Real Estate
by Glenn Plantone
| August 22, 2009
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
by Glenn Plantone
| August 6, 2009
Last week, in my first post on the BiggerPockets Blog, I wrote about how I became the investors’ Realtor by being an investor myself, thinking like an investor, having marketing materials designed for investors, and being in the hottest spots for investor real estate purchases. This week I would like to expand on the idea of traveling to the investment hot spots. Being in the places where people actually want to buy, and are buying, will enhance your chances of becoming a leader in your field. Specializing in a niche within a niche will also help establish your reputation as a leader in your area of expertise.
As you recall from our last article, I was heavily involved in several real estate markets over the 2003 to 2006 period. Where ever the hottest market… I was there. I was in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque, and North Carolina just to name a few. I stayed tuned-in to where investors were heading, as I was one of them, and invested in all of these markets myself. Since the summer of 2008 I have specialized once again in the Las Vegas valley, but this time it has been foreclosures and REO properties… not new construction homes. I knew it was time to gear myself back up for sales in the Las Vegas area as I watched the prices of single family homes and condos drop rapidly due to the glut of foreclosures flooding the market. These lower prices created homes that could be purchased and rented for very good cash flow… better than Vegas has seen in decades. I took the opportunity to begin educating myself about this niche in this market, develop my marketing materials, and get ready to welcome the investors that I knew would soon come running into the Las Vegas housing market once again.
Becoming An Expert
I cannot stress enough how important it is to identify a niche and establish yourself as an expert in that particular area.
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The meeting was held on the 24th 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.
This past week, my Re/Max broker gave me an award congratulating me for having the 9th most sales in the region. In order to achieve this, I had to sell over a million dollars in real estate in each of the last two months. And I can tell you… you have to sell a lot of condos at $30,000 to sell over a million dollars in real estate. This got me thinking a little bit about what am I doing right. I asked myself, “What am I doing that has afforded me the ability to sell so much real estate in what some call the worst housing market in our nation’s history? What do I perhaps do differently than the average Realtor, that enables me to do a lot more business? 
estate investors we are always looking for the next “perfect” opportunity. You look around and see potential everywhere and are afraid of missing out. If you aren’t careful it can lead to a fatal case of gotta-do-a-deal-itis.
Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
Las Vegas: Record Sales & Dwindling Supply – So Why Are Prices Still Falling?
by Richard Warren | September 14, 2009For months now I’ve been hearing about how brisk sales have been, especially in the REO, or foreclosure, market. Looking at the numbers you will see that the available supply has been steadily trending down and sales have been setting all-time records. A bank puts an REO on the market and within days there are multiple offers on the property. So why are prices still falling?
On The Street
One realtor that I know specializes in these REO properties. What he sees are a lot of cash buyers from other areas stepping in. That would seem to mean that investors are seeing the value while local buyers are still gun-shy. Are they missing a golden opportunity?