From the category archives:

Real Estate

Using Leverage to Sell More and Take Your Business to the Next Level

by Christian Russell | October 29, 2009

Why are you in business? It’s an important question. Perhaps the ultimate question! A mentor of mine taught me a long time ago that knowing “why” is one of the most important things when it comes to getting positive results long term in your business.

Are you in business to make money?
Are you in business [...]

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Real Estate

Advantages to Having Your Real Estate License When Pursuing Listed Properties

by Stephani Davis | October 22, 2009

It’s no secret that there are some smokin’ deals to be had on the MLS right now in the form of short sales and REOs. While having your real estate license is by no means a necessity if you want to score great deals off of the MLS, there are definitely some advantages to being licensed. Following are a few of those advantages..

Having access to the MLS

I’ve been wholesaling REOs for the last two years, and I can’t imagine doing so without having access to the MLS. Aside from being able to look up comparable sales, I can also do research to find out where the investor hot-spots are, as well as find out which properties have fallen in and out of contract multiple times, and which properties are due for a price reduction (I specifically target such properties). The MLS contains a wealth of information, and is something that I rely on heavily in my day to day investing activities.

Making a Commission on Purchases

Another upside to having your license when pursuing listed properties is that in many cases you will be allowed to take a commission on the deals that you purchase. While you may elect to give your side of the commission away to the listing agent in order to sweeten your offer, it’s always nice to have the option of making a commission on top of the profit you are making on your deal.

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Real Estate

Las Vegas’ Biggest Cheerleader

by Richard Warren | October 19, 2009

I had the opportunity to speak with the Mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, a few nights ago. He was the featured speaker at the monthly meeting of the Real Estate Insiders Club. In an era of much pessimism about the Las Vegas real estate market, Mayor Goodman is the voice of unbridled optimism. It was a refreshing change.

The meeting was held on the 24^th floor of the Newport Lofts high-rise condominium in downtown Las Vegas. With breathtaking views of the Las Vegas strip as a backdrop, Mayor Goodman gushed about what the future holds for the City of Las Vegas. While one would expect any incumbent politician to exude optimism, Mayor Goodman could back it up with facts and accomplishments.

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Housing

Why Exercising Could Make You a Wealthier Investor

by Jason Hanson | October 7, 2009

I hate running. I pretty much hate any form of exercise. I have no problem doing my real estate work, but when it comes to working out, I’ll admit I’m very lazy and lack discipline.

I remember many of my mentors telling me how important it was to exercise on a daily basis and how exercising was often the first thing they did in the morning. I’ve also read the same thing in many books written by successful people. I recall one successful entrepreneur/writer saying that no matter what, he does three things every single day: 1) He writes 2) He promotes his business 3) He exercises.

This is What Happens When You Get Older

I’ve heard this advice for years and I just ignored it and didn’t think it had anything to do with success. Well, I must be getting older because a few weeks ago I started feeling run down and I didn’t have as much energy as I used to. Come 9:00 at night I’d be ready to pass out, even though I had just sat at my computer all day and hadn’t had a stressful or rigorous day.

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Real Estate

Bar Stool Economics

by Tom Koziol | October 2, 2009

You may have already seen this particular economics propoundment but, then, maybe you haven’t. It is making the round of the Internet. I decided to use it because it hammers the real estate debacle square on the jaw.

For whatever reason, the government decided to beat up the tenth man leaving the rest of us with what appears to be only one way to go. Of course, your interpretation may not parallel mine. So be it.

Start—

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the
way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

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Real Estate

Selecting a Realtor in a Small Town

by Richard Warren | September 28, 2009

Any real estate investor knows that having a strong real estate team is an essential part of the business. You need your attorney, accountant, title officer, lender and real estate agent. The last two are probably the most important. Today we’ll talk about selecting an agent.

Ely, Nevada In a city or a large town it’s fairly easy. You probably have hundreds of agents to choose from and you just keep going until you select one that meets your needs. Choosing someone to work with in a very small town is a horse of a different color. You may need to choose from a very small number and it’s possible that none of them will seem to fit the bill. I was recently faced with having to make that choice myself when it was time to list a property.

Defining the Parameters

Most of my properties are in the small mining town of Ely in northeastern Nevada. It is actually a very good real estate market with a strong demand for rentals. When I first started rehabbing there several years ago I had the opportunity to work with a truly outstanding agent. She knew the market and understood rehabbing and investment. Unfortunately after watching me make a lot more money than she did, she decided to go into rehabbing with her contractor husband and she left the business.

When she left I started working with the first agent’s associate. That worked out well until that agent left the area because of her husband’s job transfer. It was back to the drawing board for me. I defined what I was looking for in an agent and began my search.

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Housing

What Blockbuster Can Teach Us About Real Estate

by Kyle Koller | September 21, 2009

blockbuster video real estate The other day, I was preparing to check my email when a headline on Yahoo!’s homepage caught my eye: Tough Times for Blockbuster. As a fan of Blockbuster’s, I felt compelled to learn why so many of its beloved stores (between 810 and 960!) were closing. As it turns out, several of its stores were becoming unprofitable money pits, no doubt due partly to the success of online rental goliath Netflix and newcomer Red Box—the rental box company taking the nation by storm.

Needless to say, Blockbuster has had to implement several changes necessary to stay competitive in this ever-changing market. Like Netflix, Blockbuster has launched an online, mail-service component. Blockbuster has even started distributing rental box dispensers much like Red Box. The question remains: is this too little too late for the former movie rental giant?

What does this have to do with real estate?

The Blockbuster Saga illustrates how important it is for real estate professionals and investors alike to stay on top of current trends and innovations in the real estate realm.

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Real Estate

Real Estate Marketing Campaigns: Aim Before You Shoot

by Molly Castelazo | September 19, 2009

Real Estate Marketing - Aim Before You Shoot I received the Google Analytics newsletter the other day in the mail and it got me thinking about long tail keywords. But Peter Kolat has already written some great posts about that subject, so I shifted my thinking more generally to targeting your prospects. Because that’s what using long tail keywords is really about, after all – honing in on the prospects that are searching specifically for what you offer.

What’s in it for me?

Let’s do a thought experiment: Imagine you’re looking for someone to clean up and fix the houses you buy before you flip them. You happen, just as you’re thinking about it, to get three postcards in the mail.

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Real Estate

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit needs one of those Modifications

by Winston Westbrook | August 31, 2009

So the time has come to wave goodbye to the first time homebuyer credit. If you are working with first time home buyers and you haven’t locked down a property in escrow by the end of next month your clients might not be able to make the deadline of Dec 1, 2009 to get that rebate. Remember that escrow or the real estate transaction must be closed, finalized and done by Dec 1, 2009. Some people think that as long as the property is in the closing process by Dec 1 they would still get the credit but that is false. I’m sorry to inform you but it has to be completely closed.

An Extension to the First Time Home Buyer Credit?

With that said many people have been asking me if I knew if they were going to extend the first time home buyer credit. I had not heard of anything so I did a little research and low and behold there was a bill introduced back in June 10, 2009. This bill has not received too much attention because people were not worried about the tax credit expiring. Now that the clock is ticking I am sure the tax credit will be coming back into the lexicon a lot stronger in the next couple months

If you have never followed a bill in your life then you might want to take notice as an investor, real estate agent, loan officer etc. This one will affect you once it’s passed until it expires in 2011.

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Blogs

Has the Real Estate Supertanker Finally Turned?

by Richard Warren | August 31, 2009

For the past several years it seems that every time you ran into a real estate agent he would proclaim that the market was at the bottom and it was time to buy. Of course, that was nothing more than the agent’s vested interest speaking. The market continued to slide in just about every city. Some fared worse than others, but few areas of the country were spared.

Many inexperienced and even some veteran investors have an expectation that the real estate market can turn on a dime in the manner of a speedboat. Perhaps they think it’s more like the stock market, which can swing wildly from one trading session to the next. However, real estate is more like a supertanker in that it takes a long time to change course. The reason for that is simply the lack of instant liquidity and the time it takes to complete each transaction.

Recent Data

There is good news. The latest report from the Case-Shiller U.S National Home price Index shows that real estate prices have shown their first quarterly increase in three years. Does that mean that the bear market in real estate prices is over? Not by a long shot. There are many foreclosures on the horizon and the national economy is still hurting. However, it’s a start.

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Real Estate

Multi-Family Properties: Unconventional Ways to Increase Value

by Kyle Koller | August 27, 2009

As real estate investors, we know that the value of commercial buildings is determined by dividing its Net Operating Income (NOI) by its Capitalization Rate (Cap Rate). By definition, Value = NOI / Cap Rate. In other words, the property’s value is greatly magnified by relatively small increases in Net Operating Income. To illustrate, for a given Cap Rate (say 6%), every extra dollar in NOI increases the property’s value by $16.67 (=$1.00/0.006). In low Cap Rate areas like San Diego, that means there’s a huge opportunity to increase your building’s value dramatically!

Factors Affecting NOI

There are a number of obvious things one may do to positively affect the NOI of a property: raise rents, cure vacancy, decrease expenses. Well, what do you do if your building is 100% occupied at above market rents, and the property is so efficiently managed that you can’t think of a way to decrease expenses? Should you accept the status quo and simply keep up the good work? You could, but where’s the fun in that? You would be overlooking the unlimited number of ways to optimize not only your property’s NOI, but your returns as well.

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Commentary

Building Value vs. the Bubble Mentality

by Brendan O'Brien | August 25, 2009

: Image via Wikipedia

One of my favorite economics bloggers, Megan McArdle, wrote a post recently on the Washington, DC real estate market, extended to the state of the market overall. It appears to her that the single-family residential market has bottomed out, while multifamily still has a way to go.

Megan also posed the question of when, and if, a boom will begin again. Possibly, in her view, there won’t be a boom. After all, the last nationwide (really, worldwide) boom was driven by a couple of unusual factors: historically low interest rates, and a big, competitive market for subprime loans.

Megan is one of the smartest economic bloggers, and a lot of what she wrote here makes sense. Still, the post bugged me, because it focused on macro-economics, which is not the world in which most of us live.

We know that real estate investing success comes from a million factors, only one of which is the boom-bubble-bust cycle. Outsiders don’t see a lot of difference between real estate investing and stock market investing, but there is a huge difference. In stock market investing, there are really only three factors:

You decide which stock or mutual fund to buy
You decided when to buy it (what price)
You decided when to sell it (what price).

All those apply, in a sense, to real estate investing. You have to decide what and where to buy, pick one or more properties at what seems to be an appropriate price, and figure out when to offer them for sale, at what price. But there are also these factors:

Price Factors Exclusive to Real Estate

What can you do to cut ongoing costs?
How are you going to treat the tenants?
How can you renovate the property to make it worth more?
What can you add to the property to increase the income it generates?

You can probably think of a few more. The point is that in between the buying and the selling, most stock market investing is essentially passive. Once you own it, you’re waiting for the right time to sell it. You really have no say over how the company is run.

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Real Estate

Starting a Real Estate Club: The Perks and How to Make it Happen

by Glenn Plantone | August 22, 2009

: Image by JohnHallAssociates via Flickr

As the Investors’ Realtor, the success of my business hinges on continually finding new prospects that are interested in purchasing residential real estate. One of the avenues that I have found extremely effective in this regard is the real estate club that I founded 2 ½ years ago. The Real Estate Insiders Club of Las Vegas has provided me, through bad markets and good markets, with a consistent venue in which to place myself in front of investors in the Las Vegas area. Whether you are a real estate agent working to grow your client base, an investor looking to share ideas with other investors in your area, or another professional in a real estate related trade, starting a real estate networking club can provide a valuable resource for the growth of your business.

Here’s how I did it:

As with any new project, the first step to success is creating a mission statement or a list of goals…what do you expect to achieve by starting a real estate related club?

I started the Real Estate Insiders Club with five goals in mind. The first was to network with other like minded investors. The second was to educate investors on the ever changing real estate environment through a rotating cast of speakers delivering talks on a wide range of topics. The third goal was for the club to provide a platform for presenting real estate opportunities to interested investors. The fourth was to turn a profit and add a stream of income for myself, and the last goal was to be able to put myself in the spotlight and use the platform for my own marketing purposes.

After establishing your goals you need to form a list of questions that must be answered in order for you to move forward. These questions should include things like: How often do you plan on meeting? Will you meet weekly or monthly or some other time frame? Where will you meet? What time of day? What types of attendees will you be targeting? How many people do you hope will attend? How many people need to attend in order to make the event profitable? How much money you can realistically afford to invest in the event? With a budget in mind it will be easy to decide on where you can allocate your expenses toward the club. If you have speakers pitching products or services, you will need to decide if you will be co-oping with them or charging them to speak. Will you be paying to bring in featured speakers? Will you offer monthly membership only or add annual memberships as well? Will you do other sponsored events and co-op with other seminar groups? Will you be providing food and drink as part of the event? Will you be filming the event and using the clips on Youtube and other marketing venues? Pay careful attention to all of these considerations…I lost money the first year of the club and afterwards had to make several changes in order to move forward and create a profitable meeting.

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Real Estate

See How Easily You Can Get Motivated Seller Leads Using a Soda Can?

by J. Lamar Ferren | August 22, 2009

Free Soda Cans

How could something as simple as a soda can help you get motivated seller leads?

When I first heard about this marketing strategy I was immediately intrigued by how “outside the box” this strategy was.

Just imagine you being known throughout your local community as the guy or gal who takes down real estate deals armed with nothing but…a Soda Can!

Before you say this will never work… Let me say that someone has already tried this strategy I’m about to reveal to you. I’ll be straight up with you though…I’m not sure if they were able to generate a profit.

With that said, I’m one to follow that old saying… “Don’t knock it, until you try it.”

Entrepreneurs and Marketers are always testing new ideas.

Also, there is a BIG Company using this strategy as well…I’ll show you that in a minute.

Many marketers would refer to this marketing method as…Guerilla Marketing or Bum Marketing. (Low Cost Marketing)

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← Previous Entries

Real Estate

Using Leverage to Sell More and Take Your Business to the Next Level

Advantages to Having Your Real Estate License When Pursuing Listed Properties

Having access to the MLS

Making a Commission on Purchases

Las Vegas’ Biggest Cheerleader

Why Exercising Could Make You a Wealthier Investor

This is What Happens When You Get Older

Bar Stool Economics

Selecting a Realtor in a Small Town

Defining the Parameters

What Blockbuster Can Teach Us About Real Estate

What does this have to do with real estate?

Real Estate Marketing Campaigns: Aim Before You Shoot

What’s in it for me?

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit needs one of those Modifications

An Extension to the First Time Home Buyer Credit?

Has the Real Estate Supertanker Finally Turned?

Recent Data

Multi-Family Properties: Unconventional Ways to Increase Value

Factors Affecting NOI

Building Value vs. the Bubble Mentality

Price Factors Exclusive to Real Estate

Starting a Real Estate Club: The Perks and How to Make it Happen

See How Easily You Can Get Motivated Seller Leads Using a Soda Can?

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