This is understandably one of the most desirable places in which to own a property in Italy. Yet with prices of apartments in St Mark’s Square, for instance, routinely changing hands for US$9.75million, many investors have shied away from buying real estate in Venice. As have many locals, in truth, and since the 1950s the city’s population has shrunk by two-thirds to its present 60,000.

Yet there are highly affordable and profitable investment opportunities to be snapped up here – if you look in the right parts of the city. One such area is Dorsoduro, one of Venice’s six sestieri (districts) and a short vaporetto boat ride from St Mark’s Square. Here, just US$360,000 can buy a small, well-appointed apartment. Dorsoduro lacks nothing in upmarket chic as it is home to the Accademia art gallery, the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and a recently opened Punta della Dogana Museum, a major collection of contemporary art on the site of an old 17th century customs house.

Yet it is also a lively, vibrant area – the Ca’ Foscari University is here – and after dark Dorsoduro’s bars and cafés form the centre of Venice’s nightlife. To get more bang for your investment buck, head for the even more affordable Castello, Venice’s largest district, which lies just to the east of St Mark’s Square but is slightly off the well-trodden tourist trail. Here, expect to pay around US$415,000 for a two-bedroom apartment of around 75-80sq m.

The rental yield of property in Venice remains huge. Some 20 million visitors a year beat a path to the city, for its historic architectural splendour as well as popular events such as the carnival in February/March; the Biennale arts festival in summer and autumn; and the Venice Film Festival in August/September. It means there is demand for rental properties almost all year round. In high season, a one-bedroom apartment can fetch from US$1,700 a week, a two-bedroom property around US$2,600 and the most prestigious properties US$8,000-plus.

Alternatively, look farther afield to the outlying isles among the 118 that make up the Venetian archipelago. In Burano, six miles outside the city centre, US$625,000 can secure a house rather than just an apartment. The nearby islands of Tellestrina Chioggia and Torcello are also worth a look. Bear in mind that rental yield will fall the further away from the centre of Venice in which you are.

Another popular option is to look beyond Venice and to the historic towns and cities within the Veneto region, some 45 minutes away by train. They include Verona, one of Veneto’s principal tourist and cultural destinations; Vicenza, a Unesco World Heritage Site; Padova, a lively, attractive and historic university city; and Treviso, renowned for its wine and cuisine. In Treviso and Vicenza, expect to pay around US$350,000 for a two-bedroom town centre apartment.

Padova is possibly the priciest of these towns and an 80sq m two-bedroom apartment will frequently come with a price tag of around US$550,000. Obviously the price falls considerably if you are prepared to take on a restoration project. Explore the surrounding countryside, where in places such as the spa resort of Abano Terme US$350,000 can stretch to a spacious three-bedroom home.

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AUTHOR BIO
Adriana Giglioli works for Homes and Villas Abroad.com, which showcases 2,500 properties for sale in Italy. Her specialist area is property in Calabria.

All these foreclosed properties offer you a great investment opportunity. You can scout and buy homes in foreclosure, then keep them as rental properties and collect monthly checks from tenants. Or you can purchase foreclosed properties and flip them, renovating and selling the homes for a profit. The time has never been better to use the real estate market to your advantage.I was recently sent a free copy of a great foreclosure book by a real estate pro by the name of Denise Evans. Her book, The Make Money on Foreclosures Answer Book: Practical Answers to More Than 125 Questions on Investing in Foreclosure Property is a straightforward, easy-to-follow guide to making money from foreclosures.

A quick and authoritative reference, the book explains all the elements of the foreclosure process and reveals everything you should keep in mind as you deal with foreclosed properties. The Make Money on Foreclosures Answer Book answers the most common questions about working with foreclosures, covering such topics as:

• Finding properties to buy
• Borrowing money to fund your purchase
• Determining your costs
• Buying pre-foreclosures and buying at auction
• Buying through a bank or the government
• Tax and legal issues
• Bankruptcy
• Dealing with the property’s former owner

Written by a real estate broker and attorney with over twenty years’ experience making money in the real estate market, The Make Money on Foreclosures Answer Book reveals insider tips and strategies that will help you buy foreclosure properties safely and sell them to earn a profit. Check it out on Amazon to buy or read more about it.

About the Author
Denise L. Evans received her law degree from the University of Alabama Law School. She is a licensed real estate broker, an active member of the Commercial Real Estate Club of Birmingham, and a research associate for the Alabama Real Estate Research and Education Center. She resides in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Fortunately the internet makes home insurance shopping much easier especially with sites like InsWeb for the US and Money for UK residents. InsWeb provides a free database  which offers quotes from up to 8 insurers and the UK Money site provides up to 20. They are basically search engine comparison sites so you can access quotes from one location without having to hop from one insurance site to another.

There’s also an article on the CNN site under the money section which I recommend reading that discusses the top things to know about insurance. They even provide some other good articles worth reading pertaining to home ownership in general.

Insurance coverage and requirements also vary based on which state and country you live in. For example, I live in San Francisco which is very earthquake prone so an optional earthquake insurance option is available. Others who live in the mid-west are prone to hurricanes so their insurance will be more expensive.  Regardless of your location, it’s always important to seek out and find at least 2-4 quotes before making your decision. Not only will you save money but you’ll also have peace of mind knowing that you didn’t just select the first insurance plan you came across. Good luck in your search!

Unlike many other real estate themed templates, this modern theme is customized so you can actually display your listings, write articles, create pages, and even have your own blog all-in-one. You can’t beat that functionality.

Once you view the live demo, you’ll notice that the home page has an animated rotating sideshow so you can easily display your top listings. The theme designer and developer cleverly used WordPress categories to create a real estate search engine of sorts that highlights all of a brokerage’s or agent’s listings.

Below you will see what a single listing page looks like. It’s very clean and provides a large photo spot and main description towards the top. Following that area is a “Property Details” and “Additional Photos” sections. I can only say so much about this theme. It’s just better if you see it in action for yourself.

With this package you get unlimited theme support and customization techniques with detailed theme tutorials. Brian Gardner is the designer behind this beauty and he’s got several other templates as well. If you are looking for a low-cost and high-quality premium WordPress theme then this is just for you. I personally have purchased one of his other themes (Revolution Sports) which is actually what this real estate blog uses.

To have this sort of custom design done for your blog would easily cost several hundred dollars. On top of that, you’d have to pay a web developer to code this into a WordPress theme. Essencially you would pay close to $1,000 for this! The good news? This template costs only $59.95 or you can buy the entire set of his amazing premium WordPress themes for $199.95! You also get instant access to download it right after you pay. Credit card or PayPal are both accepted.

I promise you won’t be disappointed with this theme. Keep in mind though after you purchase it, you’ll need to spend at least 1 hour getting everything configured.

Think back, or read a history book, about how families in the ’40s and ’50s used to buy homes. Young couples lived with Mom and Dad during the “courtship” prior to getting married, until they had saved 20% to put down on their “dream home”.  They made an investment in America, (i.e. the American dream). In the years that followed we have devalued that investment in lieu of credit and the easy access to it. Property values rose artificially and our nation became addicted to credit.

The value of the dollar has been demolished due to the same principle. When we place value in assets based on their ability to be easily bought and sold versus the value that has been invested in the asset, we devalue its worth. For example, two years ago I could have bought an $800,000 house (and I assure you that I cannot afford a house that expensive). The owner of that asset (the $800k house) placed value on his asset based on the availability of buyers like me who could buy the home. The problem is, this homeowner probably had less than 5% invested in the home. Where do you think that homeowner is today?

Had he put 20% down on his home, he would then own a valuable asset in which he has a real investment. This outlay of cash forces him to buy and sell his home in the same manner he would move an $800k investment around in the stock market – very carefully. Thus, the home has REAL value. However, having bought the home with little or no money down, the asset became disposable and so follows the real estate market.

So, as I said earlier, I cannot predict when the real estate market will bounce back, but I can tell you what needs to happen before it does. America needs to reinvest in herself by getting back to solid buying and selling principles. This strengthens home values, which encourages investors who employ builders who employ carpenters, painters, real estate agents, loan officers and so on. America was built on the “American Dream” which has turned into the “American Nightmare”; she can only be rebuilt by hard working Americans, not by Wall Street.

Aubrey Clark is a Syndicated writer, author and editor for Direct Banc, a low interest rate credit card directory.His current project outlines how to choose the best Airline Miles Credit Card and how to maximize the benefits when using it.

St. Joseph is a Catholic saint who has long been believed to help with home-related matters. And according to lore now spreading on the Internet and among desperate home-sellers, burying St. Joseph in the yard of a home for sale promises a prompt bid. After she and her husband held five open houses, even baking cookies for one of them, she ordered a St. Joseph “real estate kit” online and buried the three-inch white statue in her yard.

These statues are flying off the shelves as an increasing number of skeptics and non-Catholics look for some saintly intervention to help them sell their houses. Talk about desperate measures. You might as well put your house up on eBay and/or Craigslist and see if anyone makes a bid. Regardless, I guess at this point I would try anything and everything to help sell my home.

You can read the entire article on the RealEstateJournal website.

Update: I received an email from the seller and her house has sold! Congrats to her and apparently burying St. Joseph in her yard helped.

And it doesn’t matter which market you find yourself in.  If it’s booming, you need to keep in constant contact with all your many clients and hit the pavement to get those FSBOs in your trusted hands.  When it’s a slow, dragging market, you need spend a lot of time building long lasting relationships with the few clients you have at the time so they think of you every time hear of a friend who wants to sell.  And you need to hit the pavement and gobble up those listings that have expired.  After all, who wants to be sitting at the office making cold calls all day?  Every agent’s dream is to be working completely by referral.  And this is done by keeping in constant communication with your clients and building new relationships with their referrals.

So what’s the best way to do this simple key thing? The answer is simple and FUN!  The most effective way to do the above is by quickly stopping by and bringing the client, or prospective client, a small personalized gift that can be left behind to remind them of who you are.   The main point is for this gift to be personalize with your contact information. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to purchase the minimum of 300 letter openers (as cool as they are) with your logo painted on them.  You can do this much more economically, creatively and with a lot more flexibility by creating your own tags or putting your business card with the gift.

So start a campaign!  Whether it’s gobbling up those expireds, getting the latest FSBOS to trust in you, or keeping your past clients within arms reach, you need to start a campaign that’s all your own. Use gifts that are small, inexpensive and something you can easily personalize by attaching a tag or business card.  Another key point to this style of gift is to add a smart, witty tag line so the client actually remembers what they read. You can make cookies and write “I’ve got the recipe to your success.”  This is a concept  advocated by some major business coaching companies here in the states.  www.harpoonmarketing.com focuses on creating these items for real estate agents who don’t have the time (or creativity) to create their own.

Are you going to focus on gobbling up those expired listings?  Search the MLS every morning to grab that listing that expired at 11:59pm last night.  Be at their door hours after it has expired and represent them before anyone else get’s the opportunity.  For expired you want to bring an item that’s not too pricy – you don’t want to invest too much in someone that might close the door on you.  But is definitely something to break the ice when you randomly show up on their door step.  Something that catches their attention and/or entertains them.  I have a client that gives little miniature flash lights to all her expireds and “Spot Lights” their home to get it sold.  Another clients using little tool shaped candies to say that she has “all the right tools to get the job done.”
Some key points:

• Have you already branded yourself? Pick gifts that highlight your brand.
• Use several different “levels” of gifts.  Have smaller, less expensive gifts for lower priority clients and nicer slightly more expensive gifts for your A clients.
• Bring gifts specifically for your clients children or pets.  When the clients sees that you have paid attention and know about their family and personal life, they are more willing to trust in you and take you in as part of that life.
• Specify it to the season or holidays.  Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas make this type of marketing great fun.
• Get creative and have fun!

Point being, spend some time building a brand and hitting the pavement to really get to know your clients.  Besides, sitting in the office simply calling to say hi get’s really boring.  So get creative, get out there, and get busy!

Author: Alissa Avolio

Has your number been called yet in the UK or are you just looking for a better overall mortgage rate? If so, now is the time to start looking while interest rates are still reasonable. The hardest part is finding the right person or loan broker to work with (at least in my experience) but with the internet at your fingertips, it’s much easier.

As I mentioned in my previous post about researching home insurance policies, using a search engine comparison site is the best way to compare and find deals catered for you. This is also true when it comes to just about anything these days. Before I order things online, I use shopping comparison sites like Froogle. When I’m searching for health insurance I’ve used ehealthinsurance.com. Now, if you’re living in the UK and looking for a remortgage, I would try a site like remortgage.org.

Remortgage.org makes it easy to speak with a mortgage professional for free advice regarding a remortgage in the UK. After completing 3 steps on their site, you’ll get access to one of their professional remortgage brokers. They will then answer your questions regarding advice on a mortgage or remortgage in the UK. I have yet to personally try them out since I don’t live in the UK but their site is pretty clean and useful which presumably means their staff is professional too.

If anyone has used remortgage.org, I would love to hear about your experiences by commenting below. Our goal is to help share knowledge and real estate information that is useful to all.

The second part of printing brochures has to do with convience. I like being able to handle any brochure printing needs with ease and one such solution is to use an online printing company. After doing some searching online, I ended up finding such a service called www.psprint.com. I have yet to use their offerings but when the time comes, I’m sure to give them a try.

Has anyone else tried an online printing service before? If so, what were your experiences? I’d like to think most online businesses are legit but without a positive review from a nuetral person, it’s hard to trust a site.

For those of you not familiar with Tremblant, it is located about one and a half hours northwest of Montreal, Canada. It’s a large year round resort and Mont Tremblant is best known as a ski destination, but also features a lake suitable for swimming, and a golf course in the summer months. The name of the mountain, Mont Tremblant, means “trembling mountain” in French.

For Mont Tremblant Real Estate to be an attractive place to invest, the prices need to be in an affordable range. After doing some searches online I found a nice site which lists all types of Mont Tremblant Properties. Some of them are rather high which are out of most people’s price range ($1 million +) but this site also lists Mont Tremblant Condos in the $175k + range. These are called condo/hotels which is a fairly new concept.

Condo hotels are usually large, high-rise, luxury hotels operated by big names including Fairmont, Westin, Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, and more. Condo hotels have condos that are sold to individual investors who may use their unit as a vacation home whenever they like. When they’re not using their unit, owners have the option of placing it into an organized rental program. Rental revenue, which is shared with the operator, helps defray the owner’s expenses.

This is a wonderful way to own real estate and that’s why I started looking for vacation-type locations that offer condo hotels. The best way to better understand how it works is to actually visit one. That’s exactly what I did in Lake Tahoe and toured the Marriott Grand Residence condo hotel. It was a wonderful property in a great south shore location and I almost ended up buying a one fourth share. I’ve also been tempted to explore by the Italy real estate market but the distance alone (I live in CA) might be too much of a barrier for me.

What stopped me you ask? Well, at the end of the day when I ran the numbers, it just wasn’t coming out cash-flow positive. In most cases it probably wouldn’t anyhow but I didn’t want to lose $500+ a month especially when I thought the prices were a bit high at the time (2007). I’m glad I didn’t buy b/c the prices have dropped so I might reconsider again. What really gets you is the fee the Marriott takes out each month. Of course they rent it out for you but at a steep cost.

UPDATE 10/14/09: It’s been one year since I went and looked at the Marriott Grand Residence and I’m very glad I didn’t end up buying back then. I was up there two weekends ago and the prices have fallen roughly 40%! I would’ve taken a huge hit if I purchased one last year and I was thinking about buying now but decided against it. I spoke with a time-share agency up there and they said it’s tough to rent them out. Also Marriott takes 40-50% of your rental income if they market and rent it out. Most weeks it would be vacant with no rental income and I wouldn’t use it that often myself. It’s a great idea for someone who works non-traditional shifts like on the weekends who could use it during the week, and then rent it out on the weekends.

So if you’re interested in this condo hotel concept of real estate investing, I recommend checking out a location near you. I really love the pictures of Tremblant and will hopefully get a chance to buy a place out there soon!