen will really improve how the property shows.

3: Bathrooms

You want your bathrooms to be very clean and well lit. Spotless is a better word for clean in this situation. Add some clean towels and maybe light a scented candle. Be sure the tub is scrubbed and any and all tiles are clean. This is one room that must be clean.

4: Living Room

The living room, den, family room, these rooms need to look great. Using neutral colors if you are paiting is a good idea. You want these rooms to feel inviting and cozy. Keeping the room as open as possible is also important, the larger these areas look, the better.

5: Bedrooms

Bedrooms are tough as you want them to look inviting, but you do not want them to be tailored to any one individual taste. Keep them neutral and open and well lit. You want to show there is room for the buyer to add their personal touch to what will become their intimate space. Try to create a blank canvas for your buyers to work with.

This is it in a nutshell, your free home staging checklist. Using this free home staging checklist should help you stay on task, and aid in deciding where to focus your attention. Remember, staging for sale is as important as every other step of the process, a well staged home will sell more quickly, and for more money. Good luck!

Getting a piece of bank owned property under contract for the right price is one of the fundamentals of flipping homes for profit. Getting an offer accepted is often times the first major hurdle investors face. From our experience, once you have a bank owned property under contract, the bank or asset manager becomes much more flexible in working with you to close the deal.

There are two basic offers you can make when buying bank owned property. All cash offers, and loan contingent offers. Making a loan contingent offer makes buying bank owned property on your terms more difficult than if you were to write an all cash offer.

With loan contingent offers, you will typically need to have a pre-approval letter and/or proof of funds from your lender or investor for the bank to really take your offer seriously. This can be difficult in today’s financial markets, and even with a pre-approval letter from a hard money lender, many banks will shun the loan contingent offers.

Advice that I often give clients is to write a cash offer if at all possible. Speak with your real estate agent when buying bank owned property about your options to go this route. Typically, you can show funds in your bank account, retirement account and even open credit lines to prove the funds for your all cash offer.

Being able to write an all cash offer will give your offer to the bank a sizeable advantage over other offers that may be loan contingent. Even if you choose to close the deal with a loan, the goal here is to get the property under contract. By writing an all cash offer, you can often times negotiate a lower purchase price, meaning your profit on the flip will be larger.

Some investors we work with will write these all cash offers with language to the effect that “buyer can obtain financing at no time or cost to seller” in the original offer. What this does is allow you to close with a loan without having to get a signed addendum from the bank or asset manager.

In our experience, changing an offer from cash to a loan is not terribly difficult once you have the property under contract. Sometimes it can take up to a week to get the addendum changing this signed and back to title, but you can usually negotiate for additional time if needed to wait on this and close with a loan.

If you are buying bank owned property, and have the ability to write cash offers, even if you plan on closing with a loan, that is a very good way to get these bank owned properties under contract, which is your first goal. Good luck!

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Find the right property for your home investment plan by checking out this real estate owned property listings.

I work with many investors, both novices and those who have been in the business for years. The investors that are flipping houses for profit on a regular basis all seem to have the same general business plan. Of course that is buy low sell high, but in today’s market, we need to be a little more specific.

While there are many business models to follow when flipping houses for profit, the one we are going to look at today focuses on entry level housing.

Entry level housing is a great place to be in today’s market. With almost 50% of homes underwater currently, the trade up market is not as strong as the entry level market. People who missed the boat on the last cycle and did not buy before home prices got out of hand are now ready to jump into the market after the recent correction in home prices.

In addition to a built in market for the entry level homes, there is another benefit to targeting this market. Financing is difficult these days, even for the most well qualified borrowers. Many investors are putting the same property under contract with multiple buyers before finding a buyer who can close. This is true even with buyers who are pre-qualified.

By targeting the entry level market, the closing ratios are typically higher. In addition, if you do have a buyer fall out, the carrying costs on an entry level home are much less than if you target the middle to high end. Having to carry a loan for 6-12 months will eat into your profit.

One last benefit we will look at today of targeting the entry level market is the cost of rehab. Typically, your cost of rehab on an entry level home is less than it would be for something on the high end. You do not need to put in high end upgrades to sell an entry level home. Curb appeal and a clean property go a long way. For investors looking to get started flipping houses for profit, the entry level market is the place to start. Even for seasoned investors, the entry level market continues to be very profitable.

Novices, however, typically are in need of house flipping financing in the form of acquisition and rehab loans. This type of financing can be difficult to find, but it is available.

The place to look is with hard money lenders. Most banks are going to require much more cash into the deal than hard money lenders will, and banks are becoming more and more reluctant to finance these types of transactions.

Working with a hard money lender for your house flipping financing can help leverage the cash available and take advantage of the market. You can typically expect to pay anywhere from 5-10 points or more on this type of money, as well as pay between 12% and 14% in interest.

While that may sound expensive, with the proper deals it does allow you to be profitable, and is much less expensive than bringing in a partner.

Most of these programs work in a manner where the amount of house flipping financing is based on an after repair value, or ARV. It is common to be able to finance between 50-65% of the ARV. It is important that you do have cash available, as you will typically need to show a vested interest in the project.

One of the most liberal house flipping financing programs available in California allows for 100% financing of the acquisition, with the borrower bringing cash in to cover the points, fees and rehab work. Often times the investor or hard money lender will also want 3-6 months of prepaid interest.

As a ballpark number, with 20-25% of the purchase price available in cash, a borrower can obtain house flipping financing. Once the deal is structured, all funds for the rehab will be included, and if interest is prepaid, there will be a period of time where no out of pocket costs are incurred.

Putting a 6 month interest reserve into the loan allows for the time to acquire the property, rehab it and get it back on the market. If done properly, many flips can be back on the market in 45-90 days. By hitting this target, it is possible to have the property sold before the first out of pocket interest payment is due.

For more information and examples of this type of house flipping financing, take a look at this page about rehab loans.

There are a few ways to acquire homes below market price, but with the high inventory that the banks currently have, buying bank owned properties is perhaps the best way in today’s market.

In my experience, the most successful formula for flipping a house is to buy at the entry level price, make a cash offer and choose a property in a good location that will need only cosmetic rehab.

By targeting the entry level market, you can accomplish two things at once.  Number one, you can keep your costs down.  This includes your purchase price and your carrying costs.  Carrying costs on a $500,000 loan are much higher than those on a $80,000 loan.  That is pretty obvious.  What is not obvious, however, is how this can effect your bottom line in todays market.

Financing is pretty tight these days, to say the least.  Homes priced at the higher price points are taking longer to sell, generallly speaking, than the entry level homes.  This is not only because of the price point, but also because of financing woes.  Even well qualified borrowers can have difficulty obtaining a loan on say a million dollar home, meaning there are a number of homes under contract that will eventually fall out due to lack of financing.

With the entry level homes, you will have some fall out as well, but servicing a smaller debt if and when your buyer falls out is going to allow you to weather that storm and still be profitable on your flip.

The second part of the equation is making cash offers.  If you have $100k in the bank, and write offers on high end homes, you will be writing offers contingent upon financing.  You are not likely to get the best response from a bank that owns a property when writing financing contingent offers.

Instead, if you write an all cash offer that allows you to obtain financing at no cost or time to the seller, your chances of getting an offer accepted at adventagous terms to you as a buyer will go up dramatically.

We will be looking at more topics related to flipping homes.  I am a private money specialist in the state of California, and have access to some unique rehab funding programs.  Feel free to visit my rehab funding page for more details.