Winning Strategies for Slowing Real Estate Markets

When hot housing markets slow down, those who engage in guerilla marketing tactics beat the competition. With today's shifting market, master the basics and you will survive the downturn.

1. Move Your Marketing to the Web: Don't fear exposing your home listing on numerous websites. Always take full advantage of free, powerful, websites like www.infotube.net, which guard privacy, require no registration, and never sells or discloses information about its users.

Make Web home shopping easy for buyers. Use multiple photo's, interactive mapping, driving directions, interest generating information and printable full-color brochures in your web home listing. Maximize your web exposure and you will maximize your sales price.

2. Unrealistic Asking Prices: The number of homes on the market competing against yours increase daily. The number of real buyers in the market for a home like yours decrease daily. Do not make the mistake of pricing your home as you may have last year. This is a new year and new real estate market. The days of bidding wars, waived contingencies and inspections are in the rear view mirror for most of us. Price your home agressively against your competition. Your home will sell for more money than those priced too high and they will sell faster.

3. Protect Buyers and Yourself from Upticks in Interest Rates: Lock in interest rates when applying for a loan. If interest rates increase, loan and payment terms are frozen at the lock in rate and will not go up. Locking in the rate protects Sellers and Buyers because the contract specifies an interest rate cap. If rates go higher than the cap, the buyer can walk or face higher monthly mortgage payments than their budget allows.

In rising interest rate environments like we are currently experiencing, sellers should further protect themselves by contracting for rate caps at least 0.5% higher than the current market interest rate. Additionally, buyers should apply for a loan with at least two lenders. Lenders may not like it, but competition protects both parties to the sale.

4. Set Yourself Apart. Agents will Remember You: Send a nice brochure about your property to the top buyers' agents in your area. Or better, consider a flat fee MLS listing and reach all the agents. Visit www.why6percent.com and learn how the MLS can help you sell in any market. Money always works...think about offering a bonus or increased commission to make sure buyer agents show your home first and sell it the hardest.

5. If Home Buyers feel special, they will remember you, too. Provide premium service, offer refreshments like fresh baked cookies or watermelon on a hot day; hold weekly Open Houses and present hand written invitations to all your neighbors; hand out a CD brochure of your home; offer visitors a "thank you for attending" gift; offer the buyer a free Home Warranty at closing or free lawn care for the summer.

Ultimately, guerilla marketing pays off in many ways, so make it pay for you. Your creativity will connect you with buyers and their agents. It will make you unique and memoriable while making people feel special. A home is the biggest purchase decision of our lives and it is one that many of us are taking much more time in making. Use all your warfare tactics and you will succeed in any market, any time.

As always, we are here to take your questions. If you want some feedback or just need someone to listen, email tommi@infotube.net or use the comment section on the blog. Thanks for reading and for visiting InfoTube.

U.S. Second-Home Buyers Shop Abroad

Over 4 million Americans currently reside in other countries and the trend is accelerating at a rapid pace. Baby boomers lured to international real estate by lower prices, taxes, stable economies and quick global travel are flocking in droves to exotic locations when shopping for a second-home.

While U.S. buyers show an interest in a wide range of property types, they seem to gravitate toward properties that are comparable to what you find in the states. Americans still like an American product with gated communities, stainless appliances and big open kitchens, they just don't want it in America.

Baby boomers, bored with golf course, retirement communities, seek more exotic locations with more things to do. The jet set, globilized, baby boomers are all about new experiences, which makes living abroad especially appealing. Internationaly affordability, proximity and good weather are also factors motivating boomers to head for the borders.

In many areas popular with Americans, such as Mexico and in the Yucatan Peninsula south of Cancun, buyers are creating mini U.S. suburbs. Belize is cooking, along with other Latin American destinations. Panama and Nicaragua are rolling out the red carpet for Americans in terms of tax incentives, creating a hot international markets there. Panama, in particular, is booming now because they offer financing terms similar to our own, they speak English and use the U.S. dollar, the flight from Miami to Panama is less than 2 1/2 hours long and Panama is bordered by 2 oceans, within an hour drive of each other.

Globalization and the internet have sparked an interest in international real estate ownership, attracting worldwide interest in adopting a second country. If you are looking for a place to put an exotic mix in your real estate portfolio, check out

Immigrants, Hispanics and Home Ownership For All

Mi Casa Su Casa. Immigrants, along with Americans born between 1977 and 1994, will continue to drive the real estate market for the next 10 to 15 years, say experts.

Going forward, the hispanic market is one that can not be ignored. Hispanic consumers represent $500 Billion in real estate purchasing power. Moreover, the Bush administration's pro-growth policies will continue to enable more minority families to realize the American Dream.

Homeownership rates for hispanic consumers have risen over the past 10 years to 50%, versus 75% for whites, and 68% for our countries overall rate.

Although many Hispanic Americans still face significant barriers, the good news is the walls are coming down. There are great opportunities for Hispanics and other minorities in the real estate market. Homeownership is not only part of the American Dream, it is the means by which most of us achieve financial security for ourselves and our families. Homeownership contributes to the stability of our neighborhoods, community development, better health and education opportunites, and a gateway to American citizenship.

Hispanics and legal imigrants want and need the American Dream, and they deserve it. The real estate industry, federal, state and local governments should be applauded in their efforts to destroy the barriers that prevent everyone in this country from owning their own home.

Alert: List of Housing Markets in Decline or Correction

Moody's Economy.com recently released a list of housing markets that have potential for more than 10 percent house price declines, though chief economist Mark Zandi said these markets will "correct, not crash." Here's what they listed as reported by the Nation's Building News:

--Arizona: Phoenix, Flagstaff, Prescott, Tucson--

California: Bakersfield, Chico, Fresno, Hanford, Los Angeles, Merced, Modesto, Napa, Oakland, Oxnard, Riverside, Sacramento, Salinas, San Diego, San Jose, San Luis, Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, Vallejo, Visalia--

Connecticut: Bridgeport, Norwich--

Florida: Miami, Orlando, Cape Coral, Deltona, Ft. Lauderdale, Fort Walton Beach, Gainesville, Naples, Pensacola, Port St. Lucie, Punta Gorda, Sarasota, Tampa, Vero Beach, West Palm Beach--

Midwest: Chicago, Detroit, Lansing, Minneapolis, Warren--

Maryland: Baltimore, Bethesda--Massachusetts: Barnstable Town, Boston, Cambridge, Essex--

Nevada: Las Vegas--

New Jersey: Atlantic City, Ocean City, Edison, Newark, Trenton--

New York: New York City, Nassau--

Rhode Island: Providence--

Pennsylvania: Lancaster--

Washington, D.C.