Archive for the 'Real Estate Marketing' Category
June 12th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate Investment, Real Estate Marketing |
Most likely the last thing on a real estate investor’s mind these days is flipping a house. The housing market is soft and inventory homes are at a national high. MSNBC recently reported that if all homebuilding were to stop in the U.S., it would take more than 10 months for the nation’s inventory homes to sell out. Times are tough for sure, but that doesn’t mean there is not money to be made.
Flipping houses is a money-making strategy investors have been using for decades. It generally involves purchasing a home and reselling it for more then the purchase price. During the housing boom in past years, flipping was exceptionally easy. Investors could pick up a new or used home and flip it in a matter of weeks for a substantial profit. At that time, the market was sky rocketing. Houses were easy to sell and profits were even easier to make. Now that reality has set back in and the market is trying to straighten itself out, this type of flipping doesn’t hold as many as promises as it did in the past.
Investors, however, can still make a profit flipping houses. Now more then ever there is an opportunity to pick up homes for a bargain and make a return on them. Real estate that has a tax lien or is in foreclosure can be picked up way below cost. Homes can also be purchases at estate auctions and resold for a profit.
Along with purchasing a bargain home to flip, investors can also go the fix it up route. This technique requires the investor to purchase a home in need of repairs. The investor then hires someone to make the repairs or makes the repairs on his or her own. By fixing up the home, equity is added thus increasing the value of the property. In turn, the home can be sold for a profit. The main downfall to this method is it takes more time then if you were to purchase a home at discount and simply resell it at market price.
Now there is a nasty little rumor out there that “flipping” houses is illegal. Fact is that simply isn’t true. Although there is such thing as illegally flipping houses which in translation boils down to loan fraud, investors are well within their rights to purchase a home and resell it for a profit. Loan or mortgage fraud occurs when an investor purchases a home usually dilapidated and makes some superficial repairs. The home is then sold to naive buyers at an inflated price. These types of schemes rely on the collaboration of an investor, appraiser and mortgage broker.
In 2006, the Department of Housing and Urban Development addressed loan fraud by creating new regulations to detour flipping within the Federal Housing Authority. Now, the seller must own the property for more then 90 days in order for buyers with FHA backed loans to qualify for the purchase.
In short, house flipping isn’t the money maker it once was. The good news is, when done right, you can still make money doing it.
May 9th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate Marketing |
Reports abound about there being too many real estate agents for too few buyers and sellers, but I still believe that no matter how crowded the field is a focused agent can succeed, with the right combination of knowledge, tools and strategies.
Not surprisingly, some of the lowest paid agents are first year agents. The median income for people who had been in the field for two years or less in 2004 was only $13,000.
Does this describe you?
If so, don’t despair…yet. With a good plan you can catapult your career to another level of professionalism and financial prosperity.
One way to do so is through the gift of giving. Here’s what I mean.
Giving Leads to Increased Business
An amazing thing happens when you give away stuff – it attracts people to you. And what do real estate agents need more than anything else? People.
People are leads. Without them you have no business and no potential to make money – period. So, the more you give away the more leads you’ll develop.
Some agents don’t give because they think that it means they have to buy something in order to give it away. But that’s not necessarily so.
An alternative to buying stuff is to search the Internet for information that might be of Interest to buyers and sellers that you can turn around and give away. There is plenty of stuff to be found – you just have to have the patience to find it.
Here’s a s specific idea; go online, search for article directories, and look for real estate articles that you can reprint.
You’ll have to agree to leave the resource box on them when you use them showing who the authors are, but that’s a fair exchange given that they’ve saved you the time and effort of having to write them.
Group them together as special reports for buyers, sellers and investors and find ways to give as many away as you can; via email, direct mail, advertise them by flyers that you place on cars parked in shopping centers and grocery store parking lots, etc.
I’m not talking about giving them the way you ration out cards, I’m talking about giving them away as if your career depended on it – and it does. I’m talking about giving out hundreds to thousands of them.
Create an avalanche of new business opportunities by pushing your self to find a conduit to give like you’ve never done before. If you have 100 hundred homes in your neighborhood give them to 100 homes. Or, if you live in an apartment complex give them to all of the residents in the complex.
The point is that there’s no limit to the number of people you can give to and the manner in which you give.
Make sure to include your personal information in them when you compile them so that the recipients will know who to contact for more information.
Summarily, giving can be profitable – plus it feels good to put the knowledge you have within reach of potential prospects.
The more you give away the faster you’ll create a brand for yourself that identifies to all that you’re an active licensed real estate agent open for business.
So, go ahead and give, give…give your way to increased earnings.
March 18th, 2011 -- Posted in Real Estate Marketing |
Want to sell a listing that’s been difficult to sell? Market it via a virtual tour. You may be pleasantly surprised by how affordable it is and how easy it is to do.
The idea is simple; upload pictures of your listings to a host website and sequence the pictures in the order that you want them to appear. Then have agents and prospects log onto their computers and click on links that bring up your tours.
In some instances the viewers will be able to manipulate the tour much like they would a dvd player.
They can freeze frame, rewind, fast forward and stop the virtual tours – all from the comfort of their offices, homes, or wherever they can access a computer hooked up to the internet.
Of course every company is different, but are easily found by Googling “video tours.” One site I visited had four demos that were stunningly beautiful that cost an almost an embarassingly low $9.00.
Below are a few other strategies that have changed the way agents market real estate.
Stepping Outside the Box
Internet marketing has morphed into content based raltor websites, sequential autoresponders, newsletters and the like. Following are a few thoughts about each.
1. Realtor Websites. If you’re not online with a website you’re seriously behind the times. Millions of people log onto the Internet every day, looking for services.
Some are looking for products and services that you offer – real estate. Of course, they won’t find you if you don’t have a website and if you do have one they may not find you if it’s poorly optimized.
So, let me help you out. Snap out of. Either get a website that generates leads, or forget about having one at all.
2. Sequential Autoresponders. Autoresponders are powerful email marketing programs that automate a lot of your email chores. They do what the name suggests – which is automatically repsond to requests for information.
The idea behind them is to offer free information in exchange for a person’s email address. Once you have it you can then provide follow up messages forever, all the while gently nudging them towards your most wanted response.
In some instances the most wanted response might be for them to call you to make an appointment to see a home, while other times it might be to list a property with you.
Whatever it is sequential autoresponders can’t be beat for efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Newsletters. Some agents are still snail mailing newsletters and at 41 cents a pop their mailing expenses a;one would amount to $205.00 in postage. Now, compare that to zero cost in postage if they were to email the same document.
That’s right – emailing the same information is free. So, why aren’t more agents doing it?
In part it’s because they don’t understand the technology, which really isn’t all that hard to understand. Plus, like most people they are slow to embrace change.
Buy be warned – agents who have embraced the technology are carving out a large piece of the online marketing action at the expense of agents content with trying to maintain the status quo.