It is common to hear people say that they are putting off the sale of their house because of the current state of the market. If you ask any good real estate agent like Kale Realty, there is no perfect time to buy or sell the home of your dream as there are various reasons why people put up their properties in the market.

The most common cause is usually related to the financial situation the homeowners are experiencing.

Declaring that your house is up for sale is not the only way to prepare your home. There are other contributing factors that play on the success of your property’s sale. Here are the steps Kale Realty recommends when you are selling your home.

1. Choose a real estate agent.

Your agent is in charge of keeping you in the loop of seller updates. Moreover, they are in charge of advertising, showing the house to prospective buyers and completing the legal requirements to sell your home successfully. You could try selling your property without using an agent or a broker, but this is not adviced as you may make costly errors along the way.

2. Determine your selling price.

The next step after choosing an agent is determining the real value of your property and how much you are willing to sell it for. A quick sale will entail you to keep the price low. However, many agents will also encourage their sellers to stick to the real value. That way when negotiations begin, there is more room for the buyers to bargain.

3. Sign an agreement with the agent or broker.

You will have to sign a contract that will legally bind you to pay the broker or the agent the commission they asked for. The agreement also includes the provisions of the advertising and many more.

4. Showing your property.

Most agents and brokers post their properties for sale online. Which means you need to photograph your house, draw up flor plans and produce online ads. It is also imperative that you and your agent get on the same page on how to present the property.

5. Entertaining buyers.

Buyers who are interested in your home will contact your agent and arrange a visit to view your house. They may also sign up to attend the open house your agent is conducting. When you and your agent starts entertaining prospective buyers, make sure to highlight the best spots of the property.

6. Negotiation begins.

Your agent will act as a mediator between you and the buyer to reach a mutual understanding of the property’s selling price. The agent will also be responsible for handling the rest of the complicated paperwork. Once everyone is in agreement, the buyer can now begin to pay.

7. Settlement day.

When everything goes according to plan, you can now hand the keys and the legal rights of your house to the new owner. Congratulations! You have now sold your home!

So if you follow the above 7 steps as highlighted by top Chicago broker Kale Realty, you will have a better start than 95% of the other sellers who did not think in depth about all these details. Prices are getting much better and the market has completely recovered from the 2008 real estate crisis.

If we have a look at the world in general, real estate markets are doing extremely well in most parts of the world. Cities like Hong Kong and Vancouver are even reaching record breaking prices with the experts talking about overheating markets. So if you want to sell your house now, this could be a great timing.

In the cities discussed in this article, real estate is the most overvalued in the world. So read on…

Nowhere else in the world is valuation of the local real estate more overvalued than in Hong Kong, says a report by Swiss bank UBS Group on real estate prices in twenty financial centers around the world. The top five most overvalued cities are Hong Kong, Munich in Europe, Toronto, Vancouver both in Canada and Amsterdam in Europe as well. On the other hand, only Chicago has been estimated as undervalued and in this city, buyers can therefore still make interesting transactions.

However, overall, prices in most of the 20 cities have increased significantly less in the last four quarters than in previous years.

Accessibility

Prices that have increased on average by 35% in major cities over the last five years have contributed to an accessibility crisis, the report says. Most households can no longer afford to buy real estate in the best financial centers without a substantial inheritance.

Nevertheless, the risks are more limited than what they were prior to the global financial crisis, as mortgages progressed more slowly than during this period. Likewsie in loans and construction are both growing much more moderately.

The volume of real estate loans in circulation is growing at half the rate before the financial crisis began, according to Mark Haefele, Investment Director at UBS Global Wealth Management. Although the threat of a real estate bubble remains real in a number of financial centers, no comparison can be made with the situation before the outbreak of the financial crisis ten years ago.

Flaws

Investors should remain cautious in sone of the most overheated real estate markets like as Hong Kong, Toronto and some parts of London. Over the past period, the first loopholes in the global housing boom have appeared.

During the past four quarters, real estate prices – adjusted for inflation – have risen by only 3.5 per cent in several major cities. It is a lot less than in previous years, but the numbers are still above average over a ten-year period, according to the report.

However, an explosive upward trend was evident in the largest economies of the euro area, as well as in Hong Kong and Vancouver.

In half of the cities that faced a bubble risk last year – Sydney, Stockholm, London and Toronto – real estate prices have fallen. In London, Stockholm and Sydney, the losses were more than 5%.

In Sydney, among other things, tighter credit conditions and higher interest rates have put a sharp end to higher prices and Geneva is also moving towards a more normal price.

The researchers also note that Hong Kong residents must do their best to become real estate owners. It will take an average of twenty-two years for a Hong Kong resident to buy an apartment of sixty square meters, the report says. In London, which occupies the second place, this period falls down to fifteen years.

Chicago

Of all top 20 financial market capitals, Chicago is the most affordable.

And its financial market predominance is not expected to go away any time soon, as its futures markets are there to stay for the long-run. Unlike cities like London that can suffer from regional political and economical turmoil like brexit, the CBOT and other futures market based in Chicago are not subject to such vagaries.

Consult a specialist like D.J. Paris from Kale Realty for more information about where to find the best real estate investment opportunities in Chicago. Kale Realty is one of the largest real estate broker in the Chicago area and their family-owned business has been running for 63 years already.

“Content is King,” is a phrase you often hear over and over again when people talk about SEO success and how to achieve it.

Many experts would say that if you get your content right you will create a solid foundation to support every SEO techniques and efforts.

Generating fresh content is a great idea, especially to those people who have already visited your website. But will can it attract the search engines as well?

The straight answer here is that creating fresh and quality content does give you numerous benefits. Human readers find them helpful and informative while search engines love them provided they are original and relevant.

1. Fresh Content Equates To Frequent Indexing

One important thing to remember is that just because you are producing fresh content does not mean you will index higher in the serps. But the more you update your website with e-book downloads, new web pages, articles and other content, the more frequently the search engines stop by to check out your site.

The more often search engines visit your site to take a look at your content, the more opportunity you have in achieving a higher ranking. But it also depends on the quality of what you have produced.

Your site may be indexed based on the combination of the number of incoming links (and sometimes external links) to the site, the keywords used and how often your site is updated. Therefore, if you want to rank higher on search engines, updating your content frequently is vital so that it can reassess your position on its index.

Another important detail to remember is that quality is crucial here. As long as you frequently produce contents with high standards, you improve your chances of getting a more elevated position in the search engine page results.

2. More Content Equates To More Keywords

Keywords are high on the algorithm chart for search engine indexing and ranking. And everytime you publish new content, you present more opportunities for your website to contain more keywords. Posts such as reviews, testimonials, guidelines or blogs allow you to optimize them using appropriate keywords that can attract not just real human readers but search engines as well.

According to the algorithm updates by Google, they are not looking for keyword-stuffed content. What they want is fresh and high-quality content; which brings us back to number 1.

Keywords are still a significant part of search engine optimization, but you cannot build your SEO campaign entirely on keywords and never write a content around a keyword. Use title tags, meta tags and descriptions for your keywords. Just make sure to leave the published material as natural as possible.

3. Fresh and Quality Content Boosts Your Authority Potential

Every webmaster strives to become the niche expert in the eyes of search engines. The key to achieving this goal is to abide by the SEO adage “content is king.” The more valuable, quality and informative content you have, the higher chances you have in becoming an authority site.

Assuming that you have already been indexed and people have already started reading about your content, this is the time for you to step up your game and produce better content. The more you talk about a topic in depth, more people will trust you and revisit your website. The more visits you get, the better your chances of becoming an expert in your field.

Answering questions on forums, commenting back and sharing content on social media platforms can also help build your reputation and gain more visits from people who wanted to read what you wrote or check what you produced.

Even if you set search engine optimization aside, there is still a good and valid need for giving your website regular valuable content. Naturally, you want to keep your current subscribers or readers engaged as these people convert their visits into sales.

By making sure your readers stay hooked, you develop some authority, which will equate to translates into increasing traffic that will increase the value of your site. So make sure to refresh your site content often enough, which will not only garner appreciation and commitment from your visitors, but it will also put you in a good standing with search engines.