All About Realestate

By Olliver Kennedy

If you”re anything like me, the idea of your competition swooping in and getting deals away from your prospective clients is one of the worst parts of running your own business- be it the real estate investing business or any other business you”re involved in. For the consumer, competition is a great thing- it causes companies to work harder, price their products more fairly, and try to create a better product than the competition. However, if you”re the one trying to market and sell products, the competition can force you to work so hard, and whittle your profit margin so low, that eventually it’’s no longer worth your time to do business.

Luckily for us, the mortgage foreclosure/tax property investing business works a little differently than other businesses. The competition is still alive and kicking, but in many cases it’’s not a threat to us, and can even help us in the long run.

No one is offering quite the same “product” as you are in this business. Yes, we”re all trying to get ahold of owners before their homes are permanently lost, and there are only so many of them. We may even end up calling the same owners about the same properties. However, each of us has a different approach, a different personality, and a different strategy for getting an owner to sell to us. Certain owners will “click” with you, while others “click” with your competition. Since whether an owner likes you, or trusts you, is arguably the most important factor in whether you will sign them up, personality is a huge variable that will allow almost anyone who makes a good faith attempt at it, to be successful in this business.

Following along the same vein, having competition actually helps build trust with potential prospects. They may not trust the first person who calls them. They may decide to try to sell the property themselves. They may just be suspicious, and take a few weeks to get used to the idea that they”re really losing their home, and then wham! You call them at the right time, and get the deal. Luck, timing, and personality play a huge role in this business.

If that’’s not enough to convince you to stop viewing your competition as a threat, how about this? According to Wikipedia, the United States is comprised of 3,140 counties, or about 62 average per state. Each of those counties has properties for you to buy, and new tax delinquencies/foreclosures are being created every month. There are millions upon millions of dollars waiting for you, and in the current economic climate, foreclosures are being created even more rapidly.

There’’s more than enough cash to go around in the real estate investing business. The sooner you begin to see your competition for the blessing that it is, the sooner you can focus all your energy on finding properties and connecting with the owners, and enjoying the fruits of your labor! And if it’’s still difficult for you to see the positives of competition, then allow it affect you positively by getting out of bed a little earlier, working a little later and harder, and being a little more persistent than you might have been without it.

About The Author

Click here now– http://Deed-Grabber.com — to learn how to compile lists of these tax delinquent owners, how to find them (they”re often long gone), and what to say to them when you get them on the phone to get their deed for as little as $50.

By Olliver Kennedy

If you”re anything like me, the idea of your competition swooping in and getting deals away from your prospective clients is one of the worst parts of running your own business- be it the real estate investing business or any other business you”re involved in. For the consumer, competition is a great thing- it causes companies to work harder, price their products more fairly, and try to create a better product than the competition. However, if you”re the one trying to market and sell products, the competition can force you to work so hard, and whittle your profit margin so low, that eventually it’’s no longer worth your time to do business.

Luckily for us, the mortgage foreclosure/tax property investing business works a little differently than other businesses. The competition is still alive and kicking, but in many cases it’’s not a threat to us, and can even help us in the long run.

No one is offering quite the same “product” as you are in this business. Yes, we”re all trying to get ahold of owners before their homes are permanently lost, and there are only so many of them. We may even end up calling the same owners about the same properties. However, each of us has a different approach, a different personality, and a different strategy for getting an owner to sell to us. Certain owners will “click” with you, while others “click” with your competition. Since whether an owner likes you, or trusts you, is arguably the most important factor in whether you will sign them up, personality is a huge variable that will allow almost anyone who makes a good faith attempt at it, to be successful in this business.

Following along the same vein, having competition actually helps build trust with potential prospects. They may not trust the first person who calls them. They may decide to try to sell the property themselves. They may just be suspicious, and take a few weeks to get used to the idea that they”re really losing their home, and then wham! You call them at the right time, and get the deal. Luck, timing, and personality play a huge role in this business.

If that’’s not enough to convince you to stop viewing your competition as a threat, how about this? According to Wikipedia, the United States is comprised of 3,140 counties, or about 62 average per state. Each of those counties has properties for you to buy, and new tax delinquencies/foreclosures are being created every month. There are millions upon millions of dollars waiting for you, and in the current economic climate, foreclosures are being created even more rapidly.

There’’s more than enough cash to go around in the real estate investing business. The sooner you begin to see your competition for the blessing that it is, the sooner you can focus all your energy on finding properties and connecting with the owners, and enjoying the fruits of your labor! And if it’’s still difficult for you to see the positives of competition, then allow it affect you positively by getting out of bed a little earlier, working a little later and harder, and being a little more persistent than you might have been without it.

About The Author

Click here now– http://Deed-Grabber.com — to learn how to compile lists of these tax delinquent owners, how to find them (they”re often long gone), and what to say to them when you get them on the phone to get their deed for as little as $50.

By Kevin Kiene

The streets (both Main and Wall, to abuse already tired metaphors) are filled with murmurs of both caution and hope, when it comes to real estate markets nationwide reaching the bottom of their tumble and starting to turn upward. Have we seen the bottom? Is it yet to come, perhaps this winter?

Some schools of real estate investing thought contend that prices are low, making for a good time to buy. Others believe that the market may not have hit bottom yet, so they prefer to wait and see. What’’s the right answer?

The fact is, it doesn”t matter whether the real estate market has reached the bottom, or whether it has a few more points to drop. To begin with, it’’s impossible to predict the market, and even more disturbingly, it’’s impossible to even gauge in real time where the market is now! All of the data used to determine market strength is delayed, sometimes by as much as a few months. What that means is that the bottom will have come and gone by the time anyone even knows it happened!

Trying to time the market (in an exact sense) is a fool’’s game. The entire point of timing the market is to buy low and sell high, which may sound elementary, but too many investors lose sight of this simple fact. You can buy low right now, if you are clever in your investing strategies, and you can sell high later, by passing your ownership expenses to someone else until you like the sellers” market better. Timing the market doesn”t mean buying at the absolute nadir and selling at the absolute zenith of property values; it means buying low (which it’’s easier to do in a low market such as ours) and selling high (which it’’s easier to do when values are on the rise), which means timing the market in a much broader, more general sense.

Buying Low: A Few Thoughts

It’’s an unpleasant time to sell real estate, with prices substantially down from their peak a few years back. The lower prices lull some investors into a false sense of accomplishment, when they purchase a property for its current market value, and compare it to its market value in 2006. What real estate was worth in 2006 means absolutely nothing; what it’’s worth now is what matters, and what it will be worth in five years from now.

If you want to get a bargain, there are several common approaches to take. You can buy from a wholesaler (little work or expertise required, but you”ll be paying only slightly less than retail), you can try to wholesale a deal yourself (finding a good deal directly from its source, before other wholesalers snatch it), or you can try to find a good retail deal.

Buying from a wholesaler is easy to do; you contact as many wholesalers as you can, and ask for copies of their inventory and pricing lists. If you don”t know where to find wholesalers, they can be easily spotted by their “We Buy Houses” signs, and can be located through other investors, appraisers, and hard money lenders. A word of caution, however: wholesalers do not have your best interests at heart, and will squeeze as much purchase price as they can out of you. Negotiate hard, and be aggressive.

Wholesaling deals yourself is a lot harder, which is why wholesalers exist in the first place: not everyone can do it well. The trick to wholesaling is creating a network of bird dogs (people who call you when they stumble on a good deal) that’’s both diverse and extensive, and this kind of networking takes time and money. It’’s a complex and challenging approach, and outside the scope of this overview.

Finally, there’’s buying through a real estate agent, which can yield some excellent results, if you”re willing to take more a shotgun approach to investing. The trick to finding good retail deals is to find desperate sellers, who are willing to sell for far less than market value. Desperate sellers can sometimes be found by filtering your search results for properties that have been on the market for a long time, or properties that have just hit the 3- or 6-month mark (the listing agent will view these marks as significant, and urge the seller to take a lower offer). Alternatively, you can simply make dozens of lowball offers, and occasionally a seller will dignify your offense with a counteroffer, indicating that they are so desperate they”re willing to talk to you despite your offensively low offer. Talk to a competent, full-time real estate agent with a lot of investor experience, and establish a relationship with them if they know what they”re doing (most don”t).

Selling High: Rent Out to Wait Out the Market

Buying low is a lot easier in this market than selling high, which means that “timing the market” involves waiting until you like the sellers” market better. Let someone else pay your mortgage, pay your real estate taxes, pay your insurance… you can even make some money off of these properties every month, from your rental agreement. In the meantime, the real estate market bottoms out and slowly starts its upward climb again, appreciating in value even as your mortgage balance drops. Within a few years, you”ll have some substantial equity, leaving you in the enviable position of choosing between consistent monthly cash flow or a hefty payout from selling. In the meantime, you can write off your rental expenses on your taxes, and enjoy collecting rental income.

The exact timing of the bottom doesn”t matter. What matters is that it’’s a buyers” market now, and in a few years it will be a sellers” market. Don”t get bogged down in trying to divine the exact bottom of the market; instead, spend your energy working to secure excellent deals on real estate investments, and sign a rental agreement to hold them tightly. When it’’s a sellers” market again, you”ll be in a position to unload your investments for an excellent return.

About The Author

Get more tips from Kevin Kiene, at his on-line resource for landlords & real estate investors: http://www.ezLandlordForms. There is custom, state-specific rental agreement builder, an online database of real estate investing articles, and many free rental forms.

By Jason Loucks

Everyone that knows about real estate and foreclosures knows how the process works basically. The home owner is given a notice of default after the time has passed according to state regulations. Then, the preforeclosure process begins. If nothing happens or the loan is not corrected, the house goes to auction. The house then sells at auction, and the deal is done.

Hold on there, because that’’s not always how it goes. If the house isn”t saved from foreclosure, it will go to auction. However, not every property sells at the foreclosure auction. So what happens to the houses that are left?

The houses that are left after the auction become known as real estate owned or banked owned properties. These are commonly referred to as REO properties. There are three types of sales in this market, depending on the specific home and/or lender or real estate company that you”re working with.

The first is the sale where there is enough work required or the lender just wants it gone, and the home is sold for dirt cheap prices. You can pay cash, turn around and resell for more, and walk away with profit in no time at all.

The second type of sale is the cleanup sale. This is where banks or real estate agencies will take lower prices on a home just to get rid of it, and it only needs a good cleaning or maybe just a weekend’’s fix up to make it livable again. They don”t want it anymore, and they”re going to lower the price sometimes 40 to 60 percent just to get rid of it.

The third type of sale is the agent short sale. Again, the homes are dirt cheap, but they are not realy REOs. They”re offered for short sale, so you can just turn a profit and avoid the hassle. All that you have to do is make an offer, let the agent do the work, and wait for an acceptance.

The best thing about this method is that you don”t have to worry about the hassle of old-fashioned short sales, which means that you can spend less time and effort on your investments.

Many investors end up giving up their searches before the preforeclosure process even ends, either because they get discouraged or because they don”t think they can get good deals. Whatever the reason is, they don”t follow through. However, when you learn that there is so much to enjoy in the way of deals, even after the foreclosure auction, you”re much more likely to work that much harder to get the results that you deserve. It doesn”t matter when you buy foreclosures, as long as you”re making deals and making money.

About The Author

For more great Foreclosure Investing secrets from Jason Loucks and a FREE CD on how you can start profiting from Foreclosures, Preforeclosures, Short Sales, and REO’’s for yourself, go now to: http://www.PreforeclosureFortune.Com

By Rob Swanson

One of the reasons I have a successful real estate investing and real estate wholesaling business today is because I have made a lot of mistakes along the way and, more importantly, I have learned from those mistakes.

You don”t have to make the mistakes I made.
You can skip the pain of learning the hard way by reading about my mistakes and what I did to fix them.

Did you know that if you lack the cash to close you are at major risk? Wholesalers, you”ve done your job, you”ve built a buyers list and you”ve found a great deal. But now, if you don”t get a buyer on the hook to purchase your deal quickly and do not have the cash to close the deal yourself, you”ve got a problem.

What are you going to do with your deal if your buyer does not come through and close your deal? If you don”t have private money or cash available, you might end up in serious trouble.

You might lose your earnest money, you can damage your reputation and you WILL lose your profit. That stinks. I ended up getting screwed early in my real estate wholesaling career because I didn”t have access to private money.

Let me share the story about how this happened to me early in my wholesaling career. I put a great property under contract and then sold it to another real estate investor.

We had our double closing all set up and I was ready to go. But, guess what, my buyer had a hunch that I did not have the private money to close on the property and he stalled. He did not close.

He went behind my back causing me to lose the deal and my non-refundable earnest money. It was a tough lesson that hit me right where it hurts, in the bank account! I could have prevented this if I had private money.

Now, most cash buyers value the services of real estate wholesalers. But, there are unscrupulous people out there so beware and be prepared with your own private money.

You must maintain control of your deal. That means you must have private money or quick access to cash available as a backup if your deal doesn”t close with your buyer. Don”t leave anything up to chance.

People are good and honest for the most part, and they value you as a wholesaler. But, you must be prepared with private money if things don”t go according to plan.

You don”t want to have to completely depend on someone else for the deal to go through smoothly and to get your payday. The trick is to maintain control of the deal, manage your time lines, deadlines, inspection periods and have access to private money. And just in case things don”t go as planned, you must have access to private money as a backup.

If I would only have had private money for my earlier real estate deals I would have made more money. If I would have been able to close on that deal, I could have maintained control of that property with a contract and closed.

You must get access to private money so that you can close a deal yourself if needed. Then and only then are you truly in control of your own real estate wholesaling business.

About The Author

Rob Swanson is the creator of “3 Secrets to Raising Private Money”. If you want to learn the #1 technique you can use to raise millions of dollars, claim your FREE video training now at http://www.RaisingPrivateMoneyNow.com. You may reprint this article as long as the link above remains active.

By Olliver Kennedy

If you”re anything like me, the idea of your competition swooping in and getting deals away from your prospective clients is one of the worst parts of running your own business- be it the real estate investing business or any other business you”re involved in. For the consumer, competition is a great thing- it causes companies to work harder, price their products more fairly, and try to create a better product than the competition. However, if you”re the one trying to market and sell products, the competition can force you to work so hard, and whittle your profit margin so low, that eventually it’’s no longer worth your time to do business.

Luckily for us, the mortgage foreclosure/tax property investing business works a little differently than other businesses. The competition is still alive and kicking, but in many cases it’’s not a threat to us, and can even help us in the long run.

No one is offering quite the same “product” as you are in this business. Yes, we”re all trying to get ahold of owners before their homes are permanently lost, and there are only so many of them. We may even end up calling the same owners about the same properties. However, each of us has a different approach, a different personality, and a different strategy for getting an owner to sell to us. Certain owners will “click” with you, while others “click” with your competition. Since whether an owner likes you, or trusts you, is arguably the most important factor in whether you will sign them up, personality is a huge variable that will allow almost anyone who makes a good faith attempt at it, to be successful in this business.

Following along the same vein, having competition actually helps build trust with potential prospects. They may not trust the first person who calls them. They may decide to try to sell the property themselves. They may just be suspicious, and take a few weeks to get used to the idea that they”re really losing their home, and then wham! You call them at the right time, and get the deal. Luck, timing, and personality play a huge role in this business.

If that’’s not enough to convince you to stop viewing your competition as a threat, how about this? According to Wikipedia, the United States is comprised of 3,140 counties, or about 62 average per state. Each of those counties has properties for you to buy, and new tax delinquencies/foreclosures are being created every month. There are millions upon millions of dollars waiting for you, and in the current economic climate, foreclosures are being created even more rapidly.

There’’s more than enough cash to go around in the real estate investing business. The sooner you begin to see your competition for the blessing that it is, the sooner you can focus all your energy on finding properties and connecting with the owners, and enjoying the fruits of your labor! And if it’’s still difficult for you to see the positives of competition, then allow it affect you positively by getting out of bed a little earlier, working a little later and harder, and being a little more persistent than you might have been without it.

About The Author

Click here now– http://Deed-Grabber.com — to learn how to compile lists of these tax delinquent owners, how to find them (they”re often long gone), and what to say to them when you get them on the phone to get their deed for as little as $50.

By William Dorich

Job loss, Foreclosure, Depression… or just bad timing, let’’s face it, these are difficult times. This article is intended to share my 17 years of real estate experience and to help enlighten my readers on how to save your home, protect your credit and fend off the fraudulent foreclosure scam artists. Currently there are 6,600 foreclosures per day in the United States. Over 3 million homeowners are in foreclosure with 4 million more headed in that direction, so listen up!. A ”Default Notice” from your lender is not the end-it can also be a new beginning.

A woman in Pennsylvania recently contacted me after reading my book on foreclosure. Her husband had died and in that dreadful week their mortgage interest rate increased to 7.25% or by $300 per month. Mrs. Phillip was panic stricken realizing that she had not just lost a husband of 45 years, but also his retirement income of $1,880.00 per month … the money that was making those mortgage payments.

Her husband had 3 kidney transplants in 30 years, heart bypass, hip replacement and a knee replacement. He was surely the authentic “bionic-man.” The final surgery to stop internal bleeding took his life. The $75,000 home equity loan was being used to pay for medications above and beyond Medicare and any insurance the couple had. This additional loan posed another problem that I had to resolved.

Their charming Tutor-style home in Western Pennsylvania was worth about $220,000, but with the current mortgage of $300,000 and the equity line, this widow was terribly “up-side-down” with little to no prospect of selling the property in this ugly real estate economy. My first question to this widow was: “Do you want to stay in the house?” She did, and she could not imagine walking away from all of those memories, or worse, facing foreclosure.

“Loan Modification” is a rather unknown term to many homeowners; it is a phrase that with this growing financial crisis will become used and abused in the immediate future. With a letter from this homeowner granting me access to her mortgage records I was permitted to step in to resolve the widow’’s crisis. I negotiated both of her loans with each of her lenders and was able to “modify” her first variable interest rate mortgage from 7.25% down to a fixed 4.78% thereby reducing her monthly payments to enable her to keep her home and live within her own retirement income.

But that left an unresolved equity loan with CitiBank for $75,000. Like too many lenders these days, CitiBank simply ignored my correspondence and telephone calls for nearly 60 days. I don”t like being ignored, especially by a $10.00 per hour paper-pusher that was playing God with this widow’’s life, so, I went into action and wrote a letter offering CitiBank $0.30 cents on the dollar and admonished the lender for ignoring the plight of a woman who just lost her husband through medical circumstances. I sent a copy of that letter to the CEO of CitiBank and to several media outlets in the vicinity of the lender’’s corporate office. Within a week a Loan Mitigation officer was calling me three times a day wanting to settle.

This process took numerous letters, the widow’’s previous tax return which they seemed to have “misplaced,” dozens of telephone calls and yes, stubborn tenacity on my part.

The end of this story is that my widow gets to stay in her home and cherish happier memories of her husband and their life together. Nothing is impossible in today’’s mortgage crisis… just keep in mind these lenders cannot afford to take back these properties and it costs them $30,000 to $60,000 to foreclose. In order for them to accept federal funds they are compelled to sell one repossessed property for each 5 new loans they create. The name of the game therefore is to get to a loan mitigation officer who can make decisions. Stop talking to telephone receptionists or $10 per hour paper-pushers.

About The Author

William Dorich is the author of 7 books including his newest, Defeat Foreclosure and The Nursing Home Crisis. He has sold real estate in Beverly Hills and Westwood, California for 17 years. See: http://www.gmbooks.com

By Kevin Aaronson

Ladera Ranch consists of single family homes, condominiums, townhomes, apartments and retirement facilities.

In addition, there is one very impressive gated community in Ladera Ranch called the Covenant Hills village. This exclusive community is closed to the general public, but the first-rate facilities are accessible to all card-carrying residents of Ladera Ranch. Covenant Hills has been ranked at the very top of the list of highest-income locations in the United States. There are no other gated villages in the Ladera Ranch community.

Officially, Ladera Ranch is an unincorporated planned community. It is found in the southern section of Orange County, near the cities of San Juan Capistrano, Rancho Santa Margarita, and Mission Viejo. As a well-planned community, Ladera Ranch has introduced a number of special features that set it apart from most others.

In Ladera Ranch, for example, the planners thought well ahead and implemented effective speed-reducing measures on a large number of roads used in the area. Residents will find that roundabouts are commonplace at many smaller or less-utilized intersections. In addition, the street widths of Ladera Ranch’’s smaller residential roads are uniformly narrow. In addition, aesthetics have not gone unnoticed. Beautifully landscaped street medians are also very common in Ladera Ranch.

The majority of Ladera Ranch real estate can be found in approximately nine villages interspersed throughout the area. Each of these villages consists of ten or more neighborhoods, offering numerous attractive tracts of attached and detached housing for sale.

With a variety in architecture, ranging from Spanish Revival to Colonial, you”re sure to find a home with a style and personality that matches your own in Ladera Ranch. One of the ways that Ladera Ranch maintains its lovely sense of continuity is by allowing one individual builder to create the homes in each specific neighborhood. Out of the nine villages, five of them have clubhouses that are designed specifically to follow the theme of the main architecture style that has been highlighted in that particular village. In addition, residents will find numerous playgrounds, parks, swimming pools, and other open areas inside each village.

As well as the various clubhouses interspersed throughout Ladera Ranch, the community enjoys a private-access water park, an impressive skate park, 18 community parks, a dog park, six “plunges” (which are smaller neighborhood swimming pools that are unconnected to a clubhouse), and countless “pocket parks”–these are greenbelts and additional miles of hiking trails that range from the Ladera Ranch communities all the way to Dohini Beach. The hiking trails have their main starting point at the renowned ”Vista Toscana” estate in the eastern section of the Covenant Hills village.

Families can take a stroll down one of the countless paths to a playground, picnic and barbeque areas–perfect for a Sunday family gathering. For families with athletes among the crew, Ladera Ranch offers the Cox Sports Park, which is part of the County of Orange park system. The sports park is privately maintained and managed locally through the Ladera Ranch Maintenance Corporation (LARMAC). The Cox Sports Park includes five lighted sports fields. Two of these fields are designed for softball, with one soccer overlay. Two additional fields were created for baseball, with two soccer overlays.

In addition, there are two more soccer-specific fields, one of which is an unlighted practice field. Cox Sports Park offers amenities for family members and friends attending sporting events as well, including a snack bar and picnic tables.

About The Author

The Aaronson Group has over 40 years experience selling Orange County real estate. For more information about Ladera Ranch real estate and homes for sale, including bank foreclosures please visit us at http://www.previewochomes.com/ladera-ranch.php

By Lou Milard

The majority of people have dreams of striking it rich through the efforts of flipping houses. However, it’’s those same people who have no real clue as to how to make the kind of money that can be made. They have no formula or process to help them successfully flip houses.

When you want to flip houses to build yourself a comfortable lifestyle or have money for retirement, then it’’s very important to know what you are doing. You”ll read a lot on what you shouldn”t do when flipping houses but awfully few details are available on what you should do. There’’s no need to look any further. Here are five house flipping tips that can help you make the kind of money people only dream of.

Tip 1 - Make A Plan and Write It Out

Put your plan out on paper before you start. If you want to earn money from it, make sure you treat flipping houses like a business. The plan of action you have needs to be carried out to succeed. This means you”ll need to put in some effort to make it work and see it through.

Tip 2 - Create Yourself A Budget

Make sure you have a budget in mind. This includes for how much you”re willing to buy a property for and the cost for the renovations. On top of that, you”ll need a budget for how much money you”re willing to spend on making this property a worthwhile investment. It’’s real work pulling off a triumphant house flip. You must know about the neighborhood you plan to purchase into, the property’’s value and what the property value could be once your renovations are complete. Have a realistic idea what the costs are for the repairs and renovations. This way you”ll have an actual budget for the venture.

Tip 3 - Have An Inspection

Save yourself a lot of time and money by having an inspection done on the house you wish to purchase. Make sure you”re ready to back out of any deal if the inspection shows that the home has a lot of repairs. You also want to make alterations that potential buyers can see. Changes like that tend to drive up the house’’s cost. You certainly don”t want to make modifications that aren”t as noticeable even if they are necessary. Consider the pros and cons and think about how much potential profit you”d get from the flipped house.

Tip 4 - Research The Neighborhood

Make sure you are familiar with the neighborhood and create your house flipping plan on the area’’s needs… not your taste and your needs. Unfortunately, novice home flippers forget this rule. Remember that the home flipping project is a business and not a one-on-one project. Make sure to keep your costs low and leave out feelings.

Tip 5 - Make Money/ Don”t Waste It

It’’s important to remember that you want to make money, not lose it. When you have an asking price, remember that you put some effort (not to mention blood, sweat and tears) into the home. Have a real idea of what you can earn and how far you”re willing to drop that price so you have some profit in the pocket.

If you”ve never flipped a house, bear in mind that you may not make any money the first time out; you may even lose some. If you happen to make a profit, you have an idea for the next few times what you can do; perhaps making more money on future flips. The lessons you discover from those first flips are lessons that cannot be taught and bought.

About The Author

Lou Milard is a successful real estate investor who specializes in wholesaling houses. You can learn more about him, and download his FREE report “How To Buy a Wholesale Deal Without Taking a Bath” at http://www.BigProfitPropertyDeals.com

By Karl Hopkins

When letting a house much is taken on trust. Whatever checks the landlord makes, it remains the case that he or she is entrusting tenants who are barely known to him or her with a valuable investment. If there are problems with the rent or with the tenants” behaviour, it can take a while to go through all the necessary legal steps to put things right.

The law says the landlord must allow the tenants quiet enjoyment of their rented home - meaning he or she cannot go bursting into the premises whenever the fancy takes. Although regular inspection checks can be arranged, in general tenants must be left alone to live their lives.

For their part tenants agree to pay the rent in return for a property that is of adequate standard, not damp or unhealthy in some other way, and not dangerous. Should anything go wrong, they rely on the landlord to put things right.

In short the relationship between landlord and tenant is one of trust.

Things can, and sometimes do go wrong. But in most cases disputes arise from misunderstandings rather than wilful dishonesty or unthinking carelessness. And this is where the tenancy agreement comes in. It sets out the duties and responsibilities of each party, so that each knows precisely where they stand.

Since introduction of the 1988 Housing Act most tenancy agreements will be what are known as assured shorthold tenancy agreements. These are most commonly for six months - the minimum period, after which tenants can be required to leave if the landlord simply decides he or she wants the property back.

When the first six month term expires, the landlord can grant the tenants a further fixed term tenancy agreement (say another six months), or simply allow them to stay on under the same terms and without any additional paperwork. In such circumstances the tenancy becomes a ”periodic tenancy”. Tenants can quit periodic tenancies by giving the landlord one month’’s notice, while the landlord can require them to leave if he or she gives them two months” written notice.

Tenancy agreements set out landlord and tenant rights and obligations. But they cannot take away minimum legal duties and obligations set out in various Housing Acts, and embedded in common law. So, for example, tenants have the right to ”quiet enjoyment” of their rented homes, while landlords cannot shed their responsibility to provide a safe environment, and must give tenants the minimum notice periods spelled out in the law - usually, but not always, two months.

Neither must tenancy agreements be ”unfair” (under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations). According to the Office of Fair Trading’’s Guidance on unfair terms in tenancy agreements, ”any term may be unfair if it gives the landlord, or the agent, excessive power to decide whether the tenant should be penalised or obliged to make reparation, or deprived of any benefits under the tenancy agreement”.

Unless stated otherwise, private sector tenancy agreements drawn up since February 1997 are automatically shorthold assured tenancy agreements unless they state otherwise. There are exceptions to the rule - holiday lets, where no rent is paid or the rent is very low, or is more than 25,000GBP, where the tenant is a company, or where the accommodation is shared with a resident landlord. For these exceptions, different types of agreement are needed - ”common law” tenancy agreements which stand on their own merits outside the restrictions and protections of the Housing Acts.

For holiday lets, all that is needed is a simple agreement stating among other things that the rental is for a defined period and is for holiday accommodation only.

Lodging agreements for rental of rooms in houses shared with landlords can amount to tenancies (in general terms if the tenant has exclusive use of a room) or a licence to lodge. Either way ”lodgers” have fewer rights and less secure tenure than tenants who are party to assured or assured shorthold tenancy agreements.

For low or high rents, and for company lets, a full tenancy agreement is needed setting out rights, duties and tenure in some details. As rights and duties are not covered by statute, common law tenants have, in general, less secure tenure than tenants with an assured or assured shorthold tenancy.

However, this also means more needs to be spelt out in the agreement - such as what notice is required, who may live in the house, rights of (or restrictions on) assignment, and what happens if the lease expires but no notice is given (if nothing is said about the lease being renewed monthly it is likely to be deemed to have been renewed for the length of the original lease).

Statutory deposit protection applies to assured shorthold tenancies only, so landlords of properties with common law tenancies need not cover the deposit in a Government approved scheme. However, neither does the important ‘’section 21” possession procedure apply (gaining possession by simply giving notice).

In England and Wales, unless the tenancy agreement is to be for a fixed period of over three years, the tenancy agreement can be verbal (although this is not advised).

Tenancy agreements may be between the landlord and one tenant or the landlord and a number of tenants - for example a couple living together as partners. From the landlord’’s standpoint, two or more signatories to the tenancy agreement are better than one since this will make each tenant ”jointly and severally” liable for the full rent - meaning that if one does not or cannot pay, the other tenant is responsible in law for the entire amount.

Houses can also be divided into multiple tenancies where each tenant has exclusive use of a particular part of the property (say a bedroom) as set out in the tenancy agreement, with use of the common areas in the property. It makes sense to have multiple rather than joint tenancies where the tenants are not related and may intend to live in the property for different periods.

Tenancy agreements are important documents, enforceable in law, and both landlords and tenants should take great care before signing such agreements. They should not be taken lightly, but should not be feared - they are, after all, a tenant’’s best friend.

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