Due Feb. 7th – 3 posts

Answer each forum post on attached 

Minimum 100 words each   

Be positive AND ask at least 1 question

Tom-121

                At the end of this class I will be finished with my degree, so I have had a lot of time to think about what I was going to do after I finished.  I will be working with my father-in-law for his real estate company.  I will start out as an agent but after my required two years of experience I will look into getting my broker license.  I have thought about getting my real estate appraisers license also, but I want to give it a couple of years to get my feet wet in the field before I jump into that.  That way it will give me more experience when I go to assess properties especially residential and agricultural that I will be dealing with the most.

I will most likely take over my father-in-law’s business after he retires.  He has told me that he doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon and that’s fine by me.  He has a lot of information that I could learn from him.  He has been doing this work for over 40 years.  After he is finally ready to retire is when I will step up and take over the reins.

                The main thing that I would like to accomplish would to be a real estate appraiser.  After taking the class here, it really got the wheels to spinning and how far that could help in the world of real estate.  I had never thought about that part of real estate prior to taking the class.  It definitely wasn’t easy.  A lot of information thrown at you in just 8 weeks.  I have a lot more to do before I travel down that path.

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Brandi- 121

I currently have both short-term and long-term goals when it comes to my career in real estate. My short-term goals involved passing my state required 60-hour course as well as the course final so as to be able to sit for my state licensing exam. Having just finished that goal my main pursuit is to pass my state exam to become a licensed agent in real estate sales. Another of my short-term goals is to pick a home for my license out of my two top brokerage choices.

Once all those initial short-term goals are met my long-term goal is to become a successful real estate sales agent. I don’t currently have thoughts of running my own agency but I will probably pursue my broker’s license at some point in my career. The added knowledge and reputation that comes with holding a broker license can hurt even if I decided to remain only a sales agent. I may not sell only residential but might test my hand in commercial at some point but again this is not necessarily a goal. 

The positives of maintaining a successful career in residential real estate sales would be the potential for gaining and developing lasting relationships with clients, helping them find their dream home, and earning a very comfortable income. I love the idea of every transaction being different and avoiding the monotony that some other career choices hold. Both a positive and a negative could be that I will only do as well as the effort I put in. There is no guarantee of a paycheck but there is also no cap to what I can make. A career in residential sales can also be heavily influenced by the ups and downs of supply and demand as well as the overall health of the economy. 

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Andrew – 220

I would argue that the appraisal process is the single most important piece of the real estate process for an investor. To be successful in any investing activity, you must be able to avoid making your investment at too high of prices. As was seen in the real estate crash, appreciation is not a continuous upward sloping phenomenon – there are periods of downward correction that can be very painful. Whenever financing a property, whether in an initial purchase or in a refinance, the goal is to understand the realizable value of the property. Because the property is used as collateral, the financing is directly based on the estimated realizable value of the underlying asset – the property. If and when the realizable value decreases dramatically from the assumption used during financing, the buyer may find themselves in a position of negative net worth on the home, otherwise known as being upside down. In these cases, the lender has also lost a significant piece of security and the risk of the loan has increased.

Credit reports are also important to the loan qualification process. The credit report demonstrates the borrower’s habits regarding managing debt. Borrowers who have skipped payments on other debt represent a higher risk to the lender, as do borrowers who have very short credit histories, have extremely heavy debt loads, or who have high levels of carried credit card debt. 

Income and employment verifications are also ways that a lender can reduce the risk of a loan. By ensuring that a borrower meets a minimum income level, the lender can reduce the risk of non-payment. Additionally, someone with a longer and more stable employment history represents that they will be able to maintain employment and are somewhat less likely to become insolvent.