Jason Reed's blog

If you are selling your house or have just purchased a house that needs some repairs or updating, do it yourself. Most projects can be handled by you. With the help of the DIY Network, you can do almost everything yourself.

Doing things yourself saves you a ton of money, teaches you new things, and proves to you that you are capable of most repairs. Sure you'll still need experts along the way, but at least check out a tutorial or video to see how tough the project is before hiring a pro.  read more »

Active Rain is a great website. It is a real estate social networking site. I guess this site has the same features, just not the readership. That's what makes Active Rain so powerful, a wealth of knowledge on any topic. Lot's of people trying to pimp themselves and their real estate companies and websites, etc.

But it is a great place to network and pick up new ideas. You can also ask people for help on any topic. You can create your own profile and blog for free if you wish. You can comment on other peoples stuff as well.  read more »

vFlyer did a great article about Web 2.0 and companies that Realtors should be paying attention to. It's actually a really great list. I'm familiar with most of the items on the list, and they are definitely some valuable resources.

You can read the full article here.

Sellsius has announced a Blog Tour USA, the first (as far as we know) cross country real estate blog tour.

This summer, Sellsius is hitting the road to promote blogging, real estate bloggers, real estate agents, Sellsius, the Inman Bloggers Connect and more. They will start Blog Tour USA in New York City and end in San Francisco at the Bloggers Connect July 31st, zigzagging our way to visit all our blogging brethren.

I love the Sellsius blog! I hope they are planning on coming to Minnesota, I'd love to pick their brains.

For first time investors I have a fairly simple plan of attack. Everyone you meet that is involved in Real Estate investing seems to have a fairly differing opinion on what is the correct way to make money in Real Estate. The truth is that there isn’t just one-way to Invest and do better than others. There are several different ways and some work better than others with some dependence on current market conditions. Here is an Idea for the first time investor.  read more »

Have you ever visited a site and said, “Wow this is amazing!” This is one of those sites. Other sites, like Zillo.com, don’t even copmpare. This is more accurate and does so much more.  read more »

Sometimes it takes vision to create wealth. Vision is something that Bill Gates had even in the face with a huge company like IBM telling him he was wrong. The type of vision I am speaking of is seeing a property for what it can be not what it currently is. IBM told Bill Gates that there wasn’t a market for personal computers. The vision you need to have in working with rehabs will not face the scrutiny that Gates did however, it may feel like it at times.  read more »

1. Letting the seller know your level of interest. The less the seller knows about your level of interest the better off you are in negotiating with them. This holds true in all purchases! Keep your excitement to yourself and you may be able to save thousands of dollars.  read more »

Ever since I started working in Real Estate people have been asking me about foreclosed property. Most people understand that their are some good deals in buying foresclosed properties. The biggest problem with foreclosures is that most people know little or nothing about them. In this series of articles I will touch on the foreclosure process, how people can make money buying them, and how to avoid being foreclosed upon.

The foreclosure process:  read more »

In a recent newspaper article the Star Tribune reported that home prices were expected to rise 4% for the year, and home prices had risen in the Twin Cities 7 county area by 2% for the year. Statistics can be used to show a favorable light on just about anything. How is it that we have low inflation every year and yet the price of everything seems to keep heading higher? The truth is in most housing markets prices are headed lower, and if you want to sell your home in this market there are a few tricks you can use that I haven’t seen everyone try just yet.  read more »

Rehabbing property is a great way to make money in Real Estate. Two essentials to making money are knowing where to budget money for the project (what will give the greatest return?), and how to analyze the home and market conditions. Refer to my article “Before you Buy Do This…” for information on property and market analysis. The topic that I want to briefly cover is where to spend money to get the best return on reading.  read more »

There are several essential elements that need to be brought together when making your first home purchase. The first place you should start is picking a Mortgage broker to work with. This is unquestionably the most important part of the puzzle when purchasing a home.

The person and company that you pick to help you get a loan on your home is more important than any other relationship that you will have. Most people think the Realtor or Real Estate Agent is more important. While they play an important role the Mortgage Broker or Loan Officer is more important.  read more »

Prior to your Real Estate purchase make sure to make the most out of your Realtor. Most people think the limited access they have to their local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) gives them a lot of information. In reality Realtors and agents using the system have access to information that can be worth tens of thousands to buyers. Before you purchase property make sure you do a statistical analysis of the area and property you are purchasing. To give you an Idea of the importance of this analysis I have included the information of an area I studied.  read more »

Its no secret that people have become Millionaires using Real Estate as their vehicle to wealth than any other method. It is said that McDonald’s is not in the food business they are in the Real Estate business. If you look at their property and the property values you’d agree. Before becoming a Realtor and an Investor I communicated with a number of wealthy people across the World, and the one thing that almost everyone of my wealthiest clients had in common was ownership or past ownership in Real Estate. With my point being made the issue for you becomes how do you make money yourself?  read more »

Everywhere you look you see articles on the housing market. With the rise in interest rates and other economic factors housing markets across the U.S. are taking a beating.

In the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St.Paul the number of homes on the market compared to buyers is currently at a 8 to 1 ratio! That is an all-time high. The ratio was 5 to 1 a year ago and 3 to one two years prior to that. The trend for the U.S. as a whole is similar in the glut of property on the market.  read more »