Archive of Justin McClelland's Articles

Justin has written 17 article(s) for the BiggerPockets Blog.


Real Estate Technology

How to Put Symbols in Craigslist Titles

by Justin McClelland | July 26, 2010

For those of you who frequent Craigslist, I’m sure as your eyes have scoured the listings they were attracted to the ads that were in CAPS and the ads that had the graphic symbols included in them.  If you’re not sure what I’m talking about take a look at the page below. I don’t know [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Work Smart without Getting Carpal Tunnel: ShortKeys

by Justin McClelland | July 1, 2010

In this tech post, I’d like to share a piece of software that I’ve been using for a few years now.  I used it for years in the corporate world while working in a customer support center and now I use it all the time when responding to CraigsList Ads and composing emails. The software [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Property Fraud Alert Service – Watch Your Back!

by Justin McClelland | February 6, 2010
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There is a service offered in a select number of counties called, Property Fraud Alert, which, after you sign-up, runs a query against any new documents recorded within the county of your choice.  The primary purpose for this service is to help stop mortgage and property fraud.  If any document recorded within your county lists [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Organize your Business with Microsoft Outlook 2007

by Justin McClelland | December 24, 2009
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Since you’re reading the BiggerPockets blog right now, I presume two things about you; you’re a real estate investor/agent/professional (or aspiring to be) and you use email on a frequent basis.  If only one or neither of those traits apply to you, then read on as you may benefit as well. Today I’m going to [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Stop wasting time at your County Recorder’s Office

by Justin McClelland | December 17, 2009
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Why Record real estate documents? To protect yourself as a Real Estate Investor, it is ideal to record your contract positions at your County Recorder’s office.  When you have a property tied-up with a Contract to Purchase or an Option to Purchase, you may think that you’re in good shape.  You go on to start [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Use Adobe Acrobat and Stop Printing Real Estate Contracts

by Justin McClelland | December 3, 2009
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Adobe Acrobat is a software application that allows one to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF).  PDF’s are most commonly viewed within Adobe’s freeware Adobe Reader, which is available as a no-charge download from Adobe’s website. By utilizing Adobe Acrobat, you can create custom electronic forms that can be [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Google Street View: Virtual Tours your competitors don’t use

by Justin McClelland | November 21, 2009
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Google has come a mighty long way regarding innovations pertaining to the World Wide Web.  They are much more than a search engine.  Thus far, I’ve divulged tips using Google applications such as Google Voice and Google Earth. Today I’m going to focus on how you can utilize Google Maps when showcasing properties online. These [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Scout Investor Hotspots with Google Earth and Multiplottr

by Justin McClelland | November 13, 2009

As an investor who desires to dominate their farm area, you need all the tools you can get to make educated market decisions.  If you’re like me and you like to crunch numbers and analyze statistics, the numbers never lie and they won’t steer you wrong if you read them right. Stats tell stories Google [...]

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Real Estate Technology

Use XFruits to Create Your Personal MLS for FSBOs

by Justin McClelland | November 6, 2009
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As a Real Estate investor, you will need to look to various nooks to find hidden gem properties throughout your career.  Of course properties can be found on the MLS, but that rules out the FSBO (For Sale By Owner) seller.  As the internet progresses and evolves, FSBO sellers are seizing the broad audience that [...]

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Real Estate Investing

The Tax Lien Certificate Money Tree

by Justin McClelland | October 29, 2009

The Rundown Tax Lien certificates can be a very lucrative and safe investment.  A tax lien is a claim against an item by another party, which utilizes that item as security for repayment of a loan or other claim. A tax lien is placed on a piece of property by the government when the owner [...]

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Real Estate Tools

Track Your Real Estate Marketing with Google Voice

by Justin McClelland | October 15, 2009

google voiceAs a real estate investor, you are a marketer first.  Your success hinges on your ability to effectively market your business.  Regardless of your specialty, you may use some of the well-known, effective marketing methods.  These methods include, but are not limited to; bandit signs, newspaper classifieds, yellow pages, billboards, business cards, radio, television.  The effectiveness of these methods vary per market, per design, per marketing-message, etcetera.  You need to analyze and conclude what works best for you.

To be a smart marketer and a sound entrepreneur you must track every effort you make for analysis.  As they say in Martial Arts, “Don’t do something for nothing” meaning, if you’re going to throw a kick, kick to break a rib, if you’re going to throw a punch, punch to knock-out.  So if you’re going to spend money marketing, don’t just close your eyes and funnel the money into various methods and throw a Hail Mary pass.  Sure you may get some leads, but you will have no idea where they came from.  You won’t know what’s working best or what’s working the least.  You need to track your marketing efforts.  I’m going to focus on how you can track these efforts for a minimal cost with Google Voice.

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Real Estate Investing

Right-Brain Marketing: Finding and Comprehending Motivated Sellers

by Justin McClelland | October 8, 2009

The human brainIf you’ve read through a couple of Real Estate Investing books, purchased a course or two, and/or frequently read Real Estate websites, then you’re more than familiar with the typical life events that create motivated sellers of Real Estate.

Some of the events that create motivated sellers are:

  • Loss of a loved one
  • Job Transfer
  • Loss of a job
  • Two mortgages
  • Tenant troubles
  • House Vacant
  • Divorce
  • House won’t sell

There is nothing wrong with marketing directly to people who own property and are experiencing one or more of the above events.  However, chances are you will be amongst many other Real Estate Investors doing the same.  To stay ahead of the pack, you have to use some additional methods.  Use the right side of your brain and let your imagination go.

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Real Estate Technology

Four-Eyes for Twitter

by Justin McClelland | October 1, 2009

As a real estate investor or professional, you should know by now that Social Media is here to stay.  You don’t absolutely need to implement Social Media to be successful in this business, but why start a fire by rubbing two sticks when you can use a matchbook and can of gasoline?

Social Media for Real Estate

I’m going to cover just one of the many ways that you can use Social Media to bolster your Real Estate business.  And I’ll focus on…

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...Twitter is a great micro-blogging network that allows you to interact with people of all types.  I personally think of Twitter as a large party gathering where there are a plethora of conversations occurring at once and your welcome to butt in and join or you may just sit back, sip your patron, and take it all in while observing closely.

However you look at it, Twitter can be utilized as a great asset for your business. But I wouldn’t encourage you to just blast your listings, open houses, etcetera. If you do that, nobody will care.  Instead I would encourage you to engage in the Twitter community and contribute to it.  When you start contributing, you’ll be surprised what you get in return.  As not only will the leads eventually come, but you will also gain a substantial amount of insight as you stay abreast of real-time tweets.

Tweet vs. Time

To be effective at utilizing Twitter and any other Social Media platforms, you will need to dedicate time to make it worth your while.  Since there is no set-and-forget solution to Social Media, there is no getting around this fact.

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Real Estate Technology

More Bells and Whistles to get it Sold: Using FloorPlanner.com

by Justin McClelland | September 24, 2009

A Great Web-Based Tool for Marketing your Real Estate Listings

When selling real estate in a buyers’ market of today, the more comprehensive your listing information is, the better. Whether you are a Realtor or an investor, payday comes once the property is sold, therefore it’s best that you do all you can to reduce it’s days-on-market. More is better when it comes to marketing!

FloorPlanner floor plans for marketing listingsA great tool that’s available can be found at FloorPlanner.com, an online application that allows you to create 2D and 3D floor plans complete with textures, floor types, furniture, etc. So, for an out-of-state, foreign or even a local client, the addition of such a rich media component to your property’s marketing package may help seal the deal.

The tool is very intuitive and the floor plans can be made to scale. You can drag-drop a door here, add a garage door there, input the measurements and before you know it you’ll have a complete plan that is visible in 2D and 3D.

(more . . . )

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Real Estate Marketing

How to use Postlets to Improve Your Craigslist Posts

by Justin McClelland | September 17, 2009

There are quite a few features that Postlets offers, some fee-based and some free.  In this post I’m going to focus on the free features and show you how you can take your CraigsLists posts from this:

To This:

Postlets Tutorial for Craigslist

In this tutorial postlets.com does most of the work for you.  However, in relation to my previous post, I’ll also show you how you can create the illusion of an embeded YouTube property video.  The procedure is as follows:

Step 1:

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