Property Disclosure

In real estate transactions there is a stage known as "disclosure." First time home buyers may not be familiar with the term but anyone who has purchased real estate in the past should be well acquainted with this step of buying or selling.

Essentially the process of disclosure is the step wherein the seller of the property "discloses" any issues with the property as it is. Now this can apply to a pretty wide range of things from issues with the actual home to problems with the neighborhood to things that have occurred in the home in the past. Either way, sellers are required by law to disclose all of these things when selling their home.


Let's have a look at some things that would need to be included on the disclosure paperwork for a home. The most common things you will find in a property disclosure are issues with the home itself.

Let's say there was a fire a few years back and an area of the home was rebuilt. Or perhaps at one point the basement flooded and there was resulting rot or water damage. Termite or insect damage must also be noted as well as any other issues in relation to the home or it's integral systems.


There are other things that should be included in the disclosure statement as well. Sometimes things like a particularly noisy neighborhood dog, or problem neighbors. Also there is usually a section that deals with the title to the home itself. If there are any claims to the title such as liens or easements, they must be noted in detail. Another things that should be detailed is any common property that is shared with adjoining properties.

Something that has become more of a concern in recent years is whether or not the home was ever utilized in any sort of drug operation. This is not saying that the current seller was involved in said activities, merely that if the home has been used for such purpose in the past it must be disclosed.


Failure to disclose information on the home that is important to buyers is punishable by law. As the property seller you have a responsibility to be honest and scrupulous in your disclosure regarding any property. Failure to do so can result in big trouble.


Austin Lansing is a representative of High Country Realty, specializing in the sale and purchase of North Georgia real estate. For info on homes in the Blue Ridge Mountains and other area of Georgia's beautiful high country, contact us today or visit us online at www.cbhighcountry.com

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Remortage: Chase the Chance

To fail to get any chance may be bad; but to fail to do justice with a chance is certainly tragic. Thus, to fail to use the chance of getting away with your current burdensome financial obligation is really a pathetic matter.

Ignoring the chance of remortgage can be an example. If you find that you are overburdened with the repayment terms and condition of your current mortgage, it makes no sense in sticking to it any more.

Rather, it makes real sense if you search for a better deal and switch over to that. You can do so by going for a remortgage. It is quite easy but full of some assured benefits.

It will give you respite from he hassles you are facing now to deal with your debt obligation. At the same time, it will also give you scope to save money. You can save money on every month or in the long term; may be at the end of the repayment term.

For a remortgage, it is not always necessary to change the lender. You can talk to the current lender and take quotes from him. If you see that the deals offered by him are better then you can stick to him. If you find that there are other cost-effective deals available then you can switch over to other lenders.

For that you have to explore the market and make some comparisons.

While comparing remortgage packages, make sure that you consider all the fees attached to a mortgage. According to general belief, interest rate is the main thing to be considered while taking a deal. Well, it is true that the interest reflects the majority of the cost of the mortgage. But certainly it does not include the whole cost.

So, go beyond the interest rate and consider the APR. Most importantly, do not forget to keep the early repayment penalty under consideration. Compare the packages o the basis of all these factors and go for the package that suits your need best.

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Use The Power Of Niche Blogs To Generate Income Online

If your into internet marketing chances are you have a website or two, making you some money. You could increase your income dramatically by using niche blogs.

Many people have already discovered the power of using blogs to generate income online. They may use blogs to promote products as an affiliate, sell their own product, or monetize them with adsense.

If you want to create a decent income from using niche blogs you are going to need more than one or two sites. You will need to create your own little empire of niche blog sites. How would you go about achieving this?

It's not as hard as you may think. There are many resources out there which are free and some you will have to pay for to start your own empire. However, creating an empire of niche blogs mainly consits of three elements.

1. First off you need a niche site. That is you need to find a niche and then build a site around it. There are almost an unlimited number of niches out there waiting to be expoilted.

2. Content. You need content for your site. Original content is always the best. If you don't have original content there are other ways of getting some, outsourcing being one of them.

3. Promotion. You need people to visit your site. So you must start promoting your site which ever way you can. Through the search engines and pay per click advertising, other blogs, articles and any other means you can think of.

Once all the above is done and you have your first niche site up, just start over with another niche topic and repeat. Soon you will have your own empire of niche mini sites generating income for you month after month.

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Internet Banner Advertising Secrets

When the internet started banner advertising was one of the most popular ways to advertise. However, once this kind of advertising became popular it dramatically reduced its effect. People became blind towards it and click through rates become as low as 0.5%. However many of the top internet marketers still use banner advertising as one of their top producing strategies. You will reap the rewards with internet banner advertising once you know how to apply the correct marketing strategies.

One of the challenging aspects of banner advertising is to get people to actually click on your banner. With all the banners looking like adverts people have become oblivious to this. You need to make your banner not look like an advert. Make the background white because this makes it blend in and look like content. Then use blue text to denote the advertisement. People are conditioned by using the internet to associate blue with a hyperlink and this will make them click on it. Use a good attention grabbing headline for example "How To Lose 30 Pounds In 20 Days".

Once you have created your banner you need to find good places on the internet to advertise. I suggest you look for websites related to yours and you contact the owners directly. Use your negotiating skills and try to lower the advertising rate that a website owner may want until you are satisfied that you have a good deal. Also try to get at least a month or a week's trial to test the effectiveness of the internet banner advertising before you enter into a long term contract.

You need to create an appropriate landing page for your banner advertisement. This could be in the form of a squeeze page. I would strongly suggest that you do not send your visitor to a sales page as a visitor usually needs to see your offer at least 7 times before they will consider buying.

Follow these internet banner advertising tips and you will find that you can produce substantially more traffic to your website and increase your profits.

Would you like to know more about the traffic techniques have helped me to drive thousands of visitors to my website? I have just completed my new guide.

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Financial Needs Analysis

Financial Needs Anaysis (FNA) is defined as a process to identify individual financial needs in order to strategise an investment plan that meet such needs and financial goals. Before I go into details about FNA process, let me explain the three broad categories of financial needs;

(i) Accumulation Needs It is defined as a future financial need that one desire to set aside. The motivation to accumulate a sum of money in future include children education, starting a business, property investment, buying a car, retire early or giving to charity.

(ii) Retirement Needs It is defined as financial need that provide fund to support our life after our retirement. When we retire, our pension or social security benefits begin but our earned income ceases. Our working expenses reduce but our leisure and medical expenses increase.

(iii) Protection Needs It is defined as financial obligations that we need to fulfil upon death, disablement, contracting critical illness, loss of or damage to property and/or when a personal liability arises.

Having a general idea about the three main categories of financial needs, let me go through the process of Financial Needs Analysis:

(1) Fact finding --> (2) Identify and quantify financial needs --> (3) Identify investment products that meet financial goals --> (4) Periodical review of financial needs

1. Fact Finding

Gather personal details, employment details, number of dependants, financial information, existing insurance policies, retirement needs, saving goals, objective and investment preference. Personal details such as age, gender, martial status and smoking habits will offer us a preliminary assessment of the types of financial products that will likely suitable for us. Employment status enables us to determine if income protection is needed for high risk job, and the ability to commit long to medium term investment product. The number of dependants will determine the amount of additional financial support. The more dependant we have, the greater the number of years we have to support them, which means we need more life insurance and income protection. Financial information such as monthly income will help to determine the continuing income needed in the event of death, disability or retirement. Expenditures information will help to determine the level of income needed for the family to survive in the event of premature death of the breadwinners, and to estimate the funds available for investment. Assets and liabilities information helps to determine net worth, which enable us to decide on the amount of funds for investment or to adjust our lifestyles to reduce liabilities. Existing insurance policy will serve as a starting point for any further insurance products. The objectives and investment preferences will help to determine our attitude towards investment risk, which classified into Risk Averter, Cautious, Balanced and Risk Seeker. Retirement needs information enables us to determine the monthly amount in today's dollar that we and our dependants need to live on retirement. Generally, most singles need about 50% to 60% of their pre-retirement income to maintain same living standard after retirement. The percentage increase to 60% to 70% for married couples with one retiree. Saving goals information helps to determine if the funds earmarked for various financial goals are adequate.

2. Identifying and Quantifying Financial Needs

After we have gathered all the data through facts finding, the next steps of FNA process is to analyse the data to identify and quantify the financial needs. We should pick up weaknesses that can negatively affect the financial objectives. For examples; amount of debts, investment portfolio, existing insurance products, living within means, investment time horizon, liquidity need, children education and risk profiles. Determine which objectives should be given higher priority. Three factors should be considered when analysing objectives:


Establish if the objective is short-term or long-term. Short-term objective is more appropriate for retired person who may wish to increase income produced from investment capital. Long-term objective is more suitable for someone who want sufficient fund to send his new-born child to university in future. However, objectives can be both long and short term.
Establish if the objective is for the benefit of us or for others, such as dependants. For example, the objective may be passing our estate to our grandchildren in the event of death. Alternatively, the objective may be to retire early.
Prioritise the objectives. For example, we may want to invest a second property but to achieve this objective; it may detriment a reasonable income in retirement. It is important to tackle each financial need and uncover those needs that need immediate attention.
Once all the financial needs are identified and prioritised, each need must be quantified. The ways to quantify retirement, protection and accumulation needs are different. There are two methods to quantifying retirement needs, namely the replacement ratio method and expense method. As for protection needs, the method include determine the sum of total liabilities and immediate expenses required at the time of death and the amount needed for dependants as long as needed. Multiple approach and needs approach are two common approach used to quantify the amount needed for dependants. For accumulation needs, the approach is to find the future value of the target amount taking into consideration of inflation. After we have quantified the data, proceed to next step to identify investment products that meet financial objectives.



3. Identify Investment Products that meet Financial Objectives

Points to consider includes investment objectives, product suitability, affordability, taxation, tax relief, rick tolerance, pension schemes, prioritisation and effect of inflation and time value of money. Investment Instrument that meets accumulation and retirement needs includes Money Market Securities, Fixed Income Securities, Equity Investment, Derivative Instruments, Property, Unit Trusts, Whole Life Insurance, Endowment, Investment-Linked Products and Annuities. Investment products that meet protection needs include Term Insurance, Whole Life Insurance, Endowment Insurance, Investment-linked Life Insurance, Riders, Critical illness Insurance, Long Term Care Insurance, Medical Expense Insurance and Managed Healthcare Insurance and Disability Income Insurance. General Insurance products that meet protection needs include Fire Insurance, Household/House owner Insurance, Personal Accident Insurance and Personal Liability Insurance.

4. Periodical Review of Financial Needs

The process of identifying financial needs does not stop with implementation. Our financial needs may change over time. It affects our initial investment plan, as they may no longer be adequate. For example, a steep fall in price of equities would signal that a review of our investment portfolio and saving is required if we invested substantially in equities. Regular review of financial needs ensure we stay on course to our financial goals.

For more information about Financial Needs Analysis, go to http://growmoneytree.com

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Financial Needs Analysis

Financial Needs Anaysis (FNA) is defined as a process to identify individual financial needs in order to strategise an investment plan that meet such needs and financial goals. Before I go into details about FNA process, let me explain the three broad categories of financial needs;

(i) Accumulation Needs It is defined as a future financial need that one desire to set aside. The motivation to accumulate a sum of money in future include children education, starting a business, property investment, buying a car, retire early or giving to charity.

(ii) Retirement Needs It is defined as financial need that provide fund to support our life after our retirement. When we retire, our pension or social security benefits begin but our earned income ceases. Our working expenses reduce but our leisure and medical expenses increase.

(iii) Protection Needs It is defined as financial obligations that we need to fulfil upon death, disablement, contracting critical illness, loss of or damage to property and/or when a personal liability arises.

Having a general idea about the three main categories of financial needs, let me go through the process of Financial Needs Analysis:

(1) Fact finding --> (2) Identify and quantify financial needs --> (3) Identify investment products that meet financial goals --> (4) Periodical review of financial needs

1. Fact Finding

Gather personal details, employment details, number of dependants, financial information, existing insurance policies, retirement needs, saving goals, objective and investment preference. Personal details such as age, gender, martial status and smoking habits will offer us a preliminary assessment of the types of financial products that will likely suitable for us. Employment status enables us to determine if income protection is needed for high risk job, and the ability to commit long to medium term investment product. The number of dependants will determine the amount of additional financial support. The more dependant we have, the greater the number of years we have to support them, which means we need more life insurance and income protection. Financial information such as monthly income will help to determine the continuing income needed in the event of death, disability or retirement. Expenditures information will help to determine the level of income needed for the family to survive in the event of premature death of the breadwinners, and to estimate the funds available for investment. Assets and liabilities information helps to determine net worth, which enable us to decide on the amount of funds for investment or to adjust our lifestyles to reduce liabilities. Existing insurance policy will serve as a starting point for any further insurance products. The objectives and investment preferences will help to determine our attitude towards investment risk, which classified into Risk Averter, Cautious, Balanced and Risk Seeker. Retirement needs information enables us to determine the monthly amount in today's dollar that we and our dependants need to live on retirement. Generally, most singles need about 50% to 60% of their pre-retirement income to maintain same living standard after retirement. The percentage increase to 60% to 70% for married couples with one retiree. Saving goals information helps to determine if the funds earmarked for various financial goals are adequate.

2. Identifying and Quantifying Financial Needs

After we have gathered all the data through facts finding, the next steps of FNA process is to analyse the data to identify and quantify the financial needs. We should pick up weaknesses that can negatively affect the financial objectives. For examples; amount of debts, investment portfolio, existing insurance products, living within means, investment time horizon, liquidity need, children education and risk profiles. Determine which objectives should be given higher priority. Three factors should be considered when analysing objectives:


Establish if the objective is short-term or long-term. Short-term objective is more appropriate for retired person who may wish to increase income produced from investment capital. Long-term objective is more suitable for someone who want sufficient fund to send his new-born child to university in future. However, objectives can be both long and short term.
Establish if the objective is for the benefit of us or for others, such as dependants. For example, the objective may be passing our estate to our grandchildren in the event of death. Alternatively, the objective may be to retire early.
Prioritise the objectives. For example, we may want to invest a second property but to achieve this objective; it may detriment a reasonable income in retirement. It is important to tackle each financial need and uncover those needs that need immediate attention.
Once all the financial needs are identified and prioritised, each need must be quantified. The ways to quantify retirement, protection and accumulation needs are different. There are two methods to quantifying retirement needs, namely the replacement ratio method and expense method. As for protection needs, the method include determine the sum of total liabilities and immediate expenses required at the time of death and the amount needed for dependants as long as needed. Multiple approach and needs approach are two common approach used to quantify the amount needed for dependants. For accumulation needs, the approach is to find the future value of the target amount taking into consideration of inflation. After we have quantified the data, proceed to next step to identify investment products that meet financial objectives.



3. Identify Investment Products that meet Financial Objectives

Points to consider includes investment objectives, product suitability, affordability, taxation, tax relief, rick tolerance, pension schemes, prioritisation and effect of inflation and time value of money. Investment Instrument that meets accumulation and retirement needs includes Money Market Securities, Fixed Income Securities, Equity Investment, Derivative Instruments, Property, Unit Trusts, Whole Life Insurance, Endowment, Investment-Linked Products and Annuities. Investment products that meet protection needs include Term Insurance, Whole Life Insurance, Endowment Insurance, Investment-linked Life Insurance, Riders, Critical illness Insurance, Long Term Care Insurance, Medical Expense Insurance and Managed Healthcare Insurance and Disability Income Insurance. General Insurance products that meet protection needs include Fire Insurance, Household/House owner Insurance, Personal Accident Insurance and Personal Liability Insurance.

4. Periodical Review of Financial Needs

The process of identifying financial needs does not stop with implementation. Our financial needs may change over time. It affects our initial investment plan, as they may no longer be adequate. For example, a steep fall in price of equities would signal that a review of our investment portfolio and saving is required if we invested substantially in equities. Regular review of financial needs ensure we stay on course to our financial goals.

For more information about Financial Needs Analysis, go to http://growmoneytree.com

Read More... »

Why Use Escrow In Real Estate Investing?

Which is engagement? Engagement is when two people or more or parts enter a legal agreement which envisages the placement in third for certain properties, instruments, or capital of guard, and the release of these properties, instruments, or capital is contingent on the execution or the realization of certain conditions or acts. An account of setting in third hand is an account which is specifically established to spend only funds for a reason or a specific use.

In transactions of investment and other real of this type, accounts of setting in third hand are normally employed to hold the funds which are planned for the premiums of insurance and the taxes on buildings which were paid in advance and can be only released with these aims envisaged. In real estate, the collections of engagement are quantities which were recovered of the borrower by the supplier of loan to put in engagement for specific expenditure. This expenditure is insurance of owners of a house of risk, taxes on land, mortage insurance, and all the other amounts which are paid on an annual or sémestrielle basis.

When money is released from an engagement to explain the envisaged use, this is called a disbursement of engagement. To employ engagement for these types of expenditure protects the borrower and the lender. The borrower obtains the peace of the spirit knowing that the lender can only reach the funds for the goal envisaged. This guarantees that the lender will not take the monthly payments for this expenditure and will not apply them towards the envisaged use. The lender can rest easy knowing that the borrower cannot remove the funds or spend the money in other things. The two parts have a assurance which these invoices are met.

The lender can be particularly interested by the payments of insurance, because if something arrives at the house and the premiums of insurance were not met, then the lender is held to loosen much. If the taxes on land are not paid, the property can be seized for back taxes, costing the lender or the borrower more money. This is why it is important to employ engagement for monthly payments of this type. Certain expenditure is paid each year or twice a year. The majority of the borrowers of time pay a sixth or a twelfth of this expenditure on a monthly basis, and these funds are put in engagement until the expenditure comes due. To take guard always of no matter whom who refuses to put these payments in an account of setting in third hand. Any investor or lender real legitimates will be more than wanting to put these amounts in engagement, and if they seem uncomfortable with this which should be a red flag on the subject at least of their procedures of management, if not their ethics of businesses. An account of setting in third hand should indicate that it is an account of setting in third hand.

The funds in an account of setting in third hand always belong to the borrower until the expenditure which the account is established for is paid. It is important to employ engagement so that the two parts are protected, and the funds are held for specific expenditure. This is protected from the fraud, as well as to guarantee that certain expenditure like taxes on land and payments of insurance is made per hour protect the interest from the lender for the property. The purchaser at the house with the safety of knowing that the money will go exactly where it would have, and cannot be removed for any other reason.

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