If you are looking for a new home, have you thought about buying one of the many bank home foreclosures that are for sale? Purchasing a foreclosure property through a bank sale or auction is a great way to buy a home for only a fraction of what you would have paid if you had tried to buy the same house when it was still on the real estate market.

Saving money on your purchase is one reason that choosing to buy bank home foreclosures is a good idea. One of the other benefits to buying this real estate is the profit that can be had later if you decide to sell the home. In fact, this is how many real estate developers and investors built their wealthy portfolios: purchasing foreclosed upon property at the discounted price, fixing it up, and then selling it at the current market rate. This practice is called “house flipping,” and it was once quite a good way to earn extra money, (for some people it still is).



One of the biggest benefits of buying bank home foreclosures is the boon that it has on your credit and equity ratings. Owning property is very important when it comes to an individual’s portfolio and purchasing a home at the foreclosure rate is a good way to start building that portfolio. It also helps you look good to future lenders, should you ever need to borrow money.

The fact is that bank home foreclosures can be purchased at as much as forty percent less than the current market value of the home. This helps people who might be too cash poor to get into a home quickly and start building their credit and equity ratings while also giving them the pride and status that comes from owning property.

Real estate leads are as good as gold to a real estate professional – literally. The real estate leads you follow up with today are your clients tomorrow and your paycheck a month from now. Much of your time as a real estate professional is spent generating real estate leads and converting those leads to clients. The advent of the Internet and its emergence into main stream culture brought a new tool to real estate agents in the late 90s: online lead generation services.

Nowadays, the majority of people looking to buy or sell a home or do anything real estate wise are going to the internet first. Years ago, people would get ready to buy or sell, and then walk into a local Realty office and get themselves a real estate agents. Now, they can start researching real estate anywhere from 3 months to 5 years before they actually make a move! That means real estate professionals need to come up with new ways to catch these real estate leads early, so they have time to work them and turn them into clients. There are two major ways to do that now: purchasing a lead generation service and paying for real estate leads and creating your own website with contact pages to generate your own real estate leads.

Which way is better? Truthfully, if you’re not doing both, you’re not being as successful as you could be. Any real estate professional who wants to be a top producer NEEDS their own personal website with homeowner information, contact forms, a blog, etc. That way real estate leads can FIND you on the web.

On the other end, the majority of top producers out there not only have their own website, but they also subscribe to one or more lead generation service, such as HouseValues or GetMyHomesValue. Companies such as these sell real estate leads to agents either at a monthly subscription price, or having the agent pay per lead. These services set up websites offering homeowners free home value information in exchange for their contact information. Basically, a homeowner goes and fills out a simple form about themselves, their contact information and their home and submits it to the company’s website. The company in turn, gives this “lead” to whatever real estate professional they have subscribed in that lead’s area and it is up to the real estate agent themselves to work up the value and follow-up with these real estate leads.

Each lead generation company does things a bit differently: for instance, GetMyHomesValue offers exclusive leads – where the lead is given to one and only one agent in the area, whereas other companies out there will sell the same real estate leads to several different agents. HouseValues has extensive e-mail drip campaigns and scripts to make follow-up a bit easier for agents, while GetMyHomesValue has their staff attempt to contact the leads several times for the agent and then leaves the rest of the follow-up to the individual agent.

The criticism most of these lead generation companies receive has to do with what actually constitutes real estate leads. Because these “leads” are filling out information online, they can often give fake information to avoid being contacted. This then makes it harder for the agents to follow up with the leads.

The successful agent, however, does not give up with confronted with real estate leads that give a property address and e-mail address, but a bad name and number. A great agent will exhaust all options of follow up before scrapping ANY lead, such as using public directories like the White Pages online, tax records of the property, reverse look-ups, etc. They will e-mail the lead on a weekly basis and even stop by the property listed in order to determine who actually submitted the lead.

What happens if the owners of the property claim they did not request their home value information, nor are they looking to sell? The no-so-hot agent will be angry at the waste of their time and blame the lead generation company for selling bogus real estate leads. The HOT agent will introduce themselves anyway, offer their services in any way they can and hand out a business card, then lead the home content in the knowledge that although they may not have gotten to the bottom of the lead, they did just add another prospect to their pipeline of real estate leads.

Online lead generation tools are a HUGE asset to real estate professionals – when used correctly. To be successful with real estate leads gathered online, you’ve got to be ready to work hard and long. You may not convert the lead for 6 months, a year, even two years, but as long as you’re working your real estate leads and keeping your name in their head, you’ve got a leg up on the competition.

There is a huge market for the flats in Islington and fortunately there are many purchasers looking to buy flats in Islington, but there is only one Hotblack Desiato.

Actually, strictly speaking, the final part of that sentence isn’t strictly true; when Douglas Adams was searching for the name for one of the characters in his ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, he saw one of our signs and rang our office to see if he could use the name. Naturally, we said yes, so there is another Hotblack Desiato – but he exists as a fictional member of a fictional interstellar rock group. However, as far as the property market is concerned – we are the only Hotblack Desiato!

We were formed in 1979 in Islington and initially dealt only in residential sales. Thirty years and two more offices later, we now also specialise in lettings and have accumulated a wealth of local knowledge that we pass on to our clients in helping them to find the property that is right for them.

Hotblack Desiato has been at the forefront of North London’s residential sales industry since 1979 and has become one of the area’s major independent estate agents within the last decade. If you are looking for flats for sale in Islington, you can either contact us directly or take a few minutes to look through our ‘Search Filters’ on our website.

Finding property for sale or to let North London is relatively easy, but finding the right property is a different matter. We take pride in our reputation as the area’s foremost property specialists and it is only when a rental or sale property has achieved our own criteria that we release it onto the market. Using Hotblack Desiato as your property agent means that we will only offer you property that we feel suits your specifications; we can discuss these in person, by telephone or you can send us an email.

Incidentally, our ‘sold’ signs come and go with alarming speed. This is partly due to our success in the industry, but it is also partly due to Douglas Adams enthusiasts taking them as trophies! Still, it’s nice to be popular…

If you’re looking for property to let in Highbury, you might very well consider using the Internet to conduct a property to let search in London. But wouldn’t it be better to refine your search, using the resources of a company based in the locality and who have a good working local knowledge of the area? At Hotblack Desiato we have an online property search for North London that uses all the properties in our lists to help you make your choice.

Without the benefits of the Internet, looking for property to let in Highbury can be a lengthy, frustrating and disappointing process. It invariably means trawling through local newspapers to find a property, many of which have gone by the time you contact the landlord or property agent. It can also mean wasted time and journeys that could be better spent doing other things. Even many of the online property to let search in London facilities are out of date.

London property search agents work for you to find the property that exactly matches your needs. This means that, if you are looking to buy property in Highbury, for example, you don’t need to spend hours flicking through adverts in newspapers and magazines or online. Simply use our online search facility or contact us directly and we’ll find the right property for you.

When we find you the property that meets your requirements, our local knowledge and understanding of the negotiating process will help us to secure the best possible deal on your behalf. Our services as a leading North London property search agent also extends to the rental market, which we have been working in for the last ten years.

Our online property to let search for North London scours the areas that are covered by our three local offices in Highbury, Islington and Camden to find property that meets the requirements you have entered on our ‘Property Search’ page.

Conducting a property to let search in North London needn’t be a chore, as long as you put yourself in the hands of the right company. Call us today and find out why we are that company.

People choose to use Hotblack Desiato’s services for many different reasons. For some it is the chance to say that they bought their house through an estate agent that christened the lead singer of ‘Disaster Area’ in Douglas Adams’ cult sci-fi novel, ‘The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. For others, however, it is the chance to work with North London property search agents who have extensive local knowledge and the accumulated expertise of thirty years in the property industry. Perhaps you’re looking for property for sale in Camden? If so, you’re going to be pleased to hear that our Camden property sales team is based just where you want it to be: Camden.

We have three offices that cover a large portion of North and North-West London: one in Camden, one in Islington and one in Highbury. Using this ‘information triangle’, we can source you properties for sale or rental virtually anywhere in North London. Our three offices are constantly exchanging information, giving us a greater picture of just what is going on in our catchment area. So, whether you are looking for property for sale in Camden, property for let in Highbury or houses for sale in Islington, we have an office in the locality that is well informed and ready to act on your behalf.

In addition to our extensive resources, we pride ourselves on the extremely high level of personal service that we offer to our customers. It is our aim to remove the stress from the process of achieving a new home and turn the experience into a positive and exciting one.

If you’re looking to buy property in Camden or anywhere else in North London, you can use our ‘Search Filter’ to refine your search to find a 2 bedroom London flat, unfurnished, for sale or perhaps a selection of 3 bedroom flats to rent in London. The Search Filter allows you to specify things like how many bedrooms you want, what type of property you want, whether you want to buy or rent and the maximum amount you are prepared to pay.

By using this information, the Filter can then show you properties that meet your specific requirements, either on a map that shows the property’s location or as part of a list that shows photographs and the property’s details.

We may not be singers with interstellar rock bands, but we are at the forefront of the North London property market. Call us today and see how we can help you with Camden property sales.