First - know what not to buy! Image by superciliousness

Real estate investors use many methods to finding investment properties.

They network with lawyers, bankers, accountants, subscribe to legal publications, and so on to discover investment properties and possible motivated (flexible) sellers.

As a normal homebuyer though, you probably won’t contact lawyers and accountants or subscribe to legal forms to investigate who’s going through a divorce or getting ready to file for bankruptcy.

Let’s then take a look at a few practices and insights investors use to locate a property that typical homebuyers can learn from and use.

What You Should Avoid

Ever see the show, What Not To Wear?

In short, the two hosts are fashion experts who find people who dress out of style and give them a wardrobe makeover that will turn heads and make a person feel in style.

1. Be positive and believe in yourself, it’ll rub off and others will in turn believe in you - don’t make excuses.
2. Sometimes you can speed up the success of your business by joining forces with other companies.
3. If you own a business, set up a business structure.

This is the first post of a new concept of posts I’m about to start writing once a week involving only three sentences per post. The question is, if Confucius had a blog, is this how he’d do it?

If a sentence sparks an idea or question, feel free to comment.

1. It takes three times as much money to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.
2. Don’t spend more money marketing your product or service than you expect to make back at some point.
3. Figure out who your niche customers are and set off a trigger in them that gets them to relate and want to hear you.

Image by iChris

Approaching product development, services, and situations by way of odd associations can spark that creative idea marketers love to develop.

I had an interesting email come in the other day in regards to an article I wrote a while back called 8+ Ways To Train Yourself To Be Creative. The person mentioned how they loved the techniques I suggested and like me, they love the book Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

The question brought to me was, “These are all great techniques, but how do you suggest going about creatively finding a Purple Cow for your business?”

“Wow - what a great question,” I thought as I swiveled my chair around and walked over to the bookshelf housing Seth’s insightful book.

There of course is no one method or plan for developing a remarkable product, service, or business that stands out from the rest. For every idea out there, there’s an infinite number of ways to approach its development.

Image by Wikipedia

This blog is about entrepreneurship (and succeeding online). I believe ethical and trained real estate investors are great examples of creative entrepreneurs and understanding their mindset will help us all learn to be savvy business-minded individuals.

Realtors Are Salespeople

Realtors are not created equal and if you’re planning to use one to find your next house, take a moment and consider the following.

When choosing a Realtor to assist you in finding a home, never lose site of the fact that a Realtor is a salesperson.

Salesmen or salesperson are terms that make buyers nervous and are terms sellers love.

So if you’re a buyer and your Realtor is a salesperson, what is your Realtor selling?

They’re selling a house, just you are not the seller, you’re the buyer. True your Realtor’s commission is paid for by the seller, but keep in mind the higher price you pay for that house, the more money your Realtor assisting you in finding a home will make.

Image by bokeh

Who are you?

I may not have as many blog subscribers as Darren Rowse or Brian Clark, but I’ve managed to capture your attention for at least a moment and I’m curious who you are.

James, Catherine, and Barbara are perfect examples of online acquaintances I’ve made through the use of blogging - and I’ve learned a lot from each of them and I’d like to learn from you too.

What’s your name? Where do you come from? Do you have a blog, website, business? How did you find eVentureBiz? What do you like about my blog? Which subjects do you like most I write about?

The nice thing about blogging is you can find and talk to just about anyone anywhere in the world and learn something from their experiences.

You don’t have to speak up if you don’t want, but feel free to comment, it only takes a few moments. Tell us about you. Tell us what you think of the direction we’re taking in the web hosting industry here at eVentureBiz.

They say you make your money in real estate when you buy. Nothing could be more true.

Making money in real estate isn’t only measured in how much money you make, it’s also measured in how much money you keep.

When buying my last bank-owned property, I managed to get all my closing costs covered plus 2 points paid toward my loan; that came out to just under $9,000 I kept in my pocket!

For more information on what closing costs are, click here.

In today’s market, getting your buyer’s closing costs paid for you shouldn’t be too much of a problem unless you’re buying a short sale. Don’t worry though, I’ll show you how to deal with those short sale closing costs, too.

Methods Of Covering Your Closing Costs

*Note: Buyer’s closing costs typically hover around 3% of the total purchase price of the property. Furthermore, many lenders won’t let the seller contribute more than 3% for you - but that’s not set in stone.