It was supposed to be a simple transaction.  Invest in property, rent it, and have the tenant pay the mortgage.  The young couple had allocated $52,000 of their savings to buy a detached single family house as their first investment rental property.  The couple's goal was to renovate the house, rent it with the help of a property manager, and then refinance so they could recoup their initial cash investment while keeping the house.  They were not into flipping property. Their real estate consultant from a property investment company told them that the After Repair Value (ARV) was around $65,000, which they verified after speaking with a local agent.  A local property manager told the couple that the market rent was about $700 per month.  The couple agreed to pay $27,500 for the house. ... 06/17/2010

33 Tips to Attract the Best Tenants and Get Them to Pay You More By Tai A. DeSa, Significa Corporation Good tenants come to you not by accident, but by design.  There are good tenants in every price range and in every neighborhood.  A professional landlord will attract quality tenants.  An unprofessional landlord will attract troublesome tenants.  If you are investing in property, then you should likewise invest time in learning how to attract the best tenants. Below are some tips that may help you increase your investment rental property income by $600 or more a year, while also saving you time and aggravation.  Tip #1:  The landlord's appearance matters.  Many landlords focus on the attitude and appearance of prospective tenants, but some landlords forget about their own attitude and... 02/27/2010

I was at a Realtor luncheon the other day, talking to another Realtor about how a friend of mine was going to be joining our team at TradeMark Realtors Group and the question came up. Is this a good time to join the ranks of Realtors out here who are scrambling to make ends meet? Many people's immediate response would be, "are you crazy?!!". The market's in the toilet, Long time agents are running scared now and, honestly, I have no idea how they survive long enough to pay their dues every year. Yet I see them at the Realtor functions, so they must be doing something to earn some money. My friend and I were discussing how so many of the people we saw at the luncheon never show up on the hot sheet and left us wondering how they could afford to hold on to their licenses. It's not cheap to... 01/19/2010

I did a thermal scan the other day and found the house was leaking heat in many areas.  Unfortunately, this house is new construction and was leaking heat. A number of years ago an answer for this was to increase the heat into the rooms because "all homes are drafty".  Today we have the technology to perform a thermal scan of a home and actually "see the heat" and where it's escaping.  Notice all the yellow at the window straight on, and the two hot  spots at the wall corner.  Ouch!  Do you wonder if your new home is really energy efficient? I can tell you with a simple and quick thermal scan. Greg Scheerwww.GCSHomeInspections.com570-504-8393 12/20/2009

Close to Rt 29 and 81. The home was built in the 1920's. It has been partially renovated and is being sold as is. 3 story, 2 bedroom with a den on lower level which is a walk out level. 1 bath , eat in kitchen, living room, laundry and then full attic that has pull down access. All the rooms are pretty large size. Front and back porches. Windows are tilt in replacement windows with only a few original windows in the home. Storm windows are also on majority of the windows. The house has siding so no need for painting.  Part of the roofs was reshingled with 30 yr shingles. The electric has been updated to breakers.  All the old walpaper was stripped and flooring removed. The floors are hardwood and part has been stripped and stained. Will make arrangements for showing the home if interest... 08/29/2009

I own a property management company in Wilkes-Barre, PA, ADT Property Management Company. That's quite a statement, if you consider that I never wanted to do property management. If I had known what I know now, before I took that first step down the slippery slope that's led me to where I am today, I may never have done it at all. But I did, so here I am. I started managing properties because I had a client who bought a house and needed to rent it for a year until he moved into the area. That pretty much opened the door and before I knew it I was getting flooded with requests for my services. Of course, it took some time for me to truly understand the whole picture and I guess I'm still learning new things as I encounter situations that I never encountered before. I thought it might be ... 05/14/2009

Yes, that's right!!! Scranton, PA is rated by CNN's Money Magazine as 7th in the list of "Fastest Growing Real Estate Markets". I'd say that's pretty impressive. It's also something I've been saying for a long time now.  Our market is solid!! I wouldn't call it " recession-proof". We have our issues, but we haven't experienced the stellar growth of many markets who are now suffering the woes of double digit losses in home values and foreclosure rates that are through the roof. No, we've taken the slow and steady route and it shows in our current statistics, taken from the following article... http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/105048/10-Fastest-Growing-Real-Estate-Markets   7. Scranton, P.A. 12-month forecast: 2.2%Median home price: $128,000One year price change: 7.2%Five year... 05/25/2008

Business is business, there's no doubt about that. When you are hoping to sell your home, whether it be one you've lived in for years or one you're flipping for profit, it all boils down to the bottom line. The popularity of Real Estate reality shows these days has helped to boost many home sellers' confidence in their ability to do what I do for a living without my help.   I have a client who entered the house-flipping industry last year. I helped them buy their first property, a nice property with some great potential. I spent a great deal of time with them, helping them to purchase their property and, after the sale helped extensively with finding the contractors to do the work. On more than one occasion, I received the frantic call that this contractor or that contractor wasn't gett... 05/13/2008

This is a great time for the wise investor to take advantage of some of the great deals that are available out in the Wilkes-Barre, PA real estate market. Our area is teeming with older homes that are coming on the market in droves at incredibly low prices. For investment groups like Real Estate Riches and others, it's like throwing chum into the shark infested waters. As soon as one of these morsels is thrown into the water, the investors are churning in their offers hoping to be the fortunate bidder to come away with the prize. No, this market isn't one for the meek. It'll take quick, decisive action to survive in these blood-filled waters.  I've seen the whole gambit of investment strategies with these investors. There are the low-ballers, who throw a lot of paper at a lot of sellers... 04/23/2008

I have been talking about it for months now. I have put it into a few posts over the last few months, trying to counter the bad news coming from our national media. Check out some of those posts here and here. It's always interesting to see the reaction on people's faces when I tell them that the real estate market is in great shape in Wilkes-Barre, even showing an increase in homes sold and average sale price last year amid the gloom and doom reporting nationwide. This week, I found great pleasure in the following story that was first page on one of the local papers, the Citizen's Voice, Stability keeps NEPA housing market afloat. All that I've said about our market is there. We still have areas showing great growth and other areas with even greater potential, with an overall stable re... 02/21/2008

I just had an experience with an unethical realtor. It was an inexpensive house and last week when I was supposed to go show it with my client (and he being the realtor was going to be there) the other realtor called me up and said that there would not be any showing because he just received a contract and that the seller was probably going to sign it. He didn't have a fully executed contract yet but denied us getting to see the house and he denied us the chance at puting in an offer. It is just a shame that we have to continue to work in our industry with unethical agents as they put a bad taste in the communities mouths and sometimes we actually wonder why these people feel this way. We soon forget where it comes from. Oh well, just had to expend some of the energy that has been build... 02/11/2008

In November I posted about our new property management company in Wilkes-Barre, PA, R&R Property Management Co. Since that post, we have almost doubled our units to 38 and are getting calls on a daily basis from interested investors. Faced with this almost overwhelming cry for help from the swarm of investors in our area, we have decided to offer our services to more than just our own clients. We are now offering property management services to all interested property owners in Luzerne County, PA. There is a real need for a professional company to handle the property management needs of our communities and we are more than willing to step up to the plate to supply that service. We have had other companies say that they do a better job, but experience has shown that R&R Property Manageme... 01/18/2008

Not everybody is in the position to buy a home these days. With the credit crunch on for many people who would have otherwise fit into the sub-prime market, many are finding themselves pushed out of the home buying market and into the home renting market. If this is the case for you and you live in Wilkes-Barre, PA then I can help. Our company recently started a Property Management division, ADT Property Management Co. We have homes, apartments and half-doubles available for rent immediately. Our rental rates are affordable and most of our units have been newly remodeled. Wouldn't you like to be the first to rent one of these newly remodeled houses, apartments or half-doubles? We have units available around the Wilkes-Barre area and many are available immediately. Contact me now for det... 12/21/2007

I have a client who was very actively looking for a house right before Thanksgiving and then dropped off my radar. I didn't know what happened to her. She wasn't answering the phone and wasn't returning any of my messages. I guess we've all had clients like that at one point or another. I imagined that maybe she had decided to put things on hold until after the holidays as many people do, but I kept calling. Today, I finally got in touch with her. She sounded tired and emotionally drained when I asked how she was doing. You know how you always get the same response, "Good, how are you." I knew better, so I asked again. Her answer was different this time. She was indeed worn out because she has been in the hospital visiting her father for the last two weeks. You see, he fell down some st... 12/07/2007

After being fired by a client recently, I needed something to boost my spirits a bit. Life is full of it's ups and downs. I'm grateful for the bad times as much as the good times because there's always something to learn from every situation. My down was that a client decided to work with another Realtor instead of me. Even though they were kind enough to let me know, it was a bit of a let down. Real Estate sales in Wilkes-Barre have been quite slow for me lately, so it was a bit of a downer to lose a client. I wrote a post about it and had some very supportive comments, for which I am grateful. I try not to worry about how things will turn out for me, but this is the first year that I've sold Real Estate full-time through the winter season and it's not quite what I had expected. All of... 11/26/2007

I just finished the remodel of my kitchen. It was a low cost remodel, which basically means that I didn't replace any of the cabinets and I didn't hire anyone else to do the work. I invested a lot of my own time and work into this kitchen. A great deal of the materials were free and I invested a ton of sweat equity. I've been working on this kitchen since this summer, so you can probably imagine how relieved I am to be done with it finally. I didn't take before and after pictures, so it's kind of difficult to understand the extent of the change by looking at the way it is now, but believe me, it was very bad before I started. My wife has been on my back to get it done since we moved in, ummm...three years ago. The kitchen cabinets were all wood. Not that great natural wood color, but a ... 11/17/2007

I recently visited a group of real estate investors from the Real Estate Riches group. I really had no idea what this group was all about, but with so many real estate investors pouring into the Wilkes-Barre area, I thought it'd be great to check it out. I learned a few things, but the thing that stuck out the most for me was the amount of people with available cash who wanted to invest in our area. These aren't flippers, for the most part. These are people who want to buy real estate in the Wilkes-Barre area and rent the properties out. I love the idea, as long as the investor is conscientious about renovating the properties they own. We don't need any more slum lords in Wilkes-Barre, folks!! This is why Wilkes-Barre has started a policy that the owner has to register the property and ... 11/16/2007

I'm so tired of hearing about how flat Real Estate is these days!! REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL, folks. You can't take national trends and apply that same trend to every market. Here's a case in point. Last week, we had a home come on the market. It's in a great neighborhood in the Greater Wilkes-Barre Market and is in decent shape for the price it was listed. I called a client of mine to let them know that this house was a great deal and she should put an offer in it. That was Wednesday. She called me back the next day to let me know that she had driven by and was interested in seeing the inside. I called and made an appointment to see the house for Friday morning and was told that they already had 3 offers for the property! Slow market?? I think not. We saw the house Friday morning and she de... 11/13/2007

there's something wrong with my FSBO's number. I have a client who's very interested in working with a FSBO in Wilkes-Barre, but he doesn't want to do anything without my help. In this day and age, when loyalties run very low, it's refreshing to have someone like this speak words of encouragement into my life. I really want to help this client, because of the great amount of confidence and loyalty he's shown in me, so I have been trying to get in touch with the FSBO from the phone number I got off of the tattered sign attached to their fence. I think there's another one in the yard, but the grass is too high to see it. These folks need a Realtor!! Nope, I don't want to cut the grass. I just want to help them to sell the house they so obviously don't care about and put it in the hands of... 11/10/2007

It had to happen sooner or later. Wilkes-Barre, a market being infused with investor cash for a few years now, has been screaming for someone to provide this much needed service for a while now. Investors have been doing a great job of buying up the bargains that abound in this town that was founded in the days when "coal was king" and the rail system carried more than just freight. The problem began to arise when those investors decided to hang onto their investments and rent them out.  It's easy to buy a property from afar and flip it. It's much more difficult to manage a rental property from afar. The old addage, "the mice will play while the cat's away" is very true when dealing with rentals. You need to be able to make your presence known when you're managing a property. The city o... 11/09/2007