Each state has a specific process for obtaining a real estate certificate that involves classes followed by a licensing exam. Fortunately, many of these programs involve weekend and evening classes, allowing you time to pursue your normal activities during the day. There are also online options, but it is important to make sure that the training meets the standards of your particular state.

Many states maintain a list of approved training courses which provides a very easy way of finding out what classes you will need. Community colleges may also offer real estate licensing courses which fit the standards for your state. It is important to shop around and find a course that is a good fit for you in terms of time and money, while still boasting a high rate of students passing the licensing exam.

Once you have obtained your real estate license, you will find a whole new world opening up for you in your investing business. Most importantly, you get access to the local MLS, listings that are only available to real estate agents. Instead of paying commissions, you add to your profit. Instead of counting on someone else to find good listings for you, you will be able to find your own properties and keep the best deals to yourself.

Youll also have access to the comps in the local area, helping you know if you found a good deal. If you decide not to purchase a particular property, you may find out that someone you know is interested, and when you act as their agent you get the commission yourself. On the properties you do find, youll see the various financing options available, some of which are non-standard and perfect for investors.

As someone who holds a real estate license, you will also be able to network with other real estate agents and find out the tricks they use to find and sell the best properties. When you work with listing agents, you will have incredible leverage as you offer to take care of the details. You can even split commission with them, since youll be keeping all that money for yourself! You will be able to control your own marketing, listings, and showings. The time and effort involved are well worth knowing that every showing is done right and every prospective buyer is followed up with.

Obtaining a real estate certificate is a simple way to expand your access, contacts, profit, and control over your real estate investing. There are many easy ways to obtain a license, and the benefits are significant. As a serious investor, this is one resource you cannot be without.

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At this time of the year, a lot of families get together, and in most homes the conversation usually gets around to politics at some point. Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help you share the reality of the U.S. economic crisis with your family and friends. If we all work together, hopefully we can get millions of people to wake up and realize that “business as usual” will result in a national economic apocalypse.

The following are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that are almost too crazy to believe….

#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

#2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be “low income” or impoverished.

#3 If the number of Americans that “wanted jobs” was the same today as it was back in 2007, the “official” unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.

#4 The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.

#5 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.

#6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.

#7 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.

#8 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

#9 A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.

#10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

#11 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

#12 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.

#13 One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.

#14 The Federal Reserve recently announced that the total net worth of U.S. households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.

#15 According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

#16 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#17 The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past year.

#18 In Stockton, California home prices have declined 64 percent from where they were at when the housing market peaked.

#19 Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 59 months in a row.

#20 If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.

#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

#22 New home construction in the United States is on pace to set a brand new all-time record low in 2011.

#23 As I have written about previously, 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.

#24 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

#25 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

#26 One study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#27 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#28 The United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

#29 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars.

#30 The retirement crisis in the United States just continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.

#31 Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

#32 According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America’s biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.

#33 Today, the “too big to fail” banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

#34 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

#35 According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.

#36 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.

#37 A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured before.

#38 Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007.

#39 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.

#40 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

#41 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#42 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.

#43 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

#44 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.

#45 For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government had a budget deficit of nearly 1.3 trillion dollars. That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.

#46 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#47 Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

#48 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

#49 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.

#50 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

Of course the heart of our economic problems is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of incompetence. If the Federal Reserve system had never been created, the U.S. economy would be in far better shape. The federal government needs to shut down the Federal Reserve and start issuing currency that is not debt-based. That would be a very significant step toward restoring prosperity to America.

During 2011 we made a lot of progress in educating the American people about our economic problems, but we still have a long way to go.

Hopefully next year more Americans than ever will wake up, because 2012 is going to represent a huge turning point for this country.

Orginally posted at http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-economic-numbers-from-2011-that-are-almost-too-crazy-to-believe/comment-page-1

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Like most small businesses, real estate depends on nurturing strong relationships with your clients. The better you respond to your customers needs, the more theyll trust your guidance during their major life decision. And that trust can lead to a better sale.

While the bulk of real estate relationships are built in person, its easy and natural to extend that relationship into your clients email inbox too. Lets take a look at five different kinds of content you can send that go beyond the basic property listings and speaks to your customers needs.

Home Buying Tips

Buying a house is a big commitment that comes with plenty of questions and considerations for your buyers. You can probably answer all the questions from a first-time home buyer in your sleep!

Use your email campaign to address these common questions and lead them through important tips to consider, like:

- Choosing an agent
- Financing – What kind is right them? What are the points and closing costs?
- Negotiating a lower price – Getting seller concessions, Making counteroffers
- The total cost of ownership, beyond the mortgage basics
- Appraisals
- Home age – Should I buy a newer or older home? What are the trade-offs of each?

Local Factors – Where Should I Buy?

Proximity to work or school is only one consideration for new home buyers when theyre comparing locations. The neighborhood, local attractions, school districts and other demographics also play a role.

Help your clients decide on the best location for them by addressing some of these concerns in your emails:

- The relative cost of housing in the area
- Quality of public services (education, water, sewer, parks)
- Age of the community – Young families may prefer neighborhoods with children, while an older couple might prefer a quiet area.
- Mean and median income
- Entertainment venues (theaters, concerts, sports, restaurants)

Profile a new township in a monthly newsletter with some highlights of who would feel most at home there.

Market Trends

Buying or selling a home is usually a long and involved process. By the time your client is ready to close on their home, the buying and selling market might look completely different than it does right now.

Keep your clients up to speed on market performance. Is it a better time to buy or sell right now? You can also discuss other factors that influence the market, like:

- Unemployment
- Interest rates
- Foreclosure rates
- Seasons

Transparency about the housing market can also help your clients trust your input more.

Home Maintenance Advice

Closing on a home sale might be the end for you, but its just the beginning for your clients. A new homeowner might feel overwhelmed with new responsibility for a big property.

Make the transition easy with tips on home repairs and installations your new owners should invest in:

- When to replace windows
- Comparing different types of flooring (hardwood vs. carpet vs. tile vs. linoleum)
- Comparing wall treatments (wallpaper vs. paint vs. paneling)
- Different heating systems (gas vs. oil vs. electric)
- Plumbing considerations
- Roofing comparisons (slate vs. asphalt shingles vs. clay tiles)
- Exterior design (brick vs. siding vs. stucco vs. paint)

Discuss ways these improvements can make your clients home a worthwhile investment.

Success Stories

Getting testimonials from other satisfied customers adds credibility to your marketing campaign and makes it feel more human.

People trust the opinions of other people. So give your previous clients a voice in your emails. Include testimonials about your customer service. Have a customer write about how easy you made their home buying process, or how you eased their first-time-buyer fears.

Featuring feedback from your customers shows that youre an expert too: People who turned to you for advice are willing to recommend you based on that advice. Featuring your positive feedback can lead to more good reviews – and more business! – in the future.

Keep Building The Relationship

An email marketing campaign built on addressing your clients needs builds a strong relationship that can lead to more referrals and business later on. Think about what a new home buyer needs to know and frame your campaign content around common buying and selling questions.

When you anticipate your customers needs in the inbox, youll be the first agent they turn to the next time they need quality service.

Justin Premick is the Director of Education Marketing at AWeber, the leading provider of email marketing software and autoresponders for small businesses. To get more email marketing tips from Justin and AWeber, enter your email address here.

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The blunt truth: they need a therapist, not a marketing consultant. Actually, they need to start with a very simple but important strategy….

Unlike most authors of most success genre content, he makes no attempt to deliver ideas that will be popular with a large audience. This mirrors my own approach as an author, spanning, now 32 years and more than 20 published books. (www.NoBSBooks.com), My scariest is No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits.

One of the Eternal Truths that I quote in one of my books is: when you are up to your ass in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp. It’s easy to get so caught up in managing all the problem parts of a business that you never do anything else. And that’s a sure path to where these two partners are now: burn out. I could give ‘em the all-time killer sales letter, the best marketing campaign ever devised, and it wouldn’t do them much good…when they go to the office each day wishing they weren’t there, fatigued from first thing on, going through the motions, viewing their activities as drudgery…and end the day without any sense of measurable progress toward meaningful goals…their ‘walking dead’ aura pervades ever nook and cranny, every employee, every customer, every aspect of their business. It’s the psychic equal of trying to attract a lot of customers to a restaurant that smells like rotting, burning flesh.

Prescription: each and every day, keep a pre-set, inviolate appointment with yourself or with one or two key people, out of sight and hearing of the alligator pit, no matter how many alligators there are or how hungry they are, to do nothing but focus and work on positive, productive plans and strategies that look to the future, that are linked to goals and progress, that you can be excited and optimistic about. Simplistically, this is a means of maintaining perspective. Even better, add taking one action, getting one thing done every day, no matter what, that you know moves you forward, toward positive goals. Go home if you must knowing you spent 7 hours and 58 minutes in the alligator pit, but at least you found 2 minutes to put something in motion that will improve things.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up. His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/lautensack

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Going green in your home can start with a five minute shower. You will conserve water and the utilities it takes to heat the water. Also turn down the water heater so the water comes out of the faucet hot and not scalding. This will not only lower your bill but also protect any small children in your home.

Next time you decide to repaint a room think about using nontoxic paints, stains, or glues. These items contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs in paints, stains, and glues continue to be emitted from the source for years after and can cause nausea, headaches, and can trigger asthma attacks in those susceptible.

Shop at and donate to thrift stores. Youll be recycling perfectly usable items, and youll be supporting your local economy. Many a favorite piece of clothing I have owned was found in a thrift store.

Put on a sweater. Turn down your thermostat this winter. Adjust your thermostat just one degree for eight hours a day and you could save 1 percent on your monthly heating bills. Heating and air-conditioning account for nearly half the energy used in our homes.

Use software instead of paper in your home office. If you run a business from your home consider doing more of your work on the computer and use less paper. There are a lot of software directories you can check out for the latest in home office software.

When replacing your appliances make sure they are an energy efficient model. Look for the government sponsored Energy Star logo.

Switch all the light bulbs in your home to CFLs. A number of years ago a local supermarket had these light bulbs on sale. We changed the light bulbs in our whole home to CFLs and have not changed a light bulb in almost four years.

This post was written by Capterra, a resource that helps businesses find and compare any kind of software. With an inventory of over 300+ software directories, you can find anything from church management software to ecommerce software resources. Capterra allows you the ability to filter results bases on your needs as well as ratings and reviews. If you would like further assistance, you may register for a free software consultation to get matched with the most appropriate software companies.

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6 Sections of a real estate development agreement

You need to expand your knowledge about real estate development agreement. You can go through this article to know about the 6 sections of a real estate development agreement.

First section The first section of the agreement consists of the basic information about the agreement such as the name of the person who is associated with this agreement. It also includes the location as to where the property will be developed, the date when the agreement was signed and the date of beginning of the agreement.

Second section – The second section consists of the terms and conditions of the agreement. In case the agreement is only of a construction of a simple home, it will only have 2 to 3 definitions and with the help of real estate guidance, your work will become much easy.

Third section – The third section highlight on the plan of the project which includes the ground rules and property limits of the project. With the help of proper real estate guidance, you will get a clear picture of the plan of the project.

Fourth section – The fourth section is said to be the improvement section and it contains all the details of the improvement section.

Fifth section – The fifth section is said to be the witnessed section which clearly states all the necessary things that the real estate builder needs to follow so that the development agreement gets approved by the city. Before the approval of the agreement, it is the work of the city authorities to find out whether or not your plot is sectored for the property the real estate builder will intend to do.

Sixth section – The sixth and the final section stresses on the landscaping rules, parking rules and the other rules for the construction of the plot in future. The time limit to complete the project is also given in this section of the agreement.

It is very important that you follow the six sections of a real estate development agreement properly. A real estate development agreement is said to be the most difficult agreement that you make in your life. You will find many of the forms of the agreement consist of one or two pages. However, these forms can be read and filled out in very short time.

Scott Mathew is associated with several finance communities as a Guest author and forum member. His writings generally covers the topics like- Home, Home loan, Mortgage, Home Building etc

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