How to improve your chances of renting your place

First impressions do count. So when looking at a property either to buy or to put in the market to rent/sell you have the know that the property can stand out from the rest and improve the chances to get a higher demand.

Consider looking at the following factors:

Is the property in a good location?. As the popular says go, in real estate is all about location, location location!
Does it have a good curb appeal? Make sure that the garden and the front yard its well kept and clean. Does it have nice plants and flowers around that highlights the property?.
Is it easy to access? Remember that with a growing baby boomer population the property has to be ADA  (American with disabilities act)
Can you help with the views? People pay a lot of money for the vies. Specially if its water views. Make sure that you do all possible to highlight the potential view by chopping branches and putting plants in strategic places.
Highlight some feature of the house. Make sure that the house has some wow factor to it. This will make it stand out from the rest. Remember that when they are house hunting after looking at so many properties eventually they all becomes a blur, so you make sure your property has a nice feature  to remember it by.
Anything that makes the house safer is an extra selling point. Gates, alarms, safe, etc  Families with kids would be happier to pay more rent for a safer place.
Make the house show neutral features and colours, remember that the red walls its not everyone taste, you have to make sure to appeal a broaden audience of potential buyer or renters by making them seeing him/herself living there.  In order to achieve this try to depersonalize the house, any personal objects like trophies, and pictures should be removed as well as try to uncluttered the house a much as possible. Needless to say the house should be spotless and well decorated with nice healthy looking plants.  It's crucial that that feeling that the person get from the house is a positive one.
High quality finishes without going over budget its always something that can make a difference in the outcome of an open home.

Demographics that favor your investment

• Are there more female than males?  (females tend to nest)
• Are there more singles or married people? It there are more single it would be better to buy an apartment.
• Are there more middle age or youngsters or older people? This can affect how many people can afford to buy a place.
• Stability and profitability of major companies in the area
• Are there more professionals in the area?

Other factors to consider::

- There are approx 75 million in the baby boomer population.

- Last year there was a 13 percent of the USA population over 65 years of age

-The current average life expectancy in America is approx 78 years.

So Americans are not only getting older but they living longer, important factor to consider when buying real estate as you be looking in the long term.

What is a HUD?

A HUD is a settlement statement document.

The first page you have a summery of the buyers transaction (on the left side) and the sellers (on the right) There are a contract purchase price settlement charges, earnest, taxes, security, rent and prorated.

On the second page you have the itemised brake down of the 1st page.
The buyers pay all the closing cost which are title insurance fee, wire express fee, document preparation fees etc.

Things you should look out for when you are hunting for a house

Make sure you take your notepad and write what you think about the following:

In terms of area:
Overall impression of the suburb
General condition of the buildings
Quality and condition of the cars
Area landscapes
Traffic paters
Quality of business of the area

In terms of building:
Location within area
Lighting
Parking
Ease of access
General condition
Curb conditions
Fits what you are looking for
General condition



Make sure you drive around in different times of the days to notice the difference.

Tip: find out what projects are underway on the area by contacting the city officials and staff.

Transfering your title to your entity:

Once you have formed an asset protection entity its time to transfer the title of the property to the LLC.
You have tho make sure that you:

- Sign and approve the operating agreement.
- Sing the minutes of the 1st meeting
- Issue a membership certificate
- Notify your insurance that your property its under your LLC and not your individual name. This is quite important as in the case of a claim this can be an reason for not paying our. 

What is probate and how can you avoid it?

Probate is the process in which the estate of a deceased person gets resolved. In this process it gets probed that the testator's will is genuine and decides the executor as the personal representative of the estate. It gets interpreted what the decease person wanted to do with his state.
Probate usually takes several months and it can be quite expensive.

Some of the ways to avoid probate in the US are the following:

 -  Execute a living trust.
-  Set up a POD or paid on death designations on bank accounts
- Set up of a TOD transfer on death on brokerage accounts.
- Placing the property in joint tenancies (the person that survives inhalers the other party estate). A life estate deed could be executed and a testator can add a named beneficiary to it.

Note that avoiding probate does not eliminate the estate taxes.
  

Asset Protection in real estate

Asset protection on your real estate its one of the key factors to be able to sleep sound at night. In a country like the US where most of the lawsuits in the world are filed its paramount that your property its well protected in the case something doesn't go as planned.

Here are some key points:

= Insurance: don't t be fooled to believe that with this you are cover, this is just one single step to get your real estate protected. Make sure you are always cover against natural disaster, you don't want to wait until a flood comes to realise that floods was one of the exclusions in your policy.
= Don't do joint tenancies. In the case one of the persons in the tenancies gets suits you might loose everything too..
= Never use a C corporation (you will pay more taxes)
= Only youse a LLC (or TIC Tenancy in common with both parties protected by a LLC)
= Get a living trust (for provate avoidance) and the LLC (for asset protection)