Easy Mobile REI Marketing With Call Loop A while back, I wrote about Developing a Relationship Via Mobile Devices. This is an especially handy marketing technique for the savvy real estate investor. SMS and voicemail marketing are fairly new, but growing in popularity. This is the time to jump on the mobile bandwagon, before this marketing avenue becomes saturated. A service I love for organizing and automating my mobile marketing efforts is CallLoop.com, http://www.callloop.com. Similar … [Read more...]
Marketing with Real Paper
November 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Marketing with Real Paper Marketing online is effective, inexpensive and sometimes a little fun! So it’s easy to forget about good old paper when it comes to marketing your REI business. But marketing with real paper can be just as effective, if not more effective, than online marketing. So let’s take a deeper look… 1. Flyers and Circulars Flyers and circulars are simply one piece of paper with information about your product/service. These can be posted in places where it’s … [Read more...]
There Are No Short Cuts In The Real Estate Investing Industry
October 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
As a real estate entrepreneur, this is a story that I feel needs to be shared. It hits very close to home and includes some of my early missteps in building our brand. Ultimately, it is about sharing with the rest of the real estate world that in business, as in life, there are no short cuts. If we allow ourselves to get seduced by the lure of short cuts and the peddlers of promises like “I can help you” for a fee, well, I‘ll share the information and let you see how that ends.What … [Read more...]
A Sawtooth Recovery: Validation of What You can Expect in Our Housing Market!
September 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
A Sawtooth Recovery: Validation of What You can Expect in Our Housing Market! Back in May of 2010 I wrote an article for BiggerPockets with the title of, “A Saw Tooth Recovery.” By the title you can guess that the housing recovery was expected to see ups and downs in both prices and inventory until a full recovery could be expected. Two years later it seems that indeed we are in the middle of a Saw Tooth Recovery. As predicted, we are just now experiencing a bottom in inventory and … [Read more...]
Seller Marketing: The Direct Mail Fail
September 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Seller Marketing: The Direct Mail Fail Back in April, I wrote a post about using direct mail and door knocking to acquire more distressed properties (at the time I was buying exclusively at the auction and off the MLS). In it, I promised to keep BiggerPockets readers updated on my progress with these campaigns. Well, so far, it’s not going well. While I’ve scored a few small victories with the door knocking (more on that at the end of the post) the direct mail campaign has been a complete … [Read more...]
Using and Developing a Logo & Tagline For Your Brand
September 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Using and Developing a Logo & Tagline For Your Brand We’re all familiar with taglines and logos. We hear and see them hundreds, or even thousands of times per day. Do you recognize these? Just Do It with the Swoosh (Nike) You’re in Good Hands with clasped hands logo (Allstate) Have It Your Way with a yellow hamburger logo (Burger King) Companies will pay millions of dollars for an ad agency to develop a few words and a symbol. But why? Because they are some of the most … [Read more...]
Your Brand and Your Competition
September 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Your Brand and Your Competition If you were the only real estate investor in the United States, branding wouldn’t matter. But you’re not the only one. There are hundreds of thousands of other real estate investors all vying for the same great property investments. These people are your competition. And they are the reason branding is so important for real estate investment success. Scope out the Competition Unless you are totally new to the area, you probably have an idea of who your … [Read more...]
The Importance of Branding for REIs
September 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Importance of Branding for REIs As a busy real estate investor, branding might be the last thing on your mind. But it’s an important and valuable part of your business image. In the next few blog posts I’ll be talking about branding for real estate investors. Today, let’s start with the basics. What is Branding? Your brand is what defines your business. It’s more than just a logo, color scheme, tagline or celebrity sponsor. It’s what makes your business different and better … [Read more...]
It’s Time to Crank Up the Old Marketing Machine
August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
It’s Time to Crank Up the Old Marketing Machine For the past few years deals have been plentiful for real estate investors; so plentiful in fact many of them felt that they no longer really had to do any marketing. Foreclosures and bank owned properties were everywhere. A lot of real estate investors have had their pick of great deals. All they had to do in many cases was to cherry pick bank owned properties right off the MLS.As the supply of foreclosures and REOs begin to decline, these … [Read more...]
So… Your Market Sucks! 7 Indicators That Your Business Model Needs to Change
July 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
So… Your Market Sucks! 7 Indicators That Your Business Model Needs to ChangeIn my last article, I wrote about positioning your real estate business for success and maximum profits. The key, in my opinion, is to know that what you are doing is not working.Your Market Sucks! Now What? The key is that sooner or later whatever you are doing in your market may not work and while you can continue to try to make it work, you might just find yourself working harder and getting further behind.The … [Read more...]
Why Short Sale Discounts are Growing & The Best Banks for Bargains
July 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Why Short Sale Discounts are Growing & The Best Banks for BargainsThe discounts on distress sales are critical for investors. Discounts− the price differences between “normal,” full value properties and a distress sales like foreclosures or short sales−set the parameters for capital gains when a property is sold, especially in markets with modest price appreciation. All things being equal, the greater the discount the greater the potential gain.Discounts for foreclosures versus … [Read more...]
How to Get the Greatest Marketing Return on Investment Available
July 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
How to Get the Greatest Marketing Return on Investment AvailableIn real estate, it’s ALL about the numbers. After repair value (ARV), renovation budget, purchase price, days on market, cost of money, Realtor commission, and the list goes on. You get the point.Besides your “deal analyzer” numbers, you also have your “marketing” numbers. Particularly, what kind of return are you getting by spending money on the various forms of marketing?Although I have no statistical data to back up … [Read more...]
The Choice: Making Money Wholesaling vs Getting Your Real Estate License
July 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Choice: Making Money Wholesaling vs Getting Your Real Estate LicenseThe conversation can get quite “lively” when you put Realtors in a room with a group of real estate investors, especially if those Realtors aren’t investors themselves. And, this is just exactly what happened to me on the 4th of July. Inevitably we end up discussing folks that get their real estate license and the “other group of people” that work in the business as real estate investors.I went to a celebration on … [Read more...]
Real Estate Marketing: The Walking-Talking Billboard
June 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Real Estate Marketing: The Walking-Talking BillboardCredibility. This was probably my single biggest fear when I first was getting started.How am I going to find good deals?How am I going to get good contractor pricing?How am I going to impact people with my face-to-face networking?Let’s be realistic, the majority of people starting out in real estate investing don’t exactly have the budget for renting out billboard space along busy highways. This was the boat I was in, so I figured a way I … [Read more...]
The Unsustainable Wholesaling Business Model
June 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Unsustainable Wholesaling Business ModelIt all started with a simple question. BiggerPockets.com founder Joshua Dorkin sent me an email with a link to the BiggerPockets property directory. It contained several wholesale listings in Phoenix. Joshua asked, “can you check them for me?”After searching the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service and tax records I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The person that posted these listings didn’t own any of the properties, but … [Read more...]
Non-Conforming Real Estate: Why You Should Conform
June 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Non-Conforming Real Estate: Why You Should ConformReal estate investors know the dangers of investing in a property that does not conform to the area; exiting the deal becomes very difficult .What is Non-Conforming Real Estate? In real estate there are several reasons a property would be considered non-conforming:1) Non-conforming use – most local governments enact zoning laws/ordinances that regulate the use of property. As zoning requirements change, pre-existing structures are often … [Read more...]
Fixing and Flipping: Determining Target Price Point
May 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Fixing and Flipping: Determining Target Price PointThe G.I. Joe Jet. Man, did I want that toy. I remember my friend Robby and I drooling over it at the department store the summer of 1984. Together we owned every other figurine and vehicle in the collection – from the Ninja to the Jeep. Unfortunately, we never acquired the Jet. At $20 the target price point was too high. By the time we had enough cash to buy it we had moved on to a more expensive hobby – BMX racing bikes.The cash in your … [Read more...]
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Realtor Ads as a Gauge of Your Local Real Estate Market
Realtor Ads as a Gauge of Your Local Real Estate Market Investors are constantly bombarded with statistics. Housing starts are up in the United States, housing starts are down in a particular city. Resale inventory is high, retail inventory is low, short-sales are up, short-sales are down. Don’t get me started on the “shadow inventory” that’s been poised to flood the market for years now. It’s very easy to get caught up in all these statistics. Unfortunately the numbers can be … [Read more...]