How Do I Sell My House Without A Real Estate Agent?

If you are thinking about selling your home, then you may be asking yourself, "how do I sell my home for the most possible money?". Well, the answer to that is incredibly simple...Sell it yourself without using a real estate agent.

When most people think, "I want to sell my house", they immediately think that they will need to hire a real estate agent to sell the home for them. While this might have been true in the past, technology and the internet has made it quite easy to sell a home on your own. If you follow the steps listed below, you should quickly be able to close the deal and sell your home for the maximum amount of profit.

List Your House Online With FSBO Websites

The first step to selling a house without a real estate agent is to list the property on one of the many for sale by owner real estate websites. The majority of these sites charge quite small fees to list your property, which can save you a lot of money compared to the very high commission rates charged by real estate agencies.

Creating a listing on these sites is quite easy, and only requires that you sign up, choose how to pay for the listing, and then upload pictures, a description, and any other relevant information.

You can then just sit back and wait for people to start to show interest in buying your home.

Receive Enquiries & Talk to Potential Buyers

After creating your listing, you will most likely start to receive enquiries from potential buyers quite quickly. At this point, you can start a dialogue with them and eventually invite them over to tour and inspect your home to see if it's right for them. You will most likely start getting offers from at least some of the people who came to look at your house, and if you do not get any offers immediately, don't worry. Still, if you have many people come to look but none that wants to make an offer, then you may need to lower your asking price.

Negotiate A Deal with Interested Parties

Once you have received a few offers, then you can start negotiating directly with the potential buyers. This step is vital, as you can try to play the offers against one another in order to get the highest possible price for your home. You should not just take the first offer that comes in (unless it is really good), but instead you should be patient and wait to see just what kind of a deal you can negotiate.

Have Contracts Drawn Up By Your Local Solicitor

Once you have negotiated a price with the buyer and come to an agreement, you will then need to hire a lawyer or a solicitor to draw up the contracts. Under no circumstances should you attempt this step yourself. A solicitor will have experience in these contracts and will be able to make sure that the sale is done completely within the framework of the law. This will help you to avoid any potential problems or headaches that could arise down the road.

Settle Your Property in No Time & For Half of the Cost

One thing that is constantly heard from people who have sold their homes using a for sale by owner website is that the entire process went very quickly. If you are truly motivated to sell your home, then you could complete the entire deal within a matter of days. As soon as you have come to an agreement with a buyer, all you need to do is have the contracts drawn up and signed, making the process quick and easy. In addition, you can feel happy knowing that you made the maximum amount of profit possible by not having to pay the incredibly high commission fees charged by most real estate agents. So why not try to sell your home online and see just how easy it is and just how much extra money you can make by avoiding real estate agents and selling your home privately.

Contributor Profile: Contributed by http://www.nocommissionrealestate.biz – a no commission real estate agency in serving the greater part of Australia.

Choosing Between Simple Interest and Compound Interest

Interest Rates (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

As with everything, there are perks and consequences for every choice we make. Choosing between simple interest and compound interest has certain advantages over each other depending on your needs.

Compound interest is when an interest paid on your investment is added to your total sum and the interest is calculated onto the full amount. The interest will be added to the complete total allowing the sum to increase each time. Your returns are quickly obvious with compound interest instead of simple interest. Simple interest is where the same amount of interest will be paid on the total at the same time each year.

The best way to explain the differences between the two is to create a simple scenario.

Two people are each given $10,000 by a close friend. Person A decides that putting his money in an investment would earn him the most at a 5% rate. Person B decides that he wants a faster return but less profit. So he draws on the interest as it is paid. Person B is under the illusion that he's doing well because he has managed to pocket 5.5% on his investment. This means he's making $550 every year.

Because Person A has decided that they don't want to use the return he gets on his funds from his investment, he's experiencing what most would call compound interest. Persona A is receiving his income from his investment and experiencing simple interest.

After ten years of watching his investment grow, Person A returns. The $10,000 he initially invested has quickly expanded to a whopping $16,289. Person B was only able to receive $5,500 in interest, which was spent. He's now back to his original $10,000 investment.

Person B was able to use his money whenever he wanted throughout the years but its highly unlikely that he used the money he earned for anything useful. Person A was careful to manage his money and as a result, he earned more than Person B.
Compound interest may seem like the way to go, but you should be aware that the bank or credit card company you choose to associate with will also earn a large sum of money too. It generates more profit for your bank and you also end up paying more than you normally would on your debts.

When simple interest and compound interest are compared side by side, it's obvious that compound interest is the best of the two. However, compound interest may not be for everyone. Compound interest usually works out better for people who don't have a problem with not being able to touch their hard earned money for large periods of time. For some, this may not work out. Simple interest may be better and easier on the sort of people who like to spend their money as soon as they get it. Sites such as www.myloanadvisor.com have tools that can help you make these decisions.

95% Mortgages (NewBuy Scheme)- Benefits Of This Scheme

If you are in the market for a new home and you are buying a home for the first time, the 95% mortgage NewBuy Scheme should be good news to you! This plan is making home-buying more easy and available to all individuals. In this article, you will learn about the 95% mortgage NewBuy Scheme and the main benefits of this scheme. So read along if you are planning to buy a new home.

The 95% mortgage NewBuy Scheme was launched in March of 2012 by the government. The scheme was designed as a new initiative for first-time home buyers, allowing you to purchase newly constructed homes with a downpayment of at least 5% with a 95% mortgage. This scheme allows mortgage lenders to approve loans to individuals with a much lower deposit than is typical, and can be risky for lenders. However, more and more lenders are willing to do such, as there are many individuals willing to buy new homes under this new plan. For those of you who aren’t aware of what a 95% mortgage plan is, it allows the borrower up to 95% of the homes’ total value.

The benefits of the 95% NewBuy scheme are many. For one, the NewBuy loan is only available to first-time buyers and can be used to purchase a home or an apartment. This leaves room for more choices, as you are not limited to a specific type of home. Another advantage of the NewBuy loan is that it is government-backed, so you know it is not a scam and it can be trusted. The government is contributing to an insurance policy, which is in turn allowing the mortgage lending companies to provide these loans to you, the buyer.

Another major advantage to the NewBuy scheme is that it works just like any other mortgage. You will not be charged higher monthly mortgage rates because you used this plan. You will simply pay the same amount on your loan as someone who received a loan through another avenue. Also, you will not be charged with any second charges on your home.

Another advantage to the NewBuy scheme is that you are only required to make a 5% or 10% down payment on the home. This is a significant difference in most loans, as you might be required to put down a very large initial payment, one which you might not have been able to afford. Because so many mortgage loans require such a large down payment, this has kept many individuals from being able to purchase a home, which is unfortunate. There are many people who could afford to pay the monthly mortgage rates, but who are unable to pay the large down payment. That is why the NewBuy scheme is great for first time buyers. It allows them to become homeowners without breaking the bank, and they are still able to make their monthly mortgage payments.

About the Author
Ashley Parker is a realtor who suggests checking out the Cala Homes Link for more information on 95% mortgages.

How Media Affects the Stock Market

Media is really important - it highly affects how its listeners feel and think. Regarding the stock market, there are a couple of major media outlets that dominate the financial news world - CNBC, Barrons, and the Wall Street Journal. The media cannot move the market any way it wants. Rather, it acts like a follower - meaning that it puts out headlines that can hopefully "explain" the stock market's recent price action.

 

The News Doesn't Push The Market - The Market Makes the News

This is a huge misconception that many people have, thanks to CNBC and all the other media outlets. Whenever the market falls or rises, CNBC will attribute that market movement to a piece of news. 

For example, CNBC might say "The Dow falls 100 points thanks to the Fed's Minutes". The trouble is, a lot of investors actually believe that the news event caused the market to fall! That is 100% wrong! Why? Because the news doesn't push the market. What happens is that the market moves in one direction, and then the news reporters at the media outlets scramble to find an excuse that they hope can explain the market's movement. 

In other words, the news doesn't really drive the market. Reporters just make up an excuse for the market's movement because they have to. They can't tell their readers "I don't know why the market went up". They'd lose their job! 

On any random day there will ALWAYS be both bullish and bearish pieces of news. What the media outlets choose to focus on (make as headlines) depends on how the market moves. If the market goes up, bullish headlines will dominate. If the market falls or the market has peaked, bearish headlines will dominate. That's also why in a bull market, investors will ignore any bad news. Similarly, in a bear market the investor will ignore any positive news (because people are so stuck in their bullish/bearish mentality that they become blindsided). 

The News is Just an Excuse

The stock market is just a bears vs. bulls game. The big players in this game choose a side, and they want their side to win (obviously). Historically speaking, whenever one nation wanted to invade another they always needed an excuse. It would be bad PR to just invade another country for no reason. That's why when Japan invaded China in 1931, they used the excuse that China had killed a Japanese official to start the war. Obviously, that was just an excuse - no one really wants to start a war and risk hundreds of thousands of lives just because one man died. Same thing here in the States. Back in the Mexican War (1848), we attacked Mexico. Mexico attacked us on "American soil" (which at the time, was actually Texas). 

Same thing happens in the markets. If the bulls want to make the market price go up, they need to find an excuse for their operations. They need to find a "reason" to do what they need to do. 

Thus, the easiest excuse to find is in the news/media. Investors will use the news merely as an excuse to push the market their way. Here's an example. 

On August 21, we had a wild day. August is typically a really quiet month, so without any major news or pieces of economic data, it's hard for either the bulls or the bears to push the market in their direction. However, on August 21 a small piece of news was set to come out - the FOMC (Federal Reserve) Minutes. This honestly has no value, because we already know what happened at the latest Fed meeting. However, this is significant enough to be used as "ammunition" by either the bulls or the bears. So on this day, both the bullish investors and the bearish investors showed up. Within 5 minutes of the FOMC being released, the bears had smacked the Dow Jones 30 down by 100 points. Within another 10 minutes, the bullish forces created a 150 point rally. In the last 30 minutes of the day, the bears smacked the market down another 50 points. 

The news is just an excuse. It doesn't move the market. Investors and traders simply use it as an excuse. In all honesty, every piece of news can be interpreted both ways. For example, the "will the Federal Reserve taper or not" has been on the minds of investors for a while. The Fed tapering can be seen in both a positive and negative light. On one hand, if the Fed tapers the main driving force behind this bull market will be gone. On the other hand, if the Fed tapers then inflation worries will ease, which aids the economy. How the market wants to interpret it is what's important. 

Troy writes about investing, trading, and finance. You can follow him on twitter @troyeconomist.

A Will Can Be Contested in Probate with a Variance

Are you interested in laws relating to probate NSW has established because one of your parents just passed away and you and your siblings are trying to divide things up according to the will? If so, you may have heard about how a probate court will look into cases where a false will may have been written to determine if it is real or not. If the court determines that the will was not forged or altered in any way, it will have to be followed, even if people do not like it. If it was altered or forged, steps will be taken to determine what should actually be done, and the fake will can be tossed out.

However, what if you disagree with a will that was left, even though it is authentic? Is there anything that you can do? For example, what if you got in a fight with your father right before his death and so he cut you out of the will entirely, giving all of his money to your sister and leaving nothing for you. He did this because he was angry. It was an emotional decision, not a rational one that represented what he really wanted, but is it still a binding contract? Are you stuck with those results?

Generally, a court will not rule against a will. However, there is still something that you can do, and it is known as a variance. When you create a variance, you alter the will that the person left, in a legal fashion, to change what you get. The big catch is that the other parties must agree. If they will be getting less since the change is in your favour, they have to say that they think this is fine. The will can then be changed and the money or assets given out accordingly.

This is done because, if all parties are in agreement, it would be easy for them to redistribute things anyway. For example, if your sister got the vast majority of the money, but she thought that you deserved more, she could simply take her portion from the will and write you a check for what she thought you should get. It would be incredibly easy to circumvent the will. Therefore, variances were created, but they cannot take place if anyone who would lose money or assets disagrees and wants the will to remain unchanged.

Opening a Trading Account is Simple and Easy

If you want to open a new trading account, you are going to have to provide a bit of information at the beginning, before your account will officially be created. If you do not give the company everything that they ask for, they will not be able to invest for you or maintain the account. Forgetting to send in some of the paperwork - or to fill out the online forms, depending on the way that your broker operates - can keep you from getting your money or putting it into the stocks that you want to buy. So, what do you need?

It all starts with basic identifying information, such as your name and your address. You may be asked to provide a piece of mail with your address on it - such as a bill - to show that you really do live there. If you live in Australia, you need to tell the company which province you live in as well, though overseas traders may not be asked for the same details if their countries are not divided with a similar system. This address will be used to give you your tax information at the end of the year.

Next, you need to give out contact information. The most useful bit will be your email address. This will be a quick way for you and the broker to communicate about anything at all, from buying new stocks to cashing out your account if you have done well. You may also be sent confirmation emails whenever you place a trade so that you can keep records of what you have done with your money. On top of that, you will probably use your email address whenever you decide to log into your account, along with a password that you have created.

Finally, you need to provide financial information. How do you want to transfer funds into your new account? Do you want to use a debit card or route the money straight from your bank account? Do you want to use your credit card? When you get the money, how do you want it to be sent to you? These are all good questions to ask yourself when deciding what financial information to provide. Once this is done, you can move money to and from your account, and you can start using that money to place your trades.