Austin Real Estate has always been the most prominent option for all those who love to be in touch with nature. The aspect of environmentalism has gained much popularity in all walks of life. It has got so much importance in the modern world. In the earlier times, the people were not much concerned about the environment and its significance in the process of sustaining life in this planet.

Now, the situation has changed a lot. Even the residential and commercial construction designs are giving prominence to the being in close touch with the nature. Austin was the foremost city of the United State of America to establish and implement a green-building program. It was done by planning for long term environment friendly home building guidelines for the people interested in the construction of new homes.

The national association of home builders has selected the city of Austin as their target area to launch their campaign for a complete green building scenario, with the view of changing the outlook towards environment within the whole real estate industry. This was done in the year 2004. They have selected the city of Austin itself because, the Austin Real Estate is considered as the leader in this process in the whole of US. These guidelines are aimed at creating a unified nature friendly home building strategy, which features energy efficient and high quality indoor environmental homes. It is a surprising fact that the city of Austin was having such guidelines for a long time even before the association has started to implement it in a nationwide basis.

The Austin energy and the guidelines in the Austin city have created a visible move in the direction of conserving energy and the building of nature friendly homes. An energy conservation program was also initiated with constituting team of experts to conduct energy analysis in the existing homes and to suggest options to conserve energy with some minor changes.

Even with the recession, real estate is a billion dollar market in all the major developed and developing countries. What do you think is the first thing people see when scouting around to buy property? The answer would be the pictures of the property in question. Human beings respond better to visual stimulation.

Therefore, quality and interesting photography matters a lot and if you are a property photographer you should take it seriously. Why? Because your livelihood depends on it! If you are trying to sell real estate photographs to realtors and they are not worth the dollars the realtor pays, your effort goes to waste.

Real Estate Photography Tip #1: Capturing the Best Images

The intention is to sell the property so your photography should definitely be appealing to the people who view them. Try to highlight the best features of the house; the features that potential buyers will like to see matter the most. The photography also depends on the nature of the property – residential or commercial. Actually the pictures should showcase your talent and skill. While searching for realtors to see the images, sometimes you need to provide samples so capturing the best of images will greatly help to clinch the deal.

Real Estate Photography Tip #2: Selling the Images

To earn a living in this type of photography professionally, give yourself 1-2 years of time for creating a solid base of clients. You can set up a professional website with your portfolio, current projects (if any), specialization, skills, and lots of high-definition clear pictures for prospective buyers to see. Of course, you need to do a lot of marketing for getting the clients. Begin by scouting the area you are living in and any others that you have easy access to. Contact the realtors in the area, show them sample images and if luck is on your side, you will land your first deal soon!

Real Estate Photography Tip #3: Getting High Profile Clients

Getting high profile realtor clients who will buy your pictures is not easy because there are always better photographers around you and also you lack experience in the beginning. So after working for a year or two with local realtors, think of migrating towards getting high profile clients. The pay rate is definitely higher but you need to have real skill and knowledge to get an edge over others. Question yourself – what is there in you that sets you apart from other real estate photographers? Once you answer this, build on that aspect for better projects.

Of course, getting the high profile clientele is not easy. Be prepared for sample photo shoots as part of a personalized sales pitch.

Real estate investing is all about perception. Your perception of where the market is going, in conjunction with where it’s actually going. The aim, as always is to buy low and sell high.

You want to buy a cheap tract of dirt and sell it as a high priced piece of developed real estate, after it’s appreciated enough to turn a tidy profit. Selling the property is an art in and of itself.

Buying an initial tract of dirt lends itself to some solid, rational guidelines:

First, look at trend lines for housing prices in your area. While most housing markets are in decline (and the housing markets in Florida and California are adjusting from more than a decade of over-valuation), there are markets where the housing prices are going up. This is a decent leading indicator that there’s a market for expansion.

Second, look for job related news. Home purchases require a steady source of income. New employers moving into a city, or a government branch office opening up are a strong indicator that good, well paying jobs are likely to come up. Where well paying jobs roost, home purchases follow.

Related to this, talk to your local city planning office. Are there recent purchases of “right of ways” to lay down sewer lines? Is the local telephone cable making plans to run out fiber optic lines – a “must have” trend in new home construction. These things point to areas where home growth is immanent. Other big tip offs are school bond issues (found in your local news paper) and new parks being opened up.

Before you look at the land, check out the adjacent commercial real estate usage. Look for “family friendly” or “residential friendly” commercial properties: Houses that are close to grocery and clothes shopping tend to fetch a higher price than ones that are farther away. If there’s a movie theater nearby, or plans for an elementary or middle school, factor that into the size of the homes you build, and what their amenities will be; buyers looking for those features are looking for “mover upper” homes – with a bit more floor space, and two (or three) bedrooms for the kids. Other spots to look for are anchor stores, like Wal-Mart and Best Buy. These companies spend millions on surveys of purchasing patterns before buying a store location; if they’re buying a plot of land, you’ve got about a year to a year and a half window to look into nearby real estate for single family residential and rental residential properties.

You can even flip this on its side – if you can talk to a group of commercial real estate investors, building a shopping center as the nucleus for home development is also a viable combined strategy. This also applies to highly urban areas. Many downtown areas that have been abandoned by businesses can be converted to apartment buildings, and some of the older housing projects are being torn down for mixed-use spaces with combined commercial and residential areas. In particular, you can often get block grants to help with the financing on projects like this, and there are programs from HUD that can help out a great deal with “urban renovations”.

Another source to investigate is the demographics in your area. Look at the US Census figures (and local county figures) for median age, and median birth rate per capita. You want to invest in areas where the population is growing already. High skews in the ’40s and ’50s indicate that you’ve got a bunch of people who are going to retire soon, and retirees are highly prone to selling properties off. Places to watch carefully are most of the urban parts of California, and great swaths of the rural Midwest, where demographic trends have been changing entire towns since the 1950s as the country’s population has shifted to urban areas.

If there’s a local planning council, or urban development council, make it a point to get the minutes of all the meetings from the past year. The city council offices will have them on file as a matter of public record. Also try to get into the next range of meetings as an observer. Discuss with the city and county managers where they see housing and construction trends moving. What you’re looking for is real estate that will be desirable in two to three years; look at road planning atlases, and look for all the data you can find. Also look for real estate that will be scenic – lake front property is as close to a guaranteed bet as you can get in real estate investing, particularly if there’s a lake that’s at the “far end” of a development axis. Likewise, if there’s land that the city council is looking to acquire for parks, buying the adjacent lots now means you’ll be able to sell them later.

Lastly, talk to the professionals in your communities. Talk to architects who can tell you if they’re busy or not. Maintain professional contacts with engineers, bankers and attorneys. They will usually know about projects well before the general public. Also make a habit of reading the local newspaper’s business section. Often times, the first clue that a business may move in to your area is buried at the bottom of a column on page 8.

Using the guidelines suggested above will help you to find “sleeper” raw land properties. These “sleeper” properties are perfect for the buy low, sell high strategy used by successful commercial real estate investors.