Real Estate Investing Advice & Information

Sick of paying for leads that lead to no sales or spending numerous hours prospecting through cold leads? Would you like some warm leads for free?

If you’ve been in the real estate business for at least a few years or have a decent-sized clientele list, then I would postpone your cold-call prospecting. It’s time to benefit from your best prospecting tool: your clientele. New homebuyers create a great reason to keep in touch with them. You can inquire about their satisfaction of their new home immediately after they move in as well as many anniversary dates into the future: 1st six months, 1st year, 2nd year and beyond. And provided your clients are satisfied with your level of service, they should know plenty of people that fit the ideal new-home-prospect mold. The credibility and familiarity of your clients is powerful and will help open the door to their contacts.

How can this lead to obtaining referrals?

You will start with a post-sale survey and a “Congratulations Gift”. All clients respect business professionals that are not afraid to hear good honest feedback and fix problems, and they certainly love gifts. You must choose a gift that you can obtain or make in bulk, so you don’t have to keep shopping for the item over-and-over, and is easy to deliver. That’s why I suggest desserts or candy gifts. Who doesn’t like sweets? Almost every one does. You just need to choose items that are of high quality and preferably are packaged in an attractive way.

You can either choose to make homemade gifts or order them online. If you decide to make homemade gifts then you should be at least adequate in the kitchen, have many of the necessary supplies and ingredients and then obtain some attractive tins or boxes in order to ship them. Yes, it will take more work to make the gifts yourself, but your clients will love you for it. Think about it. How many realtors go out of their way to send gifts, let alone make them themselves? Not too many, right? continue reading…

In the world of real estate, the leads within your prowess will determine if you will sink or sail. Without leads, it is virtually impossible to succeed and have a thriving business. Hence, it is imperative to develop a tactic that will work for you and help you in the world of real estates.

If you compare how real estate business was in the past and how it is now, you will notice that the methods of the business have changed dramatically and that in today’s world, you need to rely more on than just word of mouth to draw in clients. There are a lot of areas that your marketing needs to cover to ensure that you are not falling back and losing clients.

Traditionally, real estate leads were purchased from companies that sold sets of these to budding real estate agents. This would have worked fine, say a decade ago, when the mainstream media was restricted to newspapers and television. However, with the advent of internet, the focus has shifted and it now became important to ensure that you have reached clients online as well.

The internet is a wonderful tool for marketing and getting new contacts and leads. Using internet, it is now possible to have customers from all over the country and not just the location around your office. People can communicate and view your properties before actually getting there in person. The ability to have virtual tours further helps in generating more leads. continue reading…

Real estate agents know the value of every dollar in every part of their business, especially in a serious economic downturn with overflowing competition. Advertising budgets, in particular, need to be carefully scrutinized, as they’re typically a very high expense and need to be assessed and justified as a reasonable cost of business. Call capture systems are one way that some agents are adjusting their ad budgets, and the technology is certainly an interesting and innovative way to approach ads in Homes magazines, mailers, sign riders, online and more.

Call capture systems, for the uninitiated, are phone systems set up to manage the incoming calls for a real estate agent. Separate extensions can be assigned, which allows an agent to set up audio tours for different houses, collect basic information from callers, and allow serious inquiries to be forwarded directly to their cell phones, complete with information about which house a caller is referencing to help an agent make a sale. The indications of a call capture system on an agent’s advertising budget aren’t immediately apparent when learning about call capture, but they’re actually extremely beneficial for agents that are looking for a way to maximize their advertising returns. continue reading…

Video marketing has taken off over the last few years and has become a core part of most real estate marketing programs. However, the quality and content of real estate videos varies widely from grainy images of properties to more elaborate slick productions with music and voice over. Little work has gone into understanding what really should be communicated in these pieces. Further, there seems to be little integration of the video content into the broader real estate marketing program. Expensive productions are not necessary as long as the video communicates the property message correctly. Most videos should incorporate several basic elements to achieve the goals of a proper marketing program. We have analyzed the 5 themes that should be a part of every real estate video you produce.

Broad Selection of Interior and Exterior Pictures – Every video you produce needs to have a representative portfolio of pictures of the inside of your property as well as the outside. The outside includes your building if an apartment and the backyard if your home. Most prospects are most interested in seeing the kitchen and the bathrooms, with the common living areas inside and the common areas outside of next importance. Bedrooms and eating areas are less important. Make sure the pictures are taken during the day when good sunlight is available and watch for the lighting angles so you don’t get lighting washouts. continue reading…

There are several ways on how to get into a real estate market namely: assess qualifications, review skills, get a license, enroll in a training course, and establish a good relationship.

Real estate is a booming industry and is good source of additional income. To break into this kind of business, the following steps should be done to make it on the edge:

Assess qualifications

To successfully sell real properties, a pleasing personality is required. Agent should be neat and well-groomed to project a respectable image. Aside from personality, an educational background of at least high school level is mandatory to efficiently convey the message you want to tell your clients. continue reading…

A virtual tour provides any potential buyers with a three hundred sixty degree view of your home. It enables them to actually see how all the spaces of your home fit together in real life. Long before you actually consider marketing your home, you should begin to carefully organize the components that are to be included in this tour. Every room should be cleared of any furniture that is not absolutely necessary. This will automatically seem to increase the size of each room.

The filming of this tour could be achieved by hiring a professional photographer to take the photos of the house. He/she would then assemble them into a video production. This process could be a little expensive. On the other hand, if you feel confident enough, you could actually take the necessary photos and compile them yourself; downloading the essential compiling software from the internet. Remember, the tour should be interesting, captivating and self explanatory. Make good use of any creativity skills you may have. continue reading…

If you are part of the real estate industry today you are probably trying to find new ways of generating leads. Without leads, there is no business that can be a success. Your leads bring in new clients and more sales after all. There are many ways to generate leads some are more successful than others.

One way that Realtors and investors have always used was to buy them. But this is not always the most effective method for getting profitable leads.

When buying the leads you are getting names and contact numbers of unknown people who are not familiar with you. They do not know your reputation or anything about your background. They also have not asked for you to get in contact with them. You may also find that when you do get in touch with them that they have already hired an agent.

This method of getting leads is basically considered cold calling. With cold calling you are taking a big chance of being turned down. For the most part people do not appreciate be called, and being asked for them to sign you up as their agent. This is one reason that cold calling is on the way out. continue reading…

Modern real estate agencies are faced with a fairly serious set of problems. The current economic downturn began as the market took a heavy hit, and in order to stay profitable, agencies have been looking to all possible innovations in technology and approach. Internet marketing has been extremely helpful to some agencies, as have real estate call capture systems. These are systems based on toll free numbers that provide potential buyers with information on a home while simultaneously acting as a follow up tool for agents. When call capture systems are combined with online marketing efforts, the result can be improved sales and lead generation for real estate agencies and individual agents.

The specialized nature of real estate call capture systems is a very helpful feature in all marketing, particularly efforts on the Internet. Individual extensions can be assigned to different properties, so that off of a general toll free number, a customer can dial in to get information about a variety of homes. Agents can include these specialized extensions in online property listings, so that potential buyers are able to obtain instant information with a simple phone call.

A potential buyer might request an audio tour of the home, information about the house’s size and price, or any other details that the agent wants to impart. When the call is finished, the call capture system can prompt the potential buyer to hit a certain extension to speak directly to the agent. This can be a good, non-invasive way to generate quality leads for an agent. It can also forward the most serious calls directly to an agent’s mobile phone, establishing a direct connection that’s invaluable in making sales. The agent is easily able to differentiate calls coming from online marketing efforts from other types of calls, enabling the agent to change his approach based on the caller. The call tracking features of real estate call capture allow agents to carefully control their advertising budget, putting more money into online marketing efforts that are effective and cancelling ads that aren’t working. continue reading…

Most people dream of leaving that apartment in the city and moving into their own home in Suburbia. Realtors know this and they designed their brochures in very creative ways that leverage on a potential buyer’s desire of owning a new home. Pictures on a brochure may just be the push customers need to take the plunge. With so many options, what kind of brochure should you get? Here is a list of things that you should know before designing your brochures.

Things to Consider when Planning for your Brochure

What size is best for promoting real estate? Ask yourself another question. What product are you promoting? If you are promoting new homes, use flat page brochures. Many established real estate companies use flat-page brochures with sizes that range from 8.5 inches by 11 inches to 11 inches by 17 inches. Flat pages are good because there are no creases to distract customers from admiring the pictures. Make sure that it also contains all the relevant information on one side. Use high-resolution pictures that highlight the product in bright or low lighting. continue reading…

You have a property to sell…great! But now what? You need to advertise and let people know your property is available. When you start advertising, be sure to do the right kind of real estate advertising in order to generate leads, and only the best leads

1. Create a website. A website is a very valuable tool, especially for collecting contact information. With a website, potential buyers have the option to contact you through email. And don’t forget website ads. With website ads, you can create geographically targeted advertisements that search engines will pick up. A website is an easy tool to ease in order to generate leads.

2. For Sale signs. Don’t forget about the most obvious way to advertise. A good, old fashioned For Sale sign has been doing the trick for years and it still works in today’s market. Put a For Sale sign up in front of your house. You can put signs within a one-mile radius of the house. Eye-catching signs such as, “No Money Down,” or “Owner Financing Available” are especially effective. continue reading…