Categories
Real Estate

Buying: New Construction vs. Existing Homes

Chattanooga Homes For Sale

When it comes to buying a home, one of the key decisions you’ll need to make is whether to go for a new construction or an existing home. There are advantages and disadvantages to both options, and the decision ultimately comes down to your individual needs and preferences. In this article, we’ll explore some of the key factors to consider when weighing the pros and cons of new construction vs. existing homes.

Advantages of New Construction

  1. Customization

One of the biggest advantages of new construction is that you can often customize the home to your liking. You can work with the builder to choose your floor plan, finishes, and other details that will make the home uniquely yours. This level of customization is not possible when purchasing an existing home, which may have features that you don’t like or need to be changed.

  1. Low Maintenance

Another advantage of new construction is that it typically requires less maintenance than an existing home. With a new home, you won’t have to worry about major repairs or upgrades for several years. Everything from the roof to the appliances will be brand new and under warranty, which means you won’t have to spend as much time and money on maintenance and repairs.

  1. Energy Efficiency

New construction homes are also typically more energy-efficient than older homes. They are built to modern building codes, which often require higher levels of insulation, better windows, and more efficient HVAC systems. This means that you’ll likely have lower utility bills and a smaller carbon footprint than you would with an older home.

Disadvantages of New Construction

  1. Higher Cost

One of the main disadvantages of new construction is that it can be more expensive than an existing home. This is because you are paying for brand new materials and the builder’s profit margin. In addition, new construction homes often require more time and money for landscaping and other finishing touches that are not included in the purchase price.

  1. Uncertainty

Another potential disadvantage of new construction is that there is a certain amount of uncertainty involved in the process. You won’t be able to see the finished product until it’s completed, which means you may not know exactly what you’re getting until it’s too late. In addition, construction delays and other unforeseen issues can crop up, which can add stress and uncertainty to the home-buying process.

  1. Limited Inventory

Finally, new construction homes are often built in new developments, which means that there may be limited inventory available. If you’re looking for a specific location or type of home, you may have to wait for a new development to be built or find an existing home that meets your needs.

Advantages of Existing Homes

  1. Lower Cost

One of the biggest advantages of existing homes is that they are often less expensive than new construction homes. This is because the materials and finishes are older and the home may require more maintenance and repairs. However, this can also be an advantage, as you may be able to purchase a larger home in a more desirable location for a lower price.

  1. Established Neighborhoods

Existing homes are often located in established neighborhoods that offer a sense of community and history. This can be a major advantage if you’re looking for a close-knit community with amenities like parks, schools, and shopping centers. In addition, older neighborhoods often have mature trees and landscaping that can add character and charm to the home.

  1. Opportunity for Renovations

If you’re looking for a home that you can customize to your liking, an existing home may be the way to go. With an older home, you can make renovations and upgrades to suit your needs and preferences. This can be a major advantage if you’re looking for a unique home with a personal touch.

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First Time Home Buyer Tips Mortgage Rates Real Estate

10 Hidden Fees When Buying A Home

When you’re buying a house, you have the sales price, that’s the amount that you’re paying for the property, but if you think that’s the only thing you’re spending money on, I’ve got some bad news for you. Fees, points, credits, escrow, title, there can be so many extra and hidden fees that you go in thinking one number, and you end up paying a lot more so because of that, in this article I’m going to go through the top 10 HIDDEN costs that people don’t tell you about, or maybe they do, but they’re not as well known as just the sales price. Now, this won’t be about hidden fees once you buy the house and start living in it, more of hidden fees when it comes to acquiring the property. So with that being said, let’s look at the top 10 hidden fees of purchasing a house. 

 

Fee number 1 is the home inspection. Wait, you already know about the home inspection, so why am I including it on the list. Well, what you might not know is that you pay for the home inspection immediately, as opposed to at closing, and the home inspection could cost up to $800 depending on the size of the house. It’s important to use a reputable company and inspector. Some real estate agents will push you to use their inspectors that they have a relationship with already. Be aware of this. You don’t want to wear your tinfoil hat thinking everyone is conspiring against you to cover up items on the home inspection. But at the same time, you probably don’t want your real estate agent to be best friends with your home inspector, that doesn’t look good either. The company that I use is US Inspect. This is not an advertisement for them nor was I paid to say this, I just have used them in the past and they have been very thorough. 

 

Fee number two is the appraisal. A common theme that you’ll notice here is that once you go under contract, you’re going to have to start paying money. Some of the items we’ll discuss are fees at closing, but the appraisal fee is one that is due upfront. The D.lender usually requires this to be an upfront payment because even if the loan does not move forward, the appraiser still needs to be compensated. Expect an appraisal to be approximately $400 – $500. 

 

Fee number three is the Earnest Money Deposit. Now, wait, this one is not so much a fee, as it is money that is due upfront that some may not know about. When you submit your offer, in its simplest form, you’re just sending over a piece of paper to the other side saying that you’ll do something. Well, the sellers need more commitment than that. You got to have some skin in the game.  You need to submit your Earnest Money Deposit, commonly referred to as your EMD with your contract. This is an amount, usually 1. 5% to 3% of the sales price that is put into escrow and is a good faith deposit that you will go through with the contract. The higher your deposit, the stronger your offer. The EMD will end up going towards your closing costs, but it is due upfront when you submit your offer so be sure you and your agent have a game plan and are ready for the EMD at the time your offer is written. 

 

Fee number four is title insurance. Ahh title insurance, everyone’s least favorite real estate topic. The long and the short of it is this: You probably don’t need it. Just like you probably don’t need health insurance for 6 months, you could probably skip on dental insurance for a year. You probably don’t need car insurance for a year. That last one might be a crime now actually, so don’t quote me on that. But if you’re buying property for $400,000, $200,000, or however much money, you need to do what you can to protect your investment to make sure that no other parties could legally take that property away from you. Because if someone has a lien on that property and you don’t have title insurance that found that out, you might be in some trouble. Title insurance is going to cost about at least $1,000 for lender’s title insurance, and then another $1,000 for owner’s title insurance, this is paid at closing. I’m always going to buy title insurance with properties I purchase just to be on the safe side and I will probably not be happy about paying those fees for it. 

 

Fee number five is the county transfer tax. Whenever you buy or sell property in a jurisdiction, that jurisdiction is going to take their cut of the pie. Now it may only be small cut of the pie, maybe just the crumbs, but hey, that’s your hard-earned money so every little bit matters. It’s going to vary by jurisdiction, but a recent $400,000 property my buyers purchased had a County Transfer Tax of $350 and a County Mortgage tax of $300 totaling about $650 in fees. 

 

Fee number six, I’m going to sound like a broken record but it’s now time for the State Transfer tax. States going to get their money too and it’s going to be a little bit higher. Obviously the state transfer tax will differ by state, but here in Virginia using the same $400k property, the state transfer tax came out to $987. 50, which is 25 cents for every $100 worth of property. Or to make it easier, . 0025 of the sales price. Let’s also not forget about the State Mortgage tax, which is about the same percentage before, that. 0025 of the mortgage not the sales price, so of the mortgage. So on that $400k property, we have $987. 50 in-state transfer and $969. 75 in State Mortgage totaling $1,957. 25. That’s almost $2,000 in fees right there. Some states do not have a state mortgage tax so be sure to check in with your local lender to see if these numbers will apply to you. 

 

Fee number seven is property tax. Lots of taxes here. These are paid at closing and are usually pro-rated for half the year because around here most jurisdictions require you to pay property taxes bi-annually. You can easily look up your city or county’s property tax by going on your jurisdiction’s property tax website. One thing to know is that property taxes are based on the value of the home. So if the sales price you buy your house is more than what it was last sold for, which is usually the case, your property taxes will be going up in the future. 

 

Fee number eight is your homeowner’s insurance premium. The average homeowner’s insurance premium is about $1,000. Unless you’ve done something differently, you can expect to pay this at settlement. Remember, all jurisdictions could be different so be sure you’re in touch with your lender and settlement company to see which items are billed at settlement. 

 

Fee number nine is your HOA transfer fee. If you a purchasing in an HOA, a fee may be due at settlement. And that fee could be up to $300. What does it go towards? Setting up your account, putting you in the system, and that’s about it. If you’re like an HOA president or treasurer or something you might get mad at me for this part but it’s basically a couple of hundred bucks that you’re going to pay and not really get anything back of value. It is what it is. 

 

Fee number 10 is the title services. These are things like the settlement fee, the title abstract, the title insurance binder, and the title closing protection agency. And you can look up all these title fees on your own. That’s not the point of listing them out. The point of listing them out is that this is an additional $550 on top of all the other fees that we’ve covered. And maybe you’ve come across companies or maybe you’ve thought to yourself that you’ll negotiate with the title companies and get them to waive their fees but that’s how they make money. There’s one title company in my area. I think they charge a flat rate of $250 to close. And you need to ask yourself. Do you really want to get the cheapest real estate attorney out there? You’re buying a home. Do you really want to try to save $50 or $100 to get the least expensive company? Title companies have their fees. Some are higher than others. 

 

Try to get a few good recommendations before choosing a title company. Most of the settlements I do now are split settlements where the buyers have their title company and the sellers have. Be sure to do your research because like most things, even real estate attorneys, you get what you pay for. And bonus, we have a bonus hidden fee. The 11th hidden fee when buying a house is for condos and that is your condo move-in fee. I will put in another disclaimer that this will vary by condo and by association. But many condos include the move-in fee at closing. This is going to be anywhere from $100 to in some cases $700 to move-in. If you’re purchasing a condo, your move-in fee, if you have one, is probably going to be anywhere from $100 – $300. There you have it, the 10, or make that 11 hidden fees to buying a house.

Your Favorite Realtor – Nicole Anthony – Keller Williams Realty
Browse our Chattanooga homes for sale listings.

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First Time Home Buyer Tips

Five homebuyer mistakes.  Tips for the first-time homebuyer.

Today I’m going to be talking about five homebuyer mistakes that first-time buyers commonly make that can cost them thousands of dollars, or even to lose out on the home that they love! Don’t make these mistakes. Hi there, my name is Emily Farmington and I’m a Realtor® with Keller Williams, Realtors® in Nashville.  Tennessee. Thanks for reading this article.  If you are a first-time homebuyer I have the perfect guide for you and it’s totally free!  

 

Alright, let’s talk about some big mistakes you don’t want to make when you’re buying your first home.  Number one, not getting pre-approved.  Listen to me carefully on this one.  I know there are some flashy websites and online calculators that will claim to give you an idea of what your budget may be, but none of that matters a lick. The only thing that truly matters when you’re in the market to buy a house is getting pre-approved from a lender.  That lender is going to take a look at all of your qualifying factors and give you a very good feel for what they are willing to lend you.  Now you don’t have to spend up to the top, certainly not, but that is going to be the framework in which you are shopping.  If you are not pre-approved and you are out looking at your houses, you are wasting your time, you’re wasting your agent’s, time, and you’re wasting the seller’s time. If you are not pre-approved no seller is going to take your offer seriously. And, furthermore, you are simply not going to be able to compete with other serious buyers in the market.  

 

Number two, messing up your DTI, your debt-to-income ratio.  So say you have been smart, and you’ve gotten pre-approved, you’ve been working with a lender.  That lender has pulled all sorts of data points about you in order to qualify you for a mortgage up to a certain amount.  Things like your debt, your income, your credit score.  If you get into a contract on a property and then you go out and you start making financial decisions like buying a new car, financing a boat, going to a furniture store and buying a whole new suite of furniture for your fabulous new home, applying for in-store credit cards *gasp*.  Don’t do any of that! Those are the sorts of things that can mess everything up, throw it off the rails, and mean that you will not be buying the house that you are in love with because all of those things could mess up your debt-to-income ratio, especially if you’re squeaking by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin. Always, always talk to your lender before making any major purchases, and best practice is to just hold off until you are holding those keys in your hot little hand. 

 

Number three, internet lenders.  It has been my experience that local lenders will beat Internet lenders any day, any time. Now I know that internet lenders can have some attractive looking websites, and they may be advertising an interest rate that looks especially appealing.  And, it can also be appealing to not actually have to talk to a real human being about potentially sensitive financial information.  Maybe you’re just feeling a little shy, a little squeamish about it.  I get that, but talking to that real human being in the form of a friendly local lender is going to save you money over time.  They have very competitive interest rates, low fees, low closing costs, they have a vested interest in making sure that your transaction crosses the finish line, and they can help you with all sorts of other things like credit repair, and personal advice that applies to your local area.  

Big mistake number four, not committing to a Realtor®.  I know.  I know! Sometimes Realtors® can seem a little salesperson-ish. I get it.  I’m not a big fan of salespeople myself.  That’s why I don’t consider myself to be a salesperson, rather a consultant, But I digress! all realtors are not the same.  Maybe you think it would just be easier to look online and give the agent a call if you happen to be interested in that house? But wait! When you do that it is important for you to realize that that agent is representing the seller, and if you were to decide to move forward and write an offer on that house, that agent, who is representing the seller, is now going to be in the state of dual agency where they are representing both sides.  When you commit to a Realtor®, and you have chosen one carefully, you can bet that that Realtor® is going to work like a bloodhound to get you what you want. Did you know that a significant number of homes are sold before they ever even hit the open market? The reason for that is that listing agents may have a pocket listing, or a private listing.  The only agents who will know about that private listing are agents in the know. Like your agent, who you committed to.  Another reason for that is that when an agent takes a new listing contract, they’ve signed the paperwork with someone who wants to sell their house, there’s rules regulating the amount of time between when they take that listing and when it used to go on the MLS.  What do you think is happening in those 3 days between getting that listing contract signed and it going on the MLS?! Well, I can tell you. A whole heck of a lot of talking and showings between agents. If you want in on that behind the curtains scene you need to be committed to a Realtor® who is well connected.  

 

Mistake number five, looking for a unicorn. I know, I know, we all have a vision in our mind of what our insta-perfect house is going to look like, but news flash, chances are that house doesn’t even exist or its twice your budget.  Oh, the tragedy! I know! We all have our list of needs and wants but you have to be realistic about what your budget will buy you.  Instead, try to focus on the things that cannot be changed like the location or the overall structure of the house.  So many things can be changed and they can be changed relatively inexpensively. Paint, floor coverings, light fixtures, all of those are projects that most people can handle.  I always tell my buyers about the 80% rule and it goes like this: when you have found a house that means 80% of what you want, 10% of what you can change, and 10% of what you can live with, you’ve found a really good house! Now I’m not trying to tell you to rush into things.  Taking your time is good, especially when you are in the beginning stages of your first home purchase.  But, if you’ve been looking for a while and you haven’t found anything that’s a strong possibility, chances are you need to readjust either your expectations or your budget.

Categories
Real Estate

How To Determine If Your New Neighborhood Is Safe 

 

A neighborhood’s security should be an absolute priority when selecting your dream home. It is crucial to research to make sure you feel secure in your new area. Before you buy your new home, you’ll want to try to eliminate as many dangers as possible. Try these tips to ensure your comfort and safety. 

Take A Walk or Drive Around The Area 

By driving or walking, you can feel the environment and a sense of what it provides. Some attributes a safe neighborhood would apply are 

-Local Business: Does your community have family-owned restaurants, ice cream shops, and bookstores? Money spent in the neighborhood is a great sign of prosperity. When people are or feel secure financially, they are often more likely to help the community grow and thrive. 

-Neighborhood Watch Groups: If your new locale has a neighborhood watch group, it shows the pride and pleasure the people take in the community. Most of the time, a small group of people will take the initiative to start it up to protect the neighborhood and report any suspicious activity. 

-Local events: Whether there are farmer’s markets or block parties, community events are a near-perfect way to bring families together. The more active and engaged in the area is, the safer you’ll feel living there. 

Use A Crime-Mapping Service

Sites like SpotCrime and CrimeReports collect crime reports and police information. You can simply type the address of your dream home and review all reported crimes in that area. These sites break down the types of crime committed and the dates they were committed. A good tip is to compare this crime rate to surrounding areas or neighborhood crime rates. It’s also important to keep in mind that these crimes may or may not paint out the entire neighborhood’s picture. In a smaller community, crime rates may rise due to the small number of people living in that area. 

Connect With People Who Currently Live There

 One of the best and most effective ways to research a neighborhood is to connect with those who live in that area. Your future neighbors will have the best information and insight on what goes on in that community. This strategy is not only good for determining safety, but if this neighborhood truly fits your lifestyle. You typically wouldn’t want a neighbor who sings late at night with a garage band. 

It may feel awkward or intimidating, but knocking on your new neighbor’s door can be very favorable. You want to be comfortable with these people and have them be comfortable with you to live safely and happily in your neighborhood. What may be gossip, could be handy to get a good insight into the safety of the neighborhood.

The security of your neighborhood should be a great priority when selecting your brand new dream home. Do a bit of research and spend some time in your neighborhood before continuing your purchase. It will help you with understanding the safety of the community and if you fit in. Buying a new home is a great commitment and you want to make sure you are making the best decisions you can.

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Home Inspection

How Do I find the Best Home Inspectors in my area?

Home inspections are an integral part of the process of buying a house. Finding the right person or company for this job is not that simple, as there are multiple factors to be considered. When on a quest for finding anything you should first understand completely what you are looking for, only then you can be sure that you have found it when you do.

Finding just any home inspector is not difficult at all. You can visit the website for the American Society of Home Inspectors and find out how many home inspectors are there in your area. But finding the “Best” home inspector for you, well, that takes effort, experience, and various deliberations.

Although friends and colleagues who recently bought homes are also a good source of recommendations, a solid first step on this journey can be taken most conveniently by the assistance of your real estate agent. Your agent is likely to give you the names of one or more home inspectors, and that’s an excellent place to start. Call and interview those inspectors, look at their websites, check out their profiles and when evaluating for the best, consider the following most important points :

Experience & Authenticity

Selecting someone who has years of experience and is a part of a professional organization, doesn’t warranty quality, but it does indicate a level of professionalism. You should ask an inspector about the experience and certifications or memberships of any professional groups and get copies of license and insurance.

Reviews

Though you can inquire inspectors directly for references, it’s better to check online reviews as they are more dependable.

Disclaimer & Fine Print

Though fundamental checklists are the same for almost all home inspectors, you should ask what is included and what is not beforehand. In snow, for example, the roof, deck, patio, driveway, and other exterior features can’t be adequately inspected.

Specials & Extras

You should ask the inspector if additional inspections are possible and what are the fees for them.

Inclusive Attitude

Choose an inspector who wants you around during the entire inspection and has no objection if you call your own electrician to tag along.

Sample

A good home inspector should have their reports displayed publicly, if not, ask for one. A good report should identify the defect, include its photo, explain why it matters, and suggest what should be done to fix it.

Timing

Before you hire an inspector, ask how long after the inspection, it will take to get the report. The timing is essential because most contracts include an inspection deadline.

Inspectors don’t tell you whether you should purchase a property or not as their job is to evaluate only if it’s safe enough. They look for things that are weak, unsafe, near expiry, or not functioning correctly and are unlikely to give you specific estimates for repairs, but usually, advice on whether a repair will be a large or a small job. The final report influences negotiations and a casual home inspection can jeopardize a deal altogether.

Author: Chief Inspector  http://www.cornerstone-inspection.com

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Real Estate

The Importance of Dealing With a Professional When Selling Your Home

Chattanooga Homes For Sale

If you either want to buy a new home or sell one that you own, you could probably make the sale on your own. You can sell it to a friend or relative and still get paid. However, you would have missed out on a ready market that would have paid a better price for the home. This is simply because you were not aware of the market out there that is willing to pay more than you got for the property.

Real estate agents provide professional service for you if you have a house for sale. They are exposed to a vast market that is willing to pay any amount to purchase the home from you. Their professional services are also ideal because they will be with you until the buyer makes the final payment for the house.

What real estate agents do

As a homeowner seeking to sell their home, navigating the market might not be the easiest task. You will have quite a several challenges coming your way especially if you are not a professional nor are you experienced in this sector. One reason is probably that you might not be able to realize the best time of the year that you can put your house up for sale in Chattanooga and get the best price for its sale.

You should be aware that the market reacts differently during different times of the year when it comes to purchasing a new home. This is probably why there is stiff competition at some point of the year than during another point of the year. If you do not have a few tricks up your sleeve to help you make a good sale for your home, you might have to offload it at a much lower price than it should go for.

Professional real estate agents in Chattanooga are skilled and experienced when it comes to selling homes. They can do this even if you are desperate and would want to sell the home during an off-peak season so that you can cover an expense such as medical bills for a loved one. Professional real estate agents can take advantage of the market during whatever season of the year and will make a sale for your new home. They guarantee that their expertise will ensure that both you and their firm win after the buyer pays for the new home. You should seek their services whenever you want to sell such property!

Bottom line

All in all, professional real estate services in Chattanooga provide you with the best services that will get you a fair price for your home. They will list your home among the homes for sale and would use their expertise combined with their experience to sell the home to a ready market. The best thing here is that you would get to sell the home at a far much higher price than you thought it could go for.

Author: Nicole Anthony https://nicoleanthony.kw.com

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Home Inspection Real Estate

How to Reduce the Home Price After the Home Inspection

In the process of finding a house for sale, usually, when the seller agrees to an offer, the buyer orders a home inspection to get to know the actual condition of the property. Since, as a buyer, you are supposed to pay for the home inspection, and it is your right to make sure that everything from the entrance door to the roof, walls, floor, kitchen, and washrooms are in optimum working condition, you also have the leverage to ask for discounts from the seller if the inspection report shows severe damages.

It is perfectly normal for any used house to have some defects and shortcomings when examined by a professional home inspector. If any severe damages are potentially a safety hazard, like leakages, breakages, termites, etc., it is in seller’s interest to solve these issues as the mortgage lender may reject your application based on such a home inspection report, and the whole deal can fall out. In this scenario, it is the responsibility of a good professional real estate agent to get maximum benefit to the buyer by negotiating wisely with the seller or their agent. Usually, the process involves hiring the best local company that does house repairs and get a quote from them on all essential improvements pointed out in the report by the home inspector.

This negotiation that aims to get a monetary concession from the seller’s side has Three possible primary outcomes: Either the seller fixes the repairs or the buyer fixes them and gets paid from the seller, or the seller reduces the price of the house to compensate for repairs. Again, the best possibility can be chosen only after carefully evaluating the terms of the agreement, the home inspection report, and the situation on-ground. The best person to deal with this situation on your behalf is your real estate agent. They have the depth of experience one requires, as they deal with similar issues regularly. Your agent can guide you to choose from the best of these paths in a manner that benefits you most in terms of finance.

Remember, the seller never agrees to all repairs as most of them are either not of an urgent nature or do not pose any imminent structural danger to the building. Therefore always expect a compromised solution to this price reduction negotiation. If the possession date is near, it is in the interest of the seller to accommodate the cost for repairs in the house price and save the hassle. If the discount or cash-back is enough, this may also be a sweet deal for you. On the other hand, if there is no urgency, the sellers can agree to do the repairs on their own, which is a more beneficial option as they would control the cost. If you, as a buyer, take on the challenge of repairs, you can hire the best professional repair company, which would obviously cost more and hence not a favorable option for the seller. Whatever mode you choose for the implementation of the house inspection report to reduce the price of the home, try to keep the negotiation as fair as possible, otherwise it can, in some cases, lead to a fall out of the whole deal and you would have to start fresh looking at other homes for sale.

 

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Internet Marketing

How is the Effectiveness of an Online Campaign Measured

In the world of digital marketing there are terms that you will constantly come across. Know its meaning and proper handling to ensure efficient and profitable advertising with PauteFacil.com .

The campaigns of online marketing are often more effective than other traditional means since you are paying only for results. But how is your profitability measured? Here are some terms you should familiarize yourself with when measuring the effectiveness of your online strategy.

CPC
Stands for “Cost per Click ” ( Cost Per Click in English). The cost per click on Pautefacil.com is the price an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on your ad. It is an incomparable advantage over other advertising modalities, since you are only paying for the effective result of your campaign.

On some content networks, the cost of a click can vary depending on the time of year or time of day, so with the same $ 2,000,000, you can get 1,000,000 or 500,000 clicks, depending on the time (model of the auction).

At PauteFacil.com , on the other hand, the CPC does not vary according to the season, but you can buy fixed-click packages ranging from $ 120,000 plus VAT. The higher the amount of the package you buy, the lower the CPC, which translates into more clicks for your campaign.

Find here the rates of PauteFacil.com

CPI
Some content networks charge a “ Cost Per Impression”. Under this modality, you pay every time your ad appears on the screen of a navigator (one appearance = one impression).

The problem with CPI is that the user may not click on your ad and you will still be charged for having appeared. There is also the term CPM (Cost per Thousand) which is the grouping of a thousand impressions. It is a way of staggering printing costs.

But definitely the ideal model for online advertising is CPC-based advertising, as in PauteFacil.com , since the cost corresponds to the number of visits you are generating thanks to your ad.

See more in CPM: Cost per Thousand vs. Cost per Click: CPC

CTR
There is an indicator for measuring the success of a campaign of online advertising based on CPC. It is the ratio of clicks or CTR ( Click Through Ratio ). It is obtained by multiplying the number of clicks on an ad by 100 and dividing it by the number of times it has appeared (impressions):

CTR = Number of Clicks x 100 / Number of impressions .

A CTR can vary depending on the type of campaign that is carried out, as well as the products that are managed. In content networks a good CTR is around 0.02%.

ROI
An advertising campaign is first and foremost an investment. The key is to know if said investment is making profits or losses. This is called a Return On Investment. There is a simple formula to calculate this value:

ROI = (profit obtained – investment) / investment

The investment corresponds to the money that you invested in the campaign and the profit obtained, to the money that you earned thanks to it. If after launching your campaign you increase your sales by 10%, that is your profit. The ROI value is expressed as a percentage.

At PauteFacil.com you have a team of advisers who can give you more information about these and other elements that allow you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Learn about the benefits of content networks for your advertising budget.

Leave us your information to keep it updated and offer you personalized advice on internet advertising and web marketing

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Internet Marketing

Do you know the importance of Landing Pages in your digital marketing campaign?

Do not disappoint your customers: a good landing page is an ally of your marketing campaigns and is essential to make an effective Internet sale. Learn here the minimum to take into account when creating one.

The ultimate goal of ads posted on content networks like Pautefacil.com is to motivate the user to click. But what happens after that? Where are you taking your customers once they have become interested in you?

A common mistake is to direct the user to the home page of their portal. Could it be that a customer, who is hoping to find the best place to buy a product or purchase a new service as quickly as possible, has time to navigate throughout their portal? The answer, of course, is no.

To respond to the impatience of your clients, there is a very versatile and effective tool, known as the Landing Page or Landing Page. As its name indicates, it consists of a page designed to receive people interested in your ad.

What is a landing page?

It is something like your “salesroom”, where you receive your interested buyers in a site that quickly shows them the advantages of the product or service and, above all, captures your main data so that you can manage a personalized sale later.

But be careful: if this “salesroom” is messy or does not allow quick customer service, it can cause a buyer to abandon. In this aspect, we come to handle a very important term for you. These are the conversions, that is, the customers who clicked on your ad and who once on the landing page were motivated to fill out their contact form. In other words, in digital language a conversion is a person really interested in you contacting them. The objective, then, is to achieve the highest number of conversions possible.

How to build the ideal landing page?

First of all, design a different landing page for each campaign you have published on the Pautefacil.com portal network, since the user must always know that they have reached the place that was promised in the ad. Having multiple landing pages will also allow you to more accurately measure the success of your campaign, since your clients will not be registering in the same space, but will be segmented. This way you will have more elements to know which campaign is working best for you.
Imagine that your SME sells flowers and is running a digital campaign for Mother’s Day. This would be the ideal structure for your Landing Page:

  • A nice design, according to the product you are selling. Remember that the visual aspect is essential when it comes to “selling” a corporate image.
  • An eye-catching title, with a clear response to the customer’s need, that invites action (eg: “Buy the Best Gift for Mother’s Day here”).
  • A subtitle that presents your product or service (Ex: “With the most exotic flowers in Colombia and the World”.)
  • A very specific paragraph explaining your product (Eg: “We offer 8 varieties of orchids, from $ 15,000. The best gift for mothers on their day”).
  • If applicable, add a photo and a brief profile of the businessman or star behind the business (eg: “Served by Silvana Torres, one of the best flower production entrepreneurs in Colombia. Winner of the 2009” Pyme Leaders “award).
  • If you have photos or videos of your company or product, include them. Make sure they are of good quality and optimized for the web; Don’t make the mistake of posting too heavy videos or photos that never load in the end.
  • Above all, a form. This is the most important element of a landing page, since the entire strategy focuses on capturing customer data. The fewer boxes you have, the better. Limit yourself to the most important ones. For the user, the form must be simple enough so that they do not feel lazy to leave their data (Ex: Names and surnames, telephone, Email).
  • As a bonus, it is advisable to include a “mint”, as a prize, in exchange for leaving your information. It can be a promotional discount or some type of downloadable file (Ex: “Leave us your information and get a 15% discount on the purchase of packages of more than 20 flowers” …).
  • It is also advisable to have a Thank You Page or thank you page, which only appears after registering the data. (Example: “Thank you for registering your information, your mother will also thank you. Present this code to any of our sellers and claim your 15% discount”).

For a better understanding, this is a graph of the ideal customer purchase process:

Converted customer, who is shown the Thank You Page with what was promised.

There are many tools to measure the effectiveness of a landing page. In this article, you can find some of them. Its strategy of guideline in content networks is encompassed in attracting the maximum number of users to your landing. But it is up to you that that potential customer does not end up disappointed. Get to work and start giving your digital “salesroom” more possibilities.

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