December 1, 2006 by RichK.

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September 27, 2006 by RichK.

Not too long ago if you wanted information on real estate you called your real estate broker and you could go down to his office and find homes in a directory that looked like a big phone book. It was printed up once a month and distributed to Realtors in the area. This was standard procedure for years. Today people shop from home looking at listings posted immediatly on the world wide web with multiple photos, virtual tours, aerial views, detailed reports and maps. You can view homes accoss the country or down the street. At anytime of day or night. 24 x 7 x 365. It is the NAR or National Associattion of Realtors that makes all this online exposure possible. Thru broker resiprosity and websites like Realtor.com. Realtors have the biggest database of homes for sale anywhere. Collectively called the MLS. Consumers can find your listing within hours of it being listed from thousands of Realtor websites world wide. 

Consumers are calling brokers regarding homes they have already seen on line. They know where it is located what the taxes are and the price. They have already been pre-qualified for a loan online. If this descibes you as a buyer call us. We can help.

We can have just listed home and real estate listings in your email inbox as soon as they are listed. No need to search everyday.

Did you know that almost 80% of home buyers get the information they seek ONLINE. When selling don’t use a Realtor, or worse yet a Real Estate broker who will not even list your house on the MLS, who is still in the stone age. Does your Realtor have a website? We have over 10 optimized sites that get found by search engines, and we even create websites for listings. Does your Realtor? 

Most buyers find homes on sites like Realtor.com and The Times Union Homes. Real-e-SmartRealty.com lists homes with photos on both and several non Realtor specific real estate websites. 

A good Realtor working on your behalf can find those homes that meet your criteria and have the listings in your email inbox as soon as it is listed. When you see a home you like in your daily email a good Realtor should be able to pull comps and prepare a CMA or comparitive market analysis. A good Realtor will be able to find information for you while simultainiously on the phone with you and send it over to you via email instantly. That is what todays consumer wants and demands.

When asked what consumers are looking for most from real estate listings the # 1 answer is photos. Most online buyers won’t even look at home listings without photos. A good Realtor when listing your home will upload plenty of photos and a slide show or virtual tour as soon as it is listed. We never list without lots photos and maps. Even land listings. If you don’t have maps we can find them. 

Today real estate is ecommerce. You do not need a “team” to sell your real estate or home for sale. Most people feel as though they are being “handled” when working with a team. Most people prefer competence and persistence and in fact like to work with one agent. Our goal as an agency is to replace team real estate sales with tech real estate sales. With Real-e-SmartRealty.com you get the best of both worlds. We are a small agency with a personal touch (you will be working directly with the owner broker) but we are big online. 

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August 29, 2006 by RichK.

With capital area real estate markets cooling we are begining to see HUD homes stay on the market longer. This is also true for all homes. When a HUD home does not sell in the first eleven days it becomes available to investors. For the first eleven days HUD homes are only sold to owner occupant purchasers. When a HUD home is relisted the owner occupant bidding period is reduced to five days. It them becomes available to investors on the sixth day. Also after the initial owner occupant bidding period BIDS ARE OPENED DAILY. Investors have not been able to find many HUD bargains in the past few years. That is not true anymore. Forclosures are on the rise. With gas prices increasing, people moving closer to there jobs, local urban revitalztion, home prices leveling and RENTS INCREASING now is the time to keep you eye open for HUD bargains. Real Estate is still the best investment. If you are an investor or would like to start investing in real estate give me a call 518-265-0401 or send me an email MailTo:RichK@Real-e-SmartRealty.com . We will discuss your investment goals and needs and set up Instant MLS eMail notifications of just listed, relisted and price changed HUD, VA, and bank owned homes and real estate.

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August 6, 2006 by RichK.

You know what they say about things that are too good to be true? They usually are. Case in point. The latest gimmick to hit real estate sales is no seller commission real estate. It sounds great doesn’t it. Sell your home and pay no commission. What a bunch of great guys. They will sell your home at no cost to you. They claim to provide full service. All the services a Realtor® provides. And here comes the best part (and the sales pitch again and again) 0% commission. These real estate brokers are NOT Realtors®.

Sellers: Beware this is an illegal scam to get your listing and it will COST YOU THE SELLER THOUSANDS !!!!!

Buyers: Read the fine print. The advertised price does not include a buyers premium.

These guys will not explain on thier websites there scheme. You have to schedule an appointment for them to explain it to you. That paranoia they justify by saying competitors want to steal trade secrets. Too bad buyer’s agency has been around for years. Or if they represent the seller, as they claim (for free of course) then what kind of “free” representaion do you get when they look to buyers for compensation? That is called dual agency and must be disclosed. Undisclosed dual agency is illegal and could get YOU THE SELLER SUED( if you don’t believe me call the New York State Department of State and ask). Yet these guys claim to work only for sellers. Hmm? sounds fishy to me. They really want to get there foot in the door with promises of no seller commission or costs. What is there gimmick. Simple, buyers pay commission. What a concept. Sounds great doesn’t it. The problem is that sellers are not the only party in the transaction.

These guys have the nerve to say you will get “more competition from buyers” That is a bald face lie. Here is why.

Does the owner of a car dealership pay his sales people or do the car buyers pay the sales people? If you were shopping for a car and a sales person said “ok this car is $10000″. You say “ok”. Now the sales person says “but it really costs $11000 because you now have to pay my commission”. What would you do? I would walk. It is called false advertising. Advertising at one price and adding hidden COSTS later.

If buyers pay commission at the closing table then they will have to bring that money to the table. Thousands of dollars cash out of pocket at closing. Even at 4% for a home costing 150k that is six grand more a buyer has got to bring to the table to buy one of these buyer-pays-commission (BPC) broker’s listings. Most people have all they can do to come up with funds to close as it is. Imagine having to bring $6000.00 more to the table to pay the broker. Is that full service? Deceiving the public with illegal bait and switch tactics and illegal undisclosed dual agency? Ultimately the buyer’s bank must “fund” the transaction. If buyers have to come up with thousand more at closing why would they buy your house. When the Realtor’s listing down the street will cost thousand less out of pocket at closing?

These brokers also engage in ILLEGAL “steering” or funnelling buyers through thier lawyers and mortgage brokers, done for buyers as a “free” service. This is done because most lawyers and mortgage brokers know 0% is is a scam. Anyway I thought they only “represent” sellers??????? Beware Mr. and Ms. seller you COULD GET SUED.

If you list with the BPC broker your home will not be listed on any MLS or Multiple Listing Service. Is that full service?

You basically have no online exposure or incentive for the thousands of area Realtors® to market your home. Yet they claim you will get “more competition from buyers”. HOW?

Your home will not be listed on http://www.Realtor.com . The fourth most visted real estate website in the world. Your home will not be listed on any websites other than the BPC broker’s site. These broker’s sites are poorly designed having limited info regarding your home. They also get very little traffic. Even the number of listing views can be manipulated on these websites. Simply by clicking on print or printable flyer, just watch the number count roll up. Like I said no exposure. Did you ever visit a Realtor’s website and search MLS homes? You will notice ALL MLS listings are available. Not just the listing broker’s listings. That is how and WHY the MLS and IDX(Internet Data Exchange)works. Buyers can find your home on thousands of area Realtor websites. Exposure, exposure, exposure. The illegal BPC broker can’t do that with your listing. They are not MLS members and they don’t play by the rules.

These sites claim not to be discount brokers and they are “on top of technology”. These guys don’t have a clue when it comes to technology or online real estate marketing. You can not be on top of technology when your sites can’t be found. Also not being Realtors they can not list homes on all the major Realtor sights like Realtor.com TimesUnionHomes.com and Thousands of other Realtor Internet Data Exchanges. The number of online views of your home is in the thousands when you list with a Realtor.

The very definition of a discount broker is one who discounts his commission while providing limited service and offering no selling compensation. These guys are worse than discount brokers at least “discount brokers” list on the MLS. (Yes Realtors sell homes because we get paid).

Other sevices are: No charge if your home does not sell. And: Only showing prequlified buyers your home. BIG DEAL AND BIG DEAL. Realtors do not charge if your home does not sell. I know of no Realtor who wastes anytime whatsoever with clients who can’t afford to buy. Why would they.

The BPC brokers claim to give you a fair market analysis of your home. How can they when they do not have all the information to do that? 70% of homes are sold using the MLS and for good reason. It works. All that statistical information regarding 70% of all home sales belongs to Realtors®. A Realtor® can tell you how many homes sold and for how much. What was the average days on the market for homes. The BPC broker has no access to this info. Not knowing the market will COST you. House prices six months ago are not the same as today. To see one of my market condition reports on Reator.com click on this link: Market Condition Reports

When you market your home you want as much exposure as possible. We advertise your home on two multiple listing services. The Greater Capital Region MLS and the Fulton County MLS. That puts thousands of area Realtors® to work for you. We put your house online at all of Real-e-SmartRealty.com’s websites, Realtor.com, The Albany Times Union’s Homeport and Realtor IDX links world wide. Litterally millions of viewers can find your home with a few mouse clicks from THE most visted real estate website’s home pages. The BPC broker can’t do that for your home. The MLS doesn’t work that way and they are not members.

• So you can see “No-Cost-to-Seller” Real Estate has many hidden COSTS. First by driving away buyers with bait and switch tactics and illegal false advertising. Think about it, would you buy a home when the broker wants you to pay him/her on top of the asking price? COSTING BUYERS at the closing table thousands more than if they used a Realtor®?
• Illegal undisclosed dual agency( representing both the buyer and seller) could very well get you and the BPC broker sued.
• Inacurate market analysis’. How can a BPC broker tell you what homes sold for when he leaves out 70% of the sold homes on his “market analysis”?
• Next they give your home very little to no online exposure. 80% of home buyers start there search online. No MLS. No Realtor.com. No Times Union Homes. No IDX (Internet data exchange). Basically no exposure other then on the BPC site. The BPC brokers claim to Cooperate with Realtors. Not so. If they did they would be members of an MLS. Why would one of my buyers want to pay a Buyers premium? When all the other homes I show them the seller pays. No cooperation. They pocket your listing for an in house sale. BPC brokers not knowing the market and pricing your home wrong will COST YOU THE SELLER THOUSANDS. Not exposing your home online and pocketing the listing WILL COST YOU THE SELLER THOUSANDS.
  

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July 18, 2006 by RichK.

I think the question should be why wouldn’t you invest in real estate. Real estate has historically only gone up in value. Remember they bought Mannhattan Island for $24.00. Will Rogers said “buy land they aint maken anymore”. If its got location, location, location you can’t replace it. Real estate is also a stable investment. Can you determine what one technology company’s stock is doing by comparing it to other technology companies? No. You can with real estate. It is called an appraisal. One is done with every purchase. Your home’s value will not differ drastically from neighboring ones. If you have 10k you want to invest how much stock could you buy? Answer, ten thousand dollars worth. Now how much real estate could you buy? Answer, with 10% down one hundred thousand dollars worth. Now lets assume both investments appreciated 10%. What is your return on investment capital? Answer, if you invested 10k in stocks your stocks are now worth $11,000. You made $1000 or 10%. Compare that to real estate. You invested 10k in a home worth 100k it is now worth $110000. You DOUBLED your money. Your return on investment was 100%. If your real estate investments are collecting rents than you have not only bought 90% of the place with other people’s money, other people are paying back the loan. Ideally with a positive cash flow on top of that. Real estate has made more people rich more times than any other investment. That is why I not only sell real estate. I also invest in real estate.

 A lot of investors have gone into hiding in the past few years. It is not that they were not making offers. They are getting out bid on homes by owner occupants. Owner occupant buyers are generally willing to pay more. With the market cooling I think you will see some good buys. Be ready sign up for my email notifications of just listed homes, multi families or land. http://www.instantmlsemail.com/

If you have a question or would like to post a comment about investing in Tech Valley Real Estate send me an email: MailTo:RichK@Real-e-SmartRealty.com . I will send you back a password and you can start blogging.

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July 18, 2006 by RichK.

Next to location, what your home “shows” like is the second most important thing that buyers will consider. If your home fits the buyers criteria the next thing they look for is presentaion. To get the most for your home you have got to invest in sprucing it up. Paint everything. A new coat of paint could net you thousands more. The same is true with carpets. Do not offer buyers a discount if they take the home with that alvacado green shag carpet. Get it out of there. A nice neutral berber could mean the difference between them buying your home or the one down the street. Inventory is increasing so you have got stand out in the crowd. If you can, start marketing in the spring when the flowers are in bloom. Visit these links for some good advice on preparing your home for sale: http://realtytimes.com/rtnews/nlpages/20060321_salable.htm?opendocument&Vol=92&ID=richardkeicher

 http://realtytimes.com/rtnews/nlpages/20051230_owners.htm?opendocument&Vol=92&ID=richardkeicher

http://realtytimes.com/rtnews/nlpages/20060309_appealing.htm?opendocument&Vol=92&ID=richardkeicher

If you would like to ask a question or post a comment send me an email MailTo:RichK@Real-e-SmartRealty.com . I will send you back a pasword and you can start blogging.

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July 3, 2006 by RichK.

One common question I get as a broker is what is a HUD home? The department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), a branch of the federal government, insures loans made by banks against default. When someone defaults on one of these loans HUD settles with the bank and takes the house back. HUD then resells the house. Thats it. All offers MUST be placed with a licenced HUD registered Real Estate broker. All houses are sold as is. So do your homework. They are first offered to owner occupant purchasers. If no owner occupant bids are received after 11 days it is offered to investors. Some of these homes need a lot of work. Some do not. You can find out more by visiting: http://www.hud.gov/homes/index.cfm

HUD homes are also posted on the MLS. Be the first to see HUD and other listings including bank owned, VA and foreclosed homes. Sign up for this free service here.  

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July 2, 2006 by RichK.

Welcome to Real Smart Blog.
This blog site was created by Richard P. Keicher of Real-e-SmartRealty.com. You can ask questions regarding Real Estate or post a Real Estate related comment. I or the bloggers can post an answer or comment. 

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