Maria Gudelis

I like to include links to the following sites in my real estate auction listings: Chicago Title (www.chicagotitle.com), Home Gain (www.homegain.com), and one of my lenders. These institutions may help to overcome some potential objections in the buyer’s mind, such as “I don’t know if I would qualify for a loan for that house,” or “I’m not certain where to go to find a title company.”

Chicago Title provides title and closing services nationwide; Home Gain is a valuation company that can provide a map and demographics of the area as well as values of comparable properties; and my lender can pre-approve them for loans. Make this process as easy as possible, and it may result in more people being interested in your properties.

Take your pictures with furniture in the house; doing so gives the house a warmer feel and helps potential buyers imagine how the house will look with their furniture in it. Furniture also helps to give depth and size to a room that you’re trying to show with a two-dimensional picture. Take a picture of four walls and carpet, and the size of the room would be indeterminable.

Houses sell better with furniture in them. But remove all the clutter, such as magazines, mail, toys, and clothes, when you’re shooting your photographs.

Take pictures from the front and rear of your property. Include views of the yard and landscaping, if they’re a selling point. Also, take pictures of the kitchen, master bedroom, master bathroom, and family room. Often, people looking at your property will be from out of town, but even if they aren’t, they will want to see as many different visuals and views as possible. Pictures sell. And the more pictures you have the better chance your property has of selling online.

One nice trick to control raw land is looking for 5 or more acres with a house on it so that the loan is easier to get. Raw land you often have to come up with 50% of the deposit whereas if it is 5 acres with a home, you are applying for a residential loan and can get 100% Loan To Value! This is a great site to find those deals:

www.4horseproperty.com
www.equineproperties.com

Don’t forget the government auction sites such as
treas.gov
usdoj.gov

For larger deals (commercial) I have also used
loopnet.com