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Choosing The Right Real Estate Law Firm

Whether you are buying your first house, looking to move up, or even downsize, choosing the right real estate attorney can be both challenging and time consuming. However, it can often be overlooked in all the hubbub of the home buying process. Below is a list of key things to keep in mind in order to make sure you are choosing the right real estate attorney for you.

1) Experience. Many would argue this is the most important factor. How many real estate transactions does this firm average in a month? A year? Who else, other than your attorney, is in the office that you might be working with (assistants, other lawyers), and what is their experience?

2) Focus. Your Real Estate Attorney should focus chiefly on residential real estate. Try to find someone who spends at least 90% of their time working in the field of residential real estate, over commercial.

3) Availability. Your Attorney, and their offices should be available to you when you have questions or concerns, and should respond to your inquiries in a timely manner. Before signing on to work with them, make sure to make your expectations in regards to availability clear. They should also make themselves available for the signing of your closing documents.

4) Affiliation. Your Attorney should be affiliated and registered with your mortgage lender, or bank.

5) Good Standing. They should currently be in good standing with the Law Society of Upper Canada. If you are unsure, you can always contact the society directly to check, or check their directory.

6) Put it in writing. Just like every other document you will sign, or read when buying a house, this is no different. Make sure that your attorney gives you a written quote for your real estate deal, which includes any additional fees that may arise.

7) Filing online. Since the majority (over 90 %!) of real estate transactions are closed electronically, ensure that your attorney has been licensed by the Ontario Government (or the provincial government in the province in which you will be purchasing) to close your transaction electronically.

8) Document storage. Speaking of electronics, your Attorney should store all documents from your transaction electronically. By doing so, they ensure that your documents will never be shredded or lost, and will be available to you should you ever need them in the future.

9) Title insurance. Make sure that your Attorney has the ability to obtain and arrange title insurance for the transaction. You should also ensure the cost for doing so is included in their fees.

While this list is long, one thing that was intentionally left off is price. It can be tempting to go with the lawyer who quotes the lowest rates. The home buying experience can be expensive, and you may be tempted to save money where you can. If you focus on price, it can be easy to put on blinders to other, more relevant factors, and that can lead to legal ramifications for yourself later down the line. Price should only be a deciding factor when all other factors are equal, and price is the only differentiating factor.

Profitable Home Based Business – What to Look For in a Start Up Business

If you have defined your level of commitment and are ready to get started earning a real income with a profitable home based business, you need to know what to look for in a business that can turn your initial investment into a steady monthly income. There are many kinds of start up home based business opportunities available today, but some are clearly better than others. There are several points you need to look at when comparing chances to make money online. You obviously already know the benefits of working from home-including foregoing a commute, spending more time with your family and being your own boss-but now you need to turn your dream of making an income from home a reality.There are many viable options for starting a profitable home based business. Consider first the compensation plan of a website. You may be given staggering statistics that point out the amounts of money some people using one system or another can make, but to define this, you must come to an understanding of how you will be paid. A 50% commission would be fabulous, but what amount is being earned? If the 50% commission is applied to products sold for hundreds of dollars, then that is an excellent earning! If the commission is based on a $10 product, the amount is far less impressive.Before signing up for one profitable home based business over another, look for a mention of technical support from your website. How much help will you really be getting once you start there? Will you have assistance with your first few sales or more? No business is started completely flawlessly, but with help from other business professionals, you will be successful.Training videos are important, as are live support teams you can speak with when you are having trouble with your start up home based business. Any kind of training should use conversational language that is easy to understand, not confusing jargon that is difficult to grasp. See if you can view a few samples of training material before you sign up to get a better picture of what you are signing up for. The decision to begin the steps toward creating a profitable home based business is a significant one that cannot be rushed in to. However, if you wait too long your doubts could catch up to you and you could miss out on the chance of a lifetime.

Home Based Business Opportunities – What Kind of Home Based Business Should You Start?

In case you didn’t know, the home based business opportunities segment is absolutely on fire right now! Given the fact that the United States economy has taken its worst down-turn in a generation, an ever increasing amount of people of all ages are turning to the home based business industry to “BEAT” these financially hard times.While there are many different types of home based opportunities out there, some are most definitely be better than others.For most people, when they begin to think about starting their own home based business or what type of business to start, their thoughts seem to point them in two basic directions.1. What type of home business am I best suited for or would I enjoy doing ; and/or
2. What type of home business can I make the most money with?So, with these two basic thoughts in mind, what kind of home based business should you start?
Well, let’s get a little more specific. Are you more interested in starting a home based business that is in line with your current area of expertise and involves something that you currently enjoy or love doing? Or are you willing to learn whatever it takes to become successful in an industry that you are unfamiliar with, don’t know if you would “love” or not (notice the use of the word love), but provides you with more upside or potential to make the large profits you desire?As an example, let’s say you decide to start a home business selling, installing and supporting a third-party accounting software program (I don’t expect you to develop the software yourself) because you are a part-time book keeper and you feel “comfortable” doing so because you have a certain amount of expertise in the field. But all of the sudden you think to yourself “the economy stinks right now and I’m not sure when it will turn around, businesses that would need my services are laying off employees left and right, and their budgets are becoming more and more restrained. Would they really buy my product and my service?”Remember, the real reason you wanted to start your own home based business in the first place was so that you could “make some money” right! What are the chances of your new venture becoming successful given the state of the economy and your limited knowledge of starting your own business? Chances are, you may be thinking of starting a business that could be doomed to fail before it even gets off the ground.Now, let’s say you decide to start your own home based business but you’re not quite sure what type of business to start. You know that you could find some opportunities somewhere that suit your skills, but you’re also open to learning new skills to develop a successful company of your own.After you do a little research (like you are doing right now), you find out that the health and wellness industry is the fastest growing segment in the world today. But wait a minute, you’re not a nurse or physical therapist, you’re a diesel mechanic or a checker at the local grocery store. How are you going to start a home business that is associated with the booming health and wellness industry when you know absolutely nothing about the subject? Let me tell you something, twenty years of business experience has taught me that a good idea, in a booming industry is better than a great idea in a declining or average industry; experience or no experience! And there are certainly opportunities and industries out there that will allow you to get involved in great, booming markets and still allow you to grow and develop along with your business.So what is my advice? Well, as you might have guessed, you should really consider what type of business will give you the highest chance of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Take your shot, commit yourself to some personal development and over time, learn the skills you need to acquire to become successful in the business that provides you the greatest opportunity to create wealth and one that you could “learn to love”, in this example, the health and wellness industry.Now I’m not saying that whatever your passion is at this moment wouldn’t be a good home based business opportunity to explore. And I’m not saying that the idea of starting a business in an industry that you love is a bad idea. I’m just saying that you may be better off going with something you could develop a passion for over time, AND make the kind of income you wanted to make by starting your own business in the first place. Then, you can spend your free time doing those things that you love!In closing, there are of course many other pieces to the puzzle to consider and discuss but…let’s leave that for another day.

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