Real Estate Investing Blog

This was not what I had come accustomed to seeing; she had her nametag with her companies name and logo proudly positioned on her smart, yet casual blouse. This was like finding the missing link deep in the heart of the Amazon. Sitting at a table next her after getting a small cup of coffee, seated myself in a position in her line of site, so when she looked up from her screen she could not miss me. I waited for my moment. As I watched her typing I could feel her elation. Her body language spoke of a person in a state of joy and confidence. Then with a crescendo and final tap of her index finger she breathed deep, smiled and look me right in the eyes. “Hello”, she said waiting for my response. Coming out of my voodoo like trance, I framed a smile and returned her greeting with, “Why, hello miss happiness”.

My success in interviewing people over the years was to put people at ease so I could get to the root of the story. She didn’t miss a beat, “Well how are you doing Mr. Inquisitive?” She was as good at reading people as I was; this was going to be interesting. “Better now that I found you,” I replied. Again, without hesitation, she winked and said, “You look like a man who is searching for an answer, have you found one?”

Like a pro she framed that control question. I couldn’t help but chuckle and return her question with, “Yes I have, you.” Check and then the checkmate, “If I could, without prying to much ask, why are you so happy?” This time, like a tiger preparing its self to pounce, she placed her hands flat on the table, rose slightly, leaned forward, looked right and left to make sure imaginary people were not privy to what she was about to say and with a smile and whisper of a confident keeper of a secret she said, “I just closed on my new home.” She leaned back from her striking position, relaxed with confidence, grinned ear to ear as if she had just finished eating a five star meal.

There are moments when all the searching, the exclusive interviews, and marketing for information are simply preparation for the moment of revelation, this is how it always happens. I had found the answer and I quickly explained who I was and my mission. She offered to answer my questions on the condition that she remained anonymous. At least I could catch the tiger, even though I would loose the tail in the process, I continued and asked her to explain her success. Almost two hours later, a large cup of coffee, a cinnamon roll and an education on a real estate’s agents success story, I had what I was looking for. She handed me her card, gave me hug and with the stealth of an endangered Tibetan Snow Leopard she vanished as the door to the coffee shop closed.

Here is a synopsis in brevity of what she laid out for me. The key for her success came by a chance meeting at a seminar over a year ago, where she met a real estate agent who disclosed to her a new way of how to acquire qualified leads. They showed her Myhomesearchs.com and explained “exclusive marketing” and how, as a real estate agent, she could become a member and get exclusive qualified leads and guarantees of success at such a absurdly low cost, she could go with out her lattes for a couple of weeks and pay for it for the whole year.

Her success story was truly stunning; she had gone from living in a studio apartment in the poor part of town to buying her new dream home in one year because of the quality of the leads she had received from Myhomesearches.com. She was now the number one real estate agent in her company and the city. Her closing ratio to contacts had gone from under 20% to 95%. She know longer spent countless hours searching for leads, they came to her. She attributed her success to the exclusive marketing provided by Myhomesearches.com. Plus, the best part it, she had found her fiancé who was a the 3rd lead she had received from Myhomesearches.com, she sold his house and they shared an apartment until that day I found a happy real estate agent humming a familiar tune in a little coffee shop. The tune? Here’s part of a verse: “the sun will come up tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar…”

Advertising your home for sale is something you want to really put some thought into. The more you advertise it the more people will notice it. In turn, that means it is going to take less time to sell it. Being creative when it comes to selling your home is important. You can stick with just the facts or you can even add some humor to your listing for it. Don’t assume that various methods of advertising are expensive either as you will likely be surprised at how affordable they are. Many of them you can also do for free.

Placing ads online is important due to the number of people that look for homes this way. It doesn’t matter if you list the home on your own or if the listing ends up on a web page with a real estate agency that is representing. Make sure your listing is very detailed and that you offer tons of pictures. Of course contact information all needs to be there to so that potential buyers can easily reach you or the real estate agent that is working on your behalf.

People often walk during the warmer time of year and they often have to when it is cold to take their dogs out. Why not place fliers on telephone poles to let them know what you have to offer? There are plenty of public bulletin boards that you can use too in grocery stores and other businesses. Include a couple of pictures and other information on the flier. A fast and easy way to distribute contact information is to cut along the bottom and write your phone number sideways along it. Then they can tear a portion off and give you a call later on about the house for sale.

Billboards definitely get attention, so find out how much it will cost to rent one of them for a month. It can be a very affordable way to get your home sold in that period of time. You likely don’t even know how many people drive that stretch of road on any given day. The exposure is going to be phenomenal and that means you can get results.

Placing an ad in the local newspapers is very affordable as well. Include the basics about your home, the selling price, the address, and a phone number. Those individuals searching to find a home will likely be looking in the newspaper daily for new prospects. Since you likely know many people, use word of mouth to get the word out as well. If each person you tell informs three others about it then you have really networked well and given your home plenty of exposure.

Don’t focus your time and money on just one of these ways to advertise your home for sale either. You don’t want to put everything on the chance that it will work because that doesn’t always occur. When you include several different forms of these types of advertising, you will reach out to many more potential buyers. It can make a world of difference when it comes to how long it ends up taking for your home to sell.

If you think of other ideas, then don’t be afraid to try them. Many consumers respond well to something that is new and not typical. They will remember it and once their curiosity is peaked they will want to come see your home. This is also way an open house can bring plenty of people to your home as well.

MLS is an acronym for multiple listing service. Wikipedia describes it as a suite of services that (1) enables brokers to establish contractual offers of compensation (among brokers); (2) facilitates cooperation with other broker participants; (3) accumulates and disseminates information to enable appraisals; (4) is a facility for the orderly correlation and dissemination of listing information to better serve broker’s clients, customers and the public.

In layman’s terms the MLS is a central database that participating real estate brokers and agents use to share information about properties. Realtors primarily use it in their day to day operation to find properties for buyers and to help sellers arrive at a value for their properties based on sold and unsold like kind properties.

The MLS system is also the most important marketing tool that a Realtor or Broker can have. Participating members of the multiple listing system list their inventory of properties for sale in the database as a way to market them to other members who may have a potential buyer. These Realtors can sell other Realtors listing in return for compensation. If you are looking to sell your home make sure you choose a Realtor who can list your home in the MLS database. Essentially, your home will be accessible to thousands of Realtors and their potential buyers.

Other important facts about the MLS:

• There is no national single MLS.
• Local Realtor Associations oversee the MLS system.
• MLS is trademarked term owned by Major League Soccer
• Most MLS’s do not have an access for the general public
• IDX is known as internet data exchange. This allows a portion of MLS data to be displayed on Realtor websites. When you see “Search MLS” on a Realtors website most of the time you are not accessing the real MLS system.
• Realtors have to pay money to join a local Realtor association in order to access the MLS system.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re marketing your top-shelf real estate services or your latest listing, you want more eyeballs on your message.

The one thing that captures more eyeballs than any other response modifier is a headline. Here are twelve places to include a headline in your real estate marketing… and twelve places you’ll increase your response rates when you do.

1. Postcards – Instead of winding up in the trash like most, get your postcard read. A compelling headline peaks the interest of the recipient and pulls them in.
2. Blog Posts – You’ve labored to get an insightful blog post written but if visitors are never inspired to read the post, your real estate greatness goes unnoticed. Your post title is a headline.
3. Website – The average visitor gives a website 3 seconds to make an impression before leaving. Use a headline to break past the 3 second mark and engage.
4. Landing Pages – Landing pages are targeted towards specific groups of people (buyers, sellers, investors) taking a specific action. Use a headline to qualify and confirm to the visitor that the page relates directly to them.
5. Emails – The whole goal of your subject line is to encourage your subscriber to open the email. You guessed it, a headline that persuades is key to getting eyeballs onto your message.
6. Listing Kit – You’re a savvy agent, make sure your prospects know it. Use a headline with your listing kit and it will stand out, get read, and get you hired.
7. Articles – Every day people quickly sift through information, looking for the bit of data that they need. A compelling headline your article a diamond in the rough.
8. Twitter – Many Realtors are turning to the social network Twitter to make connections. If you want more click-throughs from Twitter, then you need to turn that tweet into a headline.
9. Reports – Special reports will always be a prime incentive in lead-generation but to increase response rates and keep that PDF from collecting digital dust, pack a powerful headline into the report title.
10. PPC Ads – Pay-per-click headlines can make or break an ad campaign. Make it a good one and Google will even reward you with a lower cost-per-click.
11. Classifieds – Too many classified start mentioning features. Instead, make room for a headline and you’ll catch more eyeballs.
12. Print Ads – A headline does more to increase ad response than anything else. Since you;re paying for the ad, make sure you get the best response you can.

You need mortgage marketing ideas to help you into the field and meet real estate agents, but you do not want to do cold calling. It does not need to be as difficult as some loan officers make it. Each time you leave your office and spend the day in the field, there is a plethora of opportunities waiting to be taken. Every time you talk with real estate agents there’s something to benefit.

And what is involved is to know where to look and the clues to uncover.

For example, in your next appointment with a real estate agent, tell them you are wanting to partner with one or 2 new real estate agents and you’d like to uncover other real estate agents just like them.

Describe some traits, and then ask who they know that fits it. After they’ve disclosed a agent or two, ask them if they would not mind getting authorization from the real estate agent for you to reach out to her or him or schedule a luncheon meeting. This simple mortgage marketing idea saves you tons of time because the real estate agent is doing the hard part.

More Mortgage Marketing Ideas

Marketing your services to the seller’s real estate agent is another. If you have not done it before, it’s stunningly simple. Just reach out to them and introduce yourself as the mortgage originator handling the buyer’s home financing.

There is no need to tell them of your services, just involve them each step of the way in the home financing process like you do with the buyer’s real estate agent. Instead of telling the listing agent about your service, they get to see it firsthand. The fact alone that you called and introduced yourself makes a wonderful first impression most seller agents find unbelievable.

Another mortgage marketing idea is to speak at sales meetings to real estate agents. Whenever you can get in front of a group of real estate agents, it is the best use of your time. You share the same amount of information to a group as you would to an individual, yet your chances of a real estate agent finding you so they can refer future clients is increased. Don’t bring donuts; let them feed their bellies while you feed their brains. It’s a fair exchange and if you can not do it at their office, do it offsite.

Several of my clients educate and their work always proves successful. Groups grow larger each time they conduct a class. You position yourself as an expert and real estate agents always want more information which helps you build a relationship. Whenever they have a future client you get the referral.

It applies to marketing flyers too. The bright thing to do is to use the advertising space to promote your expertise, not a solicitation. And tell it from another real estate agent’s viewpoint. It’s better that another person dotes about you, then you doing it yourself. Essentially, make your marketing flyers a sequence of success examples and real estate agents will look forward to receiving them if you employ a regular frequency.

Marketing to Realtors isn’t hard when you’re inspired with mortgage marketing ideas that make your job simpler. What’s urgent is you’re not procrastinating and being active. Nobody ever got real estate agents to refer future clients to them being invisible.

Just implement one mortgage marketing idea to begin. Use it, try it different ways until it works and then implement the next one. Before you know it, you have multiple mortgage marketing ideas working for you and your production is getting better giving you the income you desire.

Many real estate professionals create their websites with the goal of getting to the top of the search engines. While this is certainly a wonderful goal to have, we must not lose sight that the search engines can’t actually purchase any real estate. Creating a website that is a true destination for those looking for real estate help should certainly be a goal and to get those people the help they need we can strive for the top spots!

Getting the search engines to take notice of your website and increase your rankings is possible when you follow some basic steps. Remember, each of the search engines want to provide the MOST relevant information to those using their services so we need to let them know how good our websites can be.

Here are some methods to ensure that your real estate marketing efforts won’t be in vain:

• Quality Content - In order for the search engines to take notice of your real estate website you will need to pack it with some quality content. Create pages that are of real value to your visitors. Set the goal of creating pages with 400 or more words on each page. Pictures are of course an essential element, however, at this time the search engines can digest more of the text on each page so give them what they want. It doesn’t require that you be an extremely talented writer, just write some pages that provide real information that people can use and the search engines will certainly want to share it.
• Sitemaps - Your real estate website will grow by leaps and bounds and it may not always be possible for the different search engines to discover the many pages on your website. Creating a traditional Sitemap (along with an XML sitemap) will allow the search engine to keep tabs on the latest updates to your site.
• Spread the Word - Getting other people to link to your website will demonstrate the importance of your website to visitors and the search engines. Reach out to directories, related websites, and start making comments on related blogs to get links pointing to you.

Real estate internet marketing is about having a balanced strategy to gain maximum exposure and get leads for your real estate business. Starting with a foundation of high quality content will keep visitors flocking to your website to read more and keep the search engines aware of what they need to share with their users.

Most of us know that fishing is about much more than pulling in that 30-pound Muskie. It’s about being alone with nature, breathing fresh air, and taking some “me time” out of your busy schedule. But it’s hard to appreciate it as much when the fish just ain’t biting. It can be even more frustrating when you get a nibble every hour or so, but that dang fish just won’t take the worm.

Your bait needs to be more alluring. Such is the nature of real estate lead conversion.

Perhaps you’ve got a website and a drip e-mail system that’s generating tons of leads for you and your partners, but these leads don’t follow up. It could be you just need to entice them by jiggling the lure. Use your drip e-mail campaign to send your leads weekly updates on homes that match their criteria. Send them headlines that relate to real estate in their areas. Remind them to contact you if they need help with anything in the buying and selling process

There are a lot of reasons people don’t follow up. They might not really be interested in finding a home, or it’s not their top priority. Other times, they may be nervous about the process. So make sure to assuage their fears and concerns by focusing on the positive. Don’t say “Negotiating the right selling price takes a lot of work and commitment.” Say “Our professionals will take the hard work out of your hands while negotiating the best price possible.” Focus not on the hard-line details of the mortgage applications, but on the fact that they can get pre-approved for a mortgage right on your website. Parting the clouds of doom with rays of sunshine is a sure way to get on someone’s good side.

If after months of inactivity there’s still no bite, it may be time to check the bait. Send a more personalized e-mail, something like: “I noticed you haven’t followed up with any of the properties I’ve been sending you. I hope the home hunting process is coming along smoothly. Please contact me if you have any questions or need help finding the right property. If you’ve already found a home and no longer need my services, you can click the link below to stop receiving my e-mails. Thanks, and good luck!”

If nothing else, they will appreciate your checking up on them and your honest offer to remove them from the mailing list. On the other hand, they might see how serious you are about helping them and decide to take the bait.

In keeping with the metaphor, make sure to take care of that fish, give it a good home, and nourish it, even if it ends up in your belly. Okay, maybe that’s a little too far. But don’t make promises you can’t follow up on. Otherwise you’ll be sitting at the bar telling your fellow Realtors stories about the one that got away.

Are you tired of getting names cartoon character names filled out in your real estate forms on your website? How about when someone gives you a phone number of a local restaurant? One has to laugh when you get that kind of information because if you don’t it may just drive you crazy. There is a way to increase the validity of your data and not decrease the number of leads that you get from your real estate website.

Make your data 85% valid

85% valid data is the number to aim for when working with real estate leads. After testing this on over 6,500 opt-ins over a 6 month period we found that there are steps you can take to make sure that the information you get on your forms is the kind of people you want to work with.

Steps to Making Your Registration Forms as Friendly As Possible

The overall theme with registration forms on your real estate website is to make them as friendly as possible. Now since you can’t put a big happy smiley face on the form (you can but I wouldn’t recommend it) you need to follow a few steps to make sure people want to fill in their real information.

1. Make sure the forms take 30 seconds or less to fill out – Long forms have never tested well and the more that people get on the Internet the worse it gets for long forms. The best forms take only 30 seconds or less to fill out. They require only the most basic of information and the user knows they only need to put their real information to get what they want.

2. Make phone number optional – nothing is worse than requiring phone number as it will lead to many 555-555-5555 numbers and you will turn into a data checker instead of a real estate agent.

3. Let them know they will get what they came for – That’s right on the form page make sure you let them know when and what they are signing up for. If you are going to set them up with a custom website with ALL the listings make sure you let them know that. Let them know in bullet point format if at all possible so they can’t help but read it.

4. Have a privacy policy – make it easy for your visitors to know what will happen with their data. It doesn’t have to be right in front of them and in your face or even long but have one so they know who they are giving their data too.

Most of all with all of your forms make sure that your visitor knows when they will get a response and stick so that promise so you have happy visitors and customers.

Danger is something to be avoided at all costs. A sign that says “Danger-Unexploded Ordinance” means keep away. Rational individuals do not trespass. Risk needs to be embraced by investors because without risk there is little, if any, return. All forms of investment are risky.

Risk and danger are not the same.Avoiding risk is not the issue. Getting compensated adequately for bearing risk is the issue. All commercial real estate opportunities have risk, just as all other investments have risk.

For investors the risk they are exposed to is not simply the sum of the riskiness of all their individual investments. Rather, it is the risk inherent in their entire portfolio. The risk of individual investments is not the same thing as the risk in the portfolio. This is because the risks of the different investments in your portfolio are more or less correlated with the risks of other investments in your portfolio.

The effect of diversification among different types of investments is generally to reduce the risk of the overall portfolio without necessarily reducing return. This happens because the individual risk on one element in the portfolio may be largely independent of the risk of another element in your portfolio, so the risk of the portfolio itself declines.

There are a lot of highly technical and mathematical ways to measure risk. All of them suffer from a variety of imperfections. Indeed, they are so mind numbing in their complexity, that the best approach to evaluating risk for the individual investor is common sense.

An important implication of this concept is that investors should not evaluate the risk and return on an individual investment in terms of the riskiness of that particular investment alone.

Instead, the risk should be judged by the impact of that investment on the riskiness of the overall portfolio itself. This means that it is possible to add a relatively risky investment to a portfolio and have the total riskiness of the portfolio go down. This reflects the way in which the riskiness of that investment is correlated with the riskiness of the existing investments in the portfolio.

Starting in real estate with the concept of lead generation will put you miles ahead of your competition. Most real estate professionals start with the idea that if you just have a few key relationships in place you will experience tremendous success. While relationships certainly are important a solid lead generation plan is essential when you want to close business each and every month.

Getting high quality real estate leads isn’t something that will happen with only 10 minutes of work, but when you put just a little bit of planning in you can have a consistent flow of people contacting you each and every day. Here are some tips to focus on for generating leads every day.

1. Focus on Lead Generation – When you focus on lead generation you won’t send any marketing out that is just “branding”. Branding ads waste money and won’t generate leads. Keeping your focus on leads will ensure that any marketing you do (online, print, etc) will have the focus on generating calls and leads. This focus may seem odd to those around you in the real estate community and that’s OK. Many times in real estate it is suggested that you have to “introduce yourself to the community” or “get the word out” but that just wastes money. Keep the focus on what will generate leads each and every day.
2. Investing – Leads will rarely come free. Investing some capital into your real estate business will help you to get leads at a much faster rate. A good rule of thumb to stick to is spending no more than 7% of a standard commission on your advertising. Every 7% you spend should generate 1 transaction.   Sticking to the 7% rule will keep more money in your pocket and make your marketing work harder for you. Anything that isn’t generating leads for just 7% of a commission will have to be cut.
3. Marketing Strategy – I am a big fan of an online real estate marketing strategy, but it’s not for every agent.   Having a plan in place for your real estate lead generation activities will make it easier. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just know what steps you are going to take to generate leads. This may mean having more than 1 system to generate leads for you. Top real estate coaches around the country recommend having 4 marketing systems to generate leads for you.   Each system must adhere to the 7% rule and must generate at least 2 transactions a month. The systems involved with your marketing strategy can be varied (i.e. websites, blog, postcards, magazine ads, etc.) but just ensure that each of them are generating enough leads for you to close 2 transactions per month, per system.

With just the above three steps you will be able to start getting real estate leads. Remember, your plan doesn’t have to be complicated; it just has to have enough steps so you can see where you need to take action. Keeping your focus on generating real estate leads (and making sure it’s cheap) will have you closing transactions each and every month.