Landlords who don’t take the proper steps in securing their units can make their tenants easy marks for criminals. As a property owner, if you fail to take the proper precautions you could be held liable for damage done to your property, your tenant’s property or to your tenants themselves. Landlords can especially be held liable when a crime occurs on a property where a similar crime has been committed in the past.

Tenants are suing rental property owners for harm caused by criminals at an ever-increasing rate. Sometimes, settlements for these cases have the landlord paying injured tenants up to $1 million in damages. To prevent criminal acts from wreaking havoc on your investment, and to make sure you’re not liable for them if they do, the proper steps should be taken.

Make sure your rental property is up to code with all state and local security laws. These laws usually include requirements for door locks, including deadbolts, and working window locks. Often, just trimmed yards and strong lighting can be an effective and low cost deterrent. Also, be sure to conduct frequent inspections of the property to make sure you catch any security issues before they allow someone to do harm.

A more costly, but effective measurement is to hire a professional security company to monitor the property. A great security company will ensure a prompt response time from the local authorities, and that can extremely minimize the damage or injury that could be caused by a break in.

Conduct research of the crime in the area around your property. Educate your tenants about the past problems in the neighborhood and let them know of the security measures that are provided along with their limitations. If additional security requires a rental increase, most tenants will be happy to pay a little more for the comfort of a secure home.

In today’s market your return on investment is much greater in the digital world than it ever was in the print world. Online marketing lets you post in one virtual place that is accessible to thousands upon thousands of house hunters who can find you without leaving the comfort of their home. Posting your home online also allows you to market outside of your physical area, reaching even those who have just started thinking about moving into your neighborhood.

It’s really too bad that everyone is catching on to this. Online real estate sites are being flooding with listings in an attempt to utilize the great communication tool that is the Internet. Fortunately for you, many aren’t utilizing it correctly. There are several tricks a seller can use to increase their property’s online presence. One of the most effective ones is proper picture application.

Perfect Pictures

Almost everyone out there prefers a visual image as opposed to the written word when it comes to showing off a home. The phrase “features a great upgraded kitchen” is nice and everything, but an awesome picture of the kitchen in all its upgraded glory proves the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.

The rule with pictures is that you can, quite literally, never have enough of them. When I stumble across a listing that has one or two pictures, or even worse — NO PICTURES! — I know that the home will not be selling anytime soon.

According to an article from Trulia.com, listings with more than six pictures are viewed twice as much as listings with five or fewer. Little to no pictures of a home usually tells the potential buyer that the home isn’t much to look at.

Plenty of pictures show that you’re proud of your home. Start with a great picture of the front of the house, this should be the main photo on the page. Some people like to display a picture of the master bedroom or pool as the focal point. To each their own, however, I feel that a nice establishing shot of the front of the home acts like a welcome mat and gives your viewer a clear starting and reference point.

When you take that first picture, make sure the driveway is empty and the yard is trimmed. Remove anything blocking the path to the door, foliage, toys, or benches. A physical block to the entrance of the house can act as a mental block as well. Crop out the street and sidewalk, and try and take the picture during the point of the day when the front of the house has the most sunlight.

For other outside shots, use a wide angle (or a wide angle lens if you have one) to really emphasize the space you have. Make sure to include pictures of the freshly trimmed yards and, if necessary, remove any evidence that you have a pet.

When taking pictures of the inside of the house, make sure there is as much natural light as you can get. Pick the brightest time of day, open the blinds, push back the curtains and, if needed, turn on all the lights. Just like having an open house, make sure all the clutter has been removed and just the bare essentials remain. Feel free to spruce up the place a bit with a vase of flowers or bowl of fruit.

Be sure to include “glamour shots” of the main selling points of your home. The newly plastered pool, the double-sided fireplace, or the Jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom should have their own shots where they are the “stars.” Enamored viewers will spend hours staring at a great picture of their favorite amenities and will be excited to see your home in person, which is the end goal of every listing.

Do whatever it takes to get great pictures on your listing. Hire a professional if you need to. Proper pictures will get your home noticed more, visited much and sold quickly.

A circle, a roller coaster, a teeter-totter, any metaphor you want to use is fine, but one thing is for certain: the real estate market is full of ups and downs. It may be hard to pinpoint where the circle begins, but it definitely follows a rinse, lather, repeat pattern.

Let’s start at what is typically referred to as the “bottom” and compare the cycle to the face of a clock, where the bottom is 6 o’clock and the top is 12 o’clock.

6 O’clock

The housing inventory is full of foreclosures and short sales, as many people have lost their homes. Nobody is really buying, because everyone is either afraid or can’t afford to, despite that fact that the average home price is lower than it has been in recent years.

7-8 O’clock

The number of sales is no longer dropping, but maintaining. However, home prices are still decreasing. To encourage sales, credit expands, lending standards ease up and interest rates drop allowing more people to get into the market for a home.

9 O’clock

More people start buying, which drives sales up. The price of a home is still fairly low, and everybody starts viewing the housing market as a high return investment. Those who have been waiting to sell their homes until “better times” came will start to list their homes.

10-11 O’clock

The “house flippers” generally come out in droves during this time, buying fixer-uppers for a low price, cleaning them up and turning a profit. Buyers galore have come out of the woodworks and the flow of inventory stays virtually steady as home prices start a u-turn. This is where a sense of “euphoria” sets in over the market.

12 O’clock

Sales are up as high as they’re going to be. The increase of demand lowers the supply and home prices start their climb upwards. The great interest rates of previous hours start to disappear and credit starts to get maxed out.

1-2 O’clock

The bubble pops. This is generally where the economy as a whole shifts. Lending standards tighten, and it becomes more difficult for lower income earners to buy a home. The number of sales plateau, yet the price of homes continues to climb.

3 O’clock

Housing sales decrease, yet prices remain high as sellers and homebuilders try and make the last bit of profit off of the higher tax bracket.  The thought of short-term housing flees and if you’re in a home, you realize you’re in for the long haul.

4-5 O’clock

The long haul, for some, turns into a desperate fight to keep their home. A failing or weak economy forces some in the middle class to foreclose. Sales are down, but the market price for homes is somewhere between where they should be and where they were at the top.

6 O’clock

We eventually come full circle to a foreclosed rich inventory that will start to bring the average price of homes back down. Home sales plummet and this is where a sense of “depression” abounds.

Housing cycles can be extreme, like the one we just went through, or very mild. The key is to be perceptive as a buyer or seller and find out when the best time for you is to make your move. It may be time to sell, or stay put. It may be time to buy or to rent. If you perform your due diligence you can make well educated guesses and, who knows, you may even look like you’re ahead of your time.

The “shadow inventory” in an area represents the amount of homes that are in pre-foreclosure status and bank-owned homes (REOs) that are not yet listed on the MLS. These properties are in the “shadows” waiting to hit the market sometime in the near future. A large shadow inventory brings with it a sense that the market will soon flood with foreclosed homes, bringing the average home sale price down. This prompts buyers to hold off purchasing and wait for the hammer to eventually drop, and along with it the price of their dream home.

The country has had a rather large shadow inventory over the past few years. The typical amount of homes in the shadow inventory is about 800,000. This is perceived as the “normal” level. Last October, the shadow inventory was estimated to be at a 2.3 million. While this is a much larger number than previous decades, the amount has actually dropped 12.3 percent from 2.6 million homes a year prior.

The shrinking shadow inventory is being brought about by increased investor demand, which typically means that those buying up properties look towards REOs first. Since record low mortgage rates are pushing many “would-be investors” into the game and the number of foreclosures are dropping, the shadow inventory is being burned through much faster than the past five years has seen.

Overall, there are 2.7 million homes across the country where the homeowner is delinquent on their mortgage. Of these homes, 45 percent of them are located in California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Florida. This number is down from 51.3 percent from last year. Also, according to Foreclosure Radar, the amount of distressed homes in Orange County has dropped 40 percent from November 2011.

The dollar amount, or how much value all the homes in the shadow inventory represent combined, has also dropped from $399 billion a year ago to $376 billion. Hopefully, this means that we are seeing more money cycled through the real estate market rather than sitting in the shadows.

January 7^th of this year resulted in one of the decade’s largest settlements between foreclosed homeowners and their lenders. About 4 million homeowners who were treated poorly in the foreclosure crisis by 10 big banks nationwide will receive payment for their ordeals. Eligible borrowers include those in the foreclosure process during 2009 and 2010. They will not have to prove mistreatment or take any action on their part to receive payment.

During the next three months, homeowners will be contacted to receive their share of the settlement. Nearly $3.3 billion will be paid directly to 3.8 million affected borrowers. Homeowners that fall under the parameters of the settlement will receive anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $125,000.

The type of problem they were faced with will determine the amount they will receive. Everyone who was denied a loan modification will fall into one category, those who had their home improperly seized will fall into another, and so on. Everyone in each category will receive the same amount, regardless of how large or small their mortgage was.

The 10 banks involved, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank, and U.S. Bank to name a few, will appoint a third-party firm to handle the distributions. It is unknown at this time exactly how the borrowers will be contacted to receive their portion of the settlement.

A little while ago, a poor attempt was made by some regulators to encourage eligible borrowers to apply for a foreclosure review to receive recompenses but the effort made was less than valiant. Letters were sent out that got lost in the mounds of foreclosure junk mail that fills the mailboxes of America already. Many eligible for proper foreclosure relief never saw the notice. Hopefully, this time around a more “hands-on” approach will be pursued.

In addition to direct payments to affected homeowners, the settlement also will bring about additional funding for loan modifications and other assistance, roughly $5.2 billion. Hopefully this measure will help keep struggling borrowers in their homes as the banks are strong-armed into pushing through more loan modifications and are given the financial assistance and motivation to do so.

It was all over the news stations in the last two weeks of 2012. However, the U.S. successfully avoided falling off the “fiscal cliff” by some much-needed action taken on Capitol Hill by lawmakers at the first of the year. A “patchwork” of legislation was pushed through ensuring that the economy stays safely on solid ground — for now, anyway.

A few different legislations were created or renewed as part of the fiscal cliff bill. Here is a list of a few positive changes that may affect homeowners in 2013.

-          The American Taxpayer Relief Act allows you to write off insurance premiums you paid in 2012 on FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Rural Housing loans. You may write off mortgage insurance premiums, as well as your mortgage interest, if your household income is not more than $110,000. This was a bill that had expired at the end of 2011, but was just retroactively resuscitated for qualified borrowers.

-          The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act was extended, affecting homeowners who have to short sale their home or who receive a principle reduction on their home loan due to a modification. Without this legislation, the government could tax homeowners on the amount forgiven by their bank or lender as if it were regular income.

-          Did your home get a little greener last year? You can receive up to a $500 tax credit if you had installed insulation, non-solar water heaters, energy-saving windows, doors or roofing material, or performed other green upgrades. This home energy improvement incentive will apply to changes to your home in 2013 as well.

These are small victories for the housing market, a win that might not last all too long. Major tax reform is due to hit Capitol Hill this spring. Mortgage interest and other real estate write-offs will be tackled, according to the Los Angeles Times, and the change might not too beneficial for those it will affect.

The ever-popular “Zombie Flicks” are running rampant in the movie theaters. More zombie movies come out every year, not to mention an extremely popular TV show with a huge following. Well, zombies have made their way into the world of real estate with the frightening growing amount of “Zombie Titles.”

A Zombie Title is literally a half-dead foreclosure that just won’t leave you alone. It occurs when a homeowner is defaulting on their loan and their bank issues a foreclosure notice telling them they’ll be auctioning off their home on a certain date. The homeowners pack up, move out and put their lost home behind them.

Unbeknownst to the ex-homeowners, the bank never finishes the foreclosure. Either some financial or legal issue halts the bank or lender for selling, or they determine it is better for them not to finish the foreclosure. Whatever the case is, the title is never officially “killed” and remains attached to the homeowner.

The “old” homeowners go about their lives, sometimes for years before they realize the home is still under their name. After years of neglect, much of these homes start to take on the physical characteristics of storybook zombies. Squatters will ransack the home for anything of value, mold and mildew will rot away the walls and inner structures, and the yards will become horribly overgrown.

The zombie titles will absolutely destroy the credit of unsuspecting homeowners. Years go by and the homeowners are still defaulting on their loan. Meanwhile, HOAs and local municipalities are racking up the fines against the homeowner for dilapidation and neglect. Neighborhoods start to be affected by the zombie home because owners usually won’t pay for improvements because the lender could technically still push the foreclosure through at any time.

Of course there is little you can do to encourage your bank to finish the foreclosure, but there are a few ways to avoid being haunted by a zombie title. If you are currently going through a foreclosure, stay in the home until the process has finished. If you have already moved out and just figured the bank took care of it, do some research and see what happened to your old home. It is better to find out it’s still yours earlier rather than later.

Southern California’s real estate market closed 2012 with some strong numbers, according to reports from DataQuick. December had the highest number of home sales since 2009 with 20,274 new and resale homes and condos being sold in the six counties across the southland. This number is up 5.1 percent from November and up 5.3 percent from December 2011.

The closing of 2012 also saw a median sales price that was up nearly 20 percent from the year previous. This is mostly due to higher demand in the market as well as fewer foreclosures and short sales. The median price a home sold for last month was $323,000. This rounds out a streak of four months where the median home price has been the highest since August 2008 and an 11-month run of either holding steady or increasing.

A big area of the market that is seeing the most increase in sales is the move-up market, homes between $300,000 and $800,000. Homes sold in this price range jumped 31.4 percent year-over-year. Specifically, home sales over $500,000 rose 40 percent.

Lower cost homes are not boding so well. December held a decrease in sales for homes priced below $200,000, about 28.1 percent lower from a year ago. This bracket is still being hurt by the few foreclosures that are left. Also, homeowners in this category are more likely to be underwater with their mortgages, meaning they owe more on their home loan than their home is worth at the moment. These homeowners are not able to sell their homes, which is lending to the short supply of homes sold in the more affordable price ranges.

With 2012 being officially behind us, we can fully look forward to this year. Many experts are calling 2013 the “year of the seller” and are expecting more and more homes to come on the market to meet the growing demand.

Keeping your property filled with tenants is tough. Keeping if filled with honest and reliable tenants seems to be downright impossible sometimes. As a property owner, the last thing you want are occupants that pay rent late or not at all, perform shady activities in the unit, or put the value of your property at risk. To avoid these and other problems with less desirable tenants, make sure you conduct a thorough screening process.

As someone who owns a rental property, you might feel pressured into doing a friend a favor, and sometimes this favor involves letting a friend of theirs move into one of your units. No matter what, always screen potential tenants. Using an official, written rental application will allow you to obtain social security and driver’s license information along with employment status and income figures. It is extremely important to look into their credit history, references and background.

It is a landlord’s or property manager’s prerogative to obtain a credit report for their applicants. In order to get one you’ll need the prospective tenant’s full name, address, and Social Security or Individual taxpayer Identification Number. With these particulars you can order a credit report from one of the three major national credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. This information is vital for you to get a feel for your applicants and see which would be reliable tenants.

Make sure you make it a consistent choice to screen every tenant equally or else you might get into trouble with fair housing laws. For example, if you perform a credit check on one applicant but not on others you could be cited for treating applicants unfairly. You could also be charged for illegal discrimination for lying about the availability of a unit, setting higher income requirements for certain prospective tenants, or for rejecting disabled applicants because of service animals.

There are so many legal components when it comes to renting property that it may be easier for you to hire a professional property management company that speaks “law.” At Coldwell Banker Excellence Property Management, we’ve been speaking law for over 25 years. We know how to adequately screen and find the best tenants for your property. Plus, having an established business turn away your friend’s friend will keep the responsibility off you and make sure that things never get awkward between you and any acquaintance that comes knocking on your not-so-proverbial door.

You’ve been waiting patiently to buy a home for a while now. Maybe you were saving up money, maybe you wanted to see how the market would turn, or maybe you were waiting to see if the world ended last month. Well, here we are in 2013 and if you are thinking that maybe you’ll wait another year before buying a home, here are some reasons why you should make buying a home top priority on your New Year’s resolutions list for 2013.

Low Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates are ridiculously low. The kind of low we are very unlikely to see again once they go back up. A couple years ago, the average mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan was over 6 percent. At the end of 2012, they averaged 3.35 percent. This kind of low rate will save homebuyers thousands of dollars over the course of their loan.

Protect Yourself from Rent Inflation

Landlords and apartment companies often increase rent every year due to inflation. With tax rates increasing in different areas and the economy still on a shaky recovery, there is no telling exactly what trend rent rates will follow. Even if rent goes down across the board due to an influx of new homes on the market, I’ve never heard of a landlord lowering rent on an existing tenant. Have you?

Home Prices are Rising

It is official, home prices are on the rise in Orange County. The price on the house of your dreams won’t be this low for a long, long time. The longer you wait, the more it is going to cost.

Build Equity

Buying a home is like opening a savings account. The money you use to pay your mortgage every month, minus the interest, is still yours in the form of equity. Knowing that the home you buy this year will be worth more in the years to come as the real estate market strengthens, you can be certain that your equity will continue to grow.

This year should be the time for you to take action on buying a home. So put it on your list of resolutions, right up there with losing weight and learning a second language. Who knows, maybe in 2014 you’ll be speaking French, wearing pants you haven’t worn in years while sitting in the living room of your brand new home.