Why your Real Estate Agent Must be a Marketing Maven

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When I started in this business, I thought my passion and knowledge for real estate would be the chief reasons why clients would hire me as their listing agent.

Real estate passion and knowledge are vital, of course, but I learned that a listing agent isn’t worth much unless he or she is amazing at marketing properties.

In other words, your listing agent needs to be a marketing maven.

Your listing agent must carefully craft the presentation and message to entice the greatest number of interested and qualified buyers, both in the words that are used and the images that homebuyers see.

When marketing a property, you must put your best foot forward when presenting these key features:

• Location (of course)

• Home size and condition

• Lifestyle choice (is the home near lifestyle amenities they want?)

If your property is the home of someone’s dreams, they must be able to recognize that by how the property is listed.

Your listing agent must be skilled at getting this message out, especially on the Internet where everyone, regardless of their demographic, is home shopping.

Getting buyers to view your home information leads to visitors coming in for showings and attending your open house. To sell your home for the price you want, you need a lot of people coming through the door, and you need an agent to make that happen.

If you are looking for a highly responsive agent who can make these visits possible, give us a call or email us at Eng Garcia Properties when you’re looking to sell in Washington D.C., Maryland or Virginia.

Eng Garcia Properties 202/290-1313 carlos@enggarcia.com

Ready to Buy? 3 Real Estate Factors to Consider

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I love to see buyers’ eyes light up when they really want a property. Once that light bulb goes off, the buyer’s inevitable next words are, “What’s next?”

A bit of science and a bit of creativity answers that question. There are three factors you must study:

1. The marketplace. Any good real estate agent will do a thorough analysis of the real estate transactions in the area. This is the “comps” – a comparable analysis. You need to answer this question: “What’s the environment in which I am making this offer?”

2. The seller’s mindset. You must judge the seller’s mindset – his or her “world view.” A good real estate agent collects information from the other side – little by little – gathering up as much information as he can with repeated calls and meetings. You and your agent must do your best to analyze the seller’s situation and what he or she is trying to do, regardless of market conditions.

3. Your mindset. What do you want to do as a buyer? You need to determine where on the continuum you fall. Are you so passionate about the home that you must get it no matter what? Or are you the cool, calculating investor who won’t be satisfied unless you steal the property at an amazing price? Or are you in somewhere in between, like most buyers? Your answer helps drive the strategy.

To discuss real estate buying strategies, please give us a call. Eng Garcia Properties has some of the top buyer-agents in the Mid-Atlantic region, including the top two agents here in Washington, D.C.

Slow and Steady: How to Build Wealth through Real Estate

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Here’s a helpful analogy to buying a home as an investment: think of it as a bucket.

You have an empty bucket when you first buy a real estate property. If you put 10 to 20 percent down on the purchase, you have filled your bucket by that percentage. Then, your renter starts filling the bucket slowly for you as their rent pays the loan’s principal and interest.

Over the course of a 15-year or 30-year loan, you have a full bucket that other people have paid for. At that point, the home generates pure income after you have managed the flow of payments and cared for the property over the years.

Sure, some real estate investors still “flip” homes for a quick profit, but for most of us, slow and steady wins the race.

Beyond Income from Renters

In addition to renters, there are two other ways to earn real estate income: appreciation and tax deductions.

Despite the bursting of the real estate bubble, there are certain neighborhoods – such as those here in Washington, D.C. – where home values are improving. We have tools that can help you project the appreciation of real estate that we’d love to share with you.

You also can gain value through income tax write-offs, such as real estate tax and interest on your loan payment. There’s also the depreciation income-tax deduction. You might not realize that this is the second-biggest tax write-off after your interest payment.

Ready to jump into the real estate game? We are the experts to turn to when investing in real estate in D.C., Virginia or Maryland. Call us or drop us a line by email, and we’ll be happy to answer your questions on these topics and others and devise a strategy that best works for you.