For Sale by Owners – Don’t Underestimate the Real Estate Agent’s Expertise

For Sale by Owners are looking to do one thing – Save money on commissions to Real Estate Agents that they feel do not earn the often huge sums of money paid to them for selling their property.

With the coming of age of many Private Sale property websites that now attract a mass of eager buyers, listing your property as For  Sale by Owners has never looked so enticing.

But there are a number of issues that are rarely considered before taking this route which vendors should be aware of and real estate agents should make a point of explaining to the public if they want to maintain their marketplace.

The biggest hurdle anyone considering listing a property as For Sale By Owners or FSBO, has to overcome is the marketing of the property, how do you advertise it to a wide enough audience so buyers actually know it is for sale? A hand-painted For Sale sign outside the property will rarely do the job so you have to turn to either traditional print or online media.

Traditional print media, your local property supplement, local classifieds are good but very limited in their reach, they are only going to target a very localised area of a few square kilometres. Not only that, but they are not cheap and have a very short life span – usually less than 7 days before the paper is in the bin. The colour supplements are excellent for showcasing your property but you have to weigh up the cost of a single insertion and as a private advertiser, the cost is usually considerably higher than if a real estate agent was booking the same size spot for your property as they attract bulk rates for their advertising.

Online media gives you a far greater reach – potentially worldwide, for a far longer time period – usually until the property is sold. However, traditionally the large real estate portal websites have had the search engines sewn up for property related searches, and unless you are a licensed real estate agent you can’t advertise anyway. So a For Sale by Owner listing generally isn’t even possible.

However, there are now a growing number of For Sale by Owner dedicated website directories online, where for a fee, you can list your own property and many of these have now attracted a large following. Also, savvy buyers are learning to search for ‘FSBO’, ‘private property sale’ or ‘no agent sale’ in the belief that the properties on these sites will be cheaper because their is no estate agent involved.

Another up and coming tool for real estate agents and for sale by owners alike is the single property website, where agents or property owners can very simply and cost effectively set up a website for their property that has a far greater showcasing ability than either a printed ad or short 1 page listing on a property portal of any kind.

‘A picture speaks a thousand words’ and the importance of quality photography when listing a property cannot be underestimated. It is that first impression, that wow factor that entices a buyer to look further. Most agents either are or use highly proficient people for this job and then also an art department to touch up the pictures to look their best. As a private vendor, if your photography and computer skills aren’t up to this, it can be expensive to get a professional in to do a good portfolio for you.

Human nature, as always in sales, shows it’s true colours, particularly when it is something personal, like our home, we are selling. Generally we have invested time, money and a good deal of love in getting our home just right for us, but when it comes time to sell up, can you distance yourself from it? A large part of a real estate agents job is to show your ‘home’ to prospective buyers and as they do so, they will hear all sorts of remarks, criticisms and plans for the future of your home being discussed. ‘That paint is disgusting’ -  ‘the kitchen will have to be ripped out’ – ‘why would anyone put those tiles in the bathroom’ to point out just a few.

Now an agent can listen dispassionately and then point out all the good points apart from these ‘downsides’ to your ‘home’ – Could YOU?    Very unlikely. More likely you’ll feel personally insulted, hurt and start to dislike your prospective buyers and not want to sell them your lovely ‘home’ anyway.

There are numerous other reasons why For Sale by Owners should think very carefully before choosing this route, hidden tasks that a real estate agent does for you and takes for granted and reasons why they feel their commissions are justified. Before you do anything, weigh up your options, speak to real estate agents and find out exactly what you will be getting if you give them your business and negotiate – nothing is fixed in stone. If at the end of this process you still think a For Sale by Owner listing is still the best idea, then go for it.

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Fitness Tips For Diabetics – Part 1

Welcome to America where obesity and type II diabetes are on the rise to epidemic proportions. What the real problem is that these 2 “diseases” are very much curable and without the use of anything unnatural or with dangerous side-effects. Unfortunately, many Americans would rather perpetuate the myth that the only way to reign in these problems are with “magic potions” in the form of pills or special surgeries.

Ironically, it is this same quick, lazy approach that is the main cause of these problems to begin with! It has always been an American tradition that hard work pays off but as we get more and more efficient we, as a nation, are doing less and less hard work allowing these conditions the perfect opportunity to take over. Now, there are always exceptions- to everything I’ve mentioned so far- but they are rare. For the purpose of this article, let us just focus on one of these problems (although they do almost always go together).

Type II diabetes, very briefly, is elevated glucose, or sugar, in the blood due to the body’s resistance to correctly use the hormone insulin. Insulin plays a few roles in the body. One is that it regulates blood sugar levels by getting sugar out of the blood and into cells to be used for energy. When your body develops a resistance to insulin then blood sugar levels rise because insulin becomes less effective. When insulin levels rise, another role it plays is to “turn off” the cells ability to use fat as energy until blood sugar levels return to normal. This can lead to a plethora of other health problems if left untreated, the same as type I diabetes. In other parts of the world, like Europe, type II diabetes can be remedied through proper nutrition and regular activity (like a good exercise routine). The nutrition part of it I will discuss in another article so let us stay with the fitness or exercise side here.

One benefit of insulin is that it has anabolic or muscle building properties, as well. This means that it can be used to your advantage while you exercise and help your overall health. In other words, by doing a resistance workout regularly you can build muscle a little more quickly. Building more muscle means you will raise your metabolism, burning more calories, even at rest, and losing fat a little faster and easier. Also, regular exercise will lower blood sugar levels and help to stabilize it. That is even more reason type 2 diabetics should exercise. There is, also, some research that suggests that high body fat concentrated in one area (like the waist for males and hips/thighs for females) can increase insulin resistance. Then by reducing body fat, essentially, you will reduce that resistance or increase insulin sensitivity (here’s 1 part of that remedy for type 2).

Ok, so now I think it is just a question of what one should do in terms of exercise for diabetes. Well, I would definitely recommend resistance training. It will help to lower or control elevated insulin levels and glucose in the blood, tone and build muscle increasing your metabolism and burning more calories, and, basically, get you more active and in shape.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t recommend a cardiovascular routine, though. That’s just as important because it will help to improve your body from the inside-out working on your heart, lungs, and circulatory system making them stronger and more efficient as well as lowering blood sugar and preventing or improving heart disease. Usually for my clients I suggest to start with a good circuit training routine for the resistance part to help tone muscle while getting a little aerobic (cardio) exercise keeping the rest periods low, and starting, gradually, to build a good foundation for more advanced routines.

Circuit training consists of 1-2 exercises per body part (working your whole body) for 10-15 repetitions and around 3 sets with rest periods in-between of about 20-40 seconds. Once this routine is learned, a client can move on to more advanced routines, like a split routine, but can always come back to this as a break in between programs or for simple maintenance while on vacation. A basic total body circuit program can look like the following- although you can substitute in your favorite exercises for the different body parts or rotate in other exercises each day you perform this to keep your program from getting “stale”.

15x, 15x, 12x of the following:
Chest press
Chest fly
Back row
Back latissimus pulldown
Shoulder lateral raise
Shoulder shrug
Leg press
Quadriceps extension
Hamstring curl

15x, 15x, 15x of the following:
Low back hyperextension
Biceps curl
Triceps extension
Calf raise

The above is just a basic circuit training routine. You can follow this, at first, if you’ve never worked out before or if it’s been a long time since you last did. It’s good to build a strong foundation to progress from. Choose a weight that will allow you to do the specific repetitions for that set and almost no more. In the next part, we will go over a good cardiovascular, or aerobic routine. Stay tuned…

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Online Marketing Tips – How to Succeed Online

Marketing your business online is one of the best things that you can do these days, considering that many people are now looking for products and buying things online as well. If you want to take advantage of this, read on to learn some online marketing tips that will help boost your sales and make more profits online.

Here are some online marketing tips that you might find useful if you want to succeed online in boosting your profits as well as making money with your website.

- Make a website design that is friendly to online readers as well as the search engines. In the online world, you have to make sure that your website design is friendly to users. Make sure you use colors and design that are pleasing to the eyes and make sure also that your website is easy to navigate.

- Choose a profitable niche fit for your business. If you want to make money with your website, choose a niche that you are an expert about. However, it is important that you also have to weigh things out in choosing your niche. Even if it is your interest or your passion if it is not something that many people would want to look up online, then you may find it hard to make money on your website. Choose a profitable niche if you want to be successful right from the start.

- Learn how to research proper keywords. Keywords are important elements of any online campaign, as this will bring potential customers to your website, that is if you launch a good campaign and you identified good keywords for your business. In choosing your keywords, you can use free tools online and make sure you know how to beat competition as well as. You can research their search volume online and make sure that you choose keywords that are in demand but with lesser competition.

- Master search engine optimization. SEO or search engine optimization is one of the basic things that you need to learn to be able to succeed in internet marketing. In fact, one of the main online marketing tips that you have to learn are SEO techniques, strategies as well as tactics that will help you outsmart your competitors and make it to the top spot of the search engine results page where your business will be given exposure to your target market.

- Learn the many ways to advertise and promote businesses online. Indeed, a big part of marketing your products or services online is to advertise and promote your business online. Among the popular ways to promote your business online are pay per click marketing, banner advertising, press releases, promoting it in social networking sites, affiliate marketing, article marketing, promoting it through videos and many other techniques that allow you to provide exposure to your business.

Although advertising online is relatively cheap, bear in mind that with a poor online marketing campaign, it can also cost you a lot.

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