Land Banking Something Worth Looking Into - Passive Real Estate Investing

land·bank·ing

ˈlandˌbaNGkiNG/

noun

noun: land banking

1. the practice of buying land as an investment, holding it for future use, and making no specific plans for its development.

Land Banking A Passive Real Estate Strategy

Land banking is pretty simple. Like many things it boils down to buy low sell high. Buy cheap land in an area currently uninhabited, undesirable, or just plain cheap. If you think an area could grow and develope and get nicer over time there may be an opportunity to make some money as the property appreciates. 

In some cases to further add value, someone who land banks, as a real estate strategy may bring in power, water, sewers, and develope and subdivide the land for larger profits. This however is over my head and over the heads of probably most new or small-time real estate investors like myself so personally I would prefer a buy and hold strategy, selling off at some point down the road for a profit.

Lnad banking as an investment is nothing new. Several self made billionaires began by purchasing large tracts of land in California where the development opportunities hadn't happenned yet. Two of these individuals are Bob Hope and Donald Trump who have both been rewarded greatly from buying large areasa and holding the property until the market commanded a substantial return and that is when they sold. 

That said tread carefully as scams are a plenty in the sale of land and you run the risk of paying way over value for land if you're not a saavy investor.

Currently I'm just beginning the process of looking at buying raw land in Tulum, Mexico as it's a popular destination already, however as Playa Del Carmen and the Rivera Maya continue to develop further south, at some point probably all the way to Belize, I think it could be a good buy. I am hesitant buying property outside the country and from what I've heard to actually get good deals and quite honestly the way things are done down there, your not going to find much on sites like Realtor.com or online and the little you do find typically isn't deals. 

 

You really need to have some feet on the ground scouting out land for you, or even better you need to be in the area developing contacts. I'm also somewhat turned off that I will not be able to hold the property in my own name. This is typical and has been safely done for years, however it just seems odd as it's not the way it's done here at home. In Mexico you have to be 32 miles out from the coast or border to own land as a non-Mexican citizen. Obviously everything that appeals to me for the most part is beach towns and not the interior of Mexico

I'm still at the very beginning states of investigating land banking. I will do a follow up post and share what further info and strategies I find and will report back if I wind up buying anything.

In the meantime, if you have experience having done this or have info to share or even questions to ask just leave a comment in the comments section below.

Buying A Home Near A Starbucks Can Increase Your Homes Value - Who Knew?

I occasionally use the website Zillow to look for properties, look at potential rental properties I may want to buy as well as check the "Zestimate" of my homes, even though I know a Zestimate really doesn't serve much practical purpose and is more for entertainment.

Anyhow, Zillow occasionally will send me articles and e-mails on various topics. Recently they sent out an e-mail giving tips to home buyers such as how the lowest interest rate isn't always the best loan if there's pre-payment penalties or high loan initiation fees.

Can Buying A Home Near Starbucks Increase Your Home's Value?

Anyhow, one interesting thing they mentioned in the article is that homes near the Coffee giant Starbucks see an increase in home value just due to being near a Starbucks coffee shop. Who knew?

Now on the surface this may seem stupid, really someone is going to pay more for a home because it's near a Starbucks? Now personally I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks, I'm more of a Dunkin Donuts kind of guy, however I can attest to wanting to live near a coffee shop.

It may seem trivial but if you're a coffee drinker like me you have to have a cup of coffee before your day starts. I prefer getting my coffee out as opposed to brewing it at home. I realize it's not the frugal thing to do and is a waste of money, however it gets my day started and it's one of my few splurges. Also, I'm just getting a plain cup of Joe and not some fru fru milkshake coffee drink that costs $7, so not a huge loss.

I have never really lived close to a coffee shop. I often go get a coffee as soon as I wake up to enjoy at home while doing my morning routine before actually getting in the car and going to work. It may sound silly that one would choose to buy a home based on a location of a coffee shop however I have said before "man I wish I had a coffee shop down the street I could walk to" or even one a short drive away as opposed to having to drive clear across town wasting probably a half hour round trip just so I can have my coffee before leaving the house and starting my day.

Now as we all should know stats and figures can be twisted to say anything so we do have to examine, is it strictly having a coffee shop near the house which increases home value or is the main factor that Starbucks typically is going to open stores in affluent or improving areas and therefore home values are following good areas which would grow in price whether a Starbucks is there or not. Basically this could be that Starbucks is not driving home prices, but Starbucks is simply moving into and opening up stores in areas where home values or already rising.

I woulnd't make the distance of a Starbucks a prime decision point in my home buying decision, however that said it can't hurt to have a Starbucks or coffee shop nearby.

If you're interested in reading Zillow's article you can read it at the link below...


Starbucks caffeinates home values, too, and some cities see a bigger jolt than others.

Entrepreneurship Does NOT Mean Leaving Stress Behind - An Entrepreneurs Mindset

I think many people long for the day they can leave behind their day job and strike out on their own and become an entrepreneur. I think many people, myself included think that you leave stress behind once you leave a job.

The fact of the matter is nothing could be further from the truth. You leave one type of stress behind for another type of stress and in many ways being an entrepreneur is actually more stressful and requires more hours than being an employee. Being an entrepreneur however is also much more rewarding both from a personal standpoint as well as to your pocketbook.

Leaving Your Job To Be An Entrepreneur - Trading One Type Of Stress For Another

If we are honest with ourselves I think we can all admit we have slacked at our job from time to time. Whether it's feeling lazy for a day, a week, heck some people skate through their whole career. Granted job stability and security isn't what it used to be but that said I think most people realize and know there's a level of efficiency and work they must meet at a bare minimum to keep their job and many people skate by working at that level. In all honestly I can't blame you, many people whether it's right or not only work as hard as they feel they are paid to work.

When you are an entrepreneur there's no lazyness and no skating as how much you make and your success or failure doesn't depend on others or a company, it all falls on your shoulders. You can't blend in with the pack and just skate by, you are the pack.

Another thing about being an entrepreneur. At your current or previous employer I'm sure there's always an IT department to run to when your having computer issues or you probably have some type of mentor or manager to run to when a problem occurs. When you are an entrepreneur there is nobody to run to, you are the problem solver. If a computer breaks you have to either fix it, hire someone to fix it or a new one. There's no expense account that comes out of your own pocket. You are your own problem solver and though you can reach out to consoltants and businesses to help this all requires time and money.

I think people fail to realize these elements of being an entrepreneur. As someone who has recently left my job to focus on my business I can tell you I expected to be on cloud 9 and life was easy and in reality I'm just as busy if not more so than I was before working a fulltime job and running my business, probably in large part because now I am 100% dependent on income from my business.

Though being an entrepreneur is a challenge it's also rewarding as well. Though some days are stressful I do find myself at times just being very happy and proud of what I started and that I'm doing things on my own. I also like that my destiny, my success, and how much money I make is on my shoulders and not dependent on if my boss wants to give me a 2% cost of living raise.

Here are some things to think about if you are or are thinking about becomming an entrepreneur. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.

Flat Fee Real Estate Listing Services - Review & My Experience.

I was in the market to sell a rental property I owned. Most of my rentals are in the city of Chicago and I had one or two rentals still out in the burbs. I kind of wanted to consolidate everything to one area so was looking to dump a property in the burbs. Now I've sold houses on my own before and like many people say, it's not rocket science, if I can save myself 30K I'll do it myself. Your right, its not rocket science but having a realtor can be valuable for the paper work, doing the showings for you and is just more convenient.

Sometime back I had started a thread on a forum asking about inexpensive flat rate realtor services. I wanted to share my experience with others who may be wresting with whether to hire a realtor or go it alone. Now if you have time to kill may as well try selling on your own first, it can't hurt and maybe you save yourself 10's of thousands of dollars. In a time crunch however I'd almost have to say go with a realtor.

I wound up paying a company $250. They had a licensed Reatlor on staff but it was basically a flat fee self service type agreement. I filled out a document with relevant info about my home and picked a price to list at. I did do some research and looked at some comps before selecting the amount. I actually wanted to list it lower but a realtor working in my neigbhorhood urged me to list higher. Why I listened I don't know but I did. I feel I listed a bit high.

There weren't many showings, pretty much few and far between, especially for the market my home was in. I feel this basically boils down to a few reasons. First off, I was priced a bit high. I was selling in the winter when most families don't want to move plus all the Christmas chaos. I think would I have waited til Spring things would have moved quicker.

Secondly, they listed my property in a confusing way. It said something to the effect of this was a exclusive right propert and said I would show the home and do all the paperwork. This is not normally how self service listings appear. I feel this hurt me as people maybe wrote me off as a confusing deal or short sale or something along those lines.

After a few weeks with little action I contacted the companies appraiser to find out how far off on price I was. He actually really helped me out by talking me out of his services and giving me some info and advice which I really appreciated. He told me I was priced too high and also said this error mentioned above is scaring off realtors most likley.

As far as pictures the company I hired took pictures, I have a decent camera and though not an expert kinda enjoy photography. I threw their pics in the trash, well the trash box on my computer at least and used my own. Their photographer sucked. I feel like along the way I maybe made some mistakes with potential buyers and agents.

At this point I had another apartment building in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago and wanted to sell before that was off the market so decided to go with a traditional realtor. I did negotiate the commission to 1/2 of his normal commission as I buy and sell a fair bit of properties and he knew he could get more of mybuinsess in the future.

It wasn't that I couldn't handle the paperwork or anything like that but time was a factor if I wanted to pick up this other property. If this wasn't the case I probably would have held out til spring and did a price reduction. A few months prior to my listing I was even seeing bidding wars on some properties in my area.

After talking to several realtors I settled on a local realtor who specializes in investment properties, I figure maybe I'll use him sometime down the road as well. The property owund up selling in 3 weeks and I had to do almost nothing. Yeah it's great to save a few bucks but don't do this if you don't have a clue what your doing and don't do this if your in a rush, just go the route of a traditional Realtor.

Buying A Home Verse Renting In Your Twenties Good Or Bad? - Advice For Young Professionals

Okay, so you just got your first real job out of a college and are ready to move out of your parents house or move out of the place your currently living in roomates. Many people face the conundrum of whether to buy or rent?

Sure there's a million different articles on the internet as well as websites with calculators where you can enter figures in and see whether it makes more sense financially to buy or to rent but in this article I'm going to be talking about my experience as a Young Professional in my early twenties and buying a home. I'm going to tell you about what I liked about it as well as what I disliked about it as well as discuss other intangibles that you should consider if your wrestling with the decision of whether to buy or whether to rent.

I was a few years out of college in my mid twenties and was living with my parents. I had been holding off on renting or buying my old place as the job I was working out of college was a great job in my industry and I was paid well, however it was a contract position and I wasn't comfortable taking on the commitment of a 30 year mortgage when I had a secure job for only 3 months at a time. Well after the economy took a nosedive my contract wasn't renewed and I was out some time before finding a stable job. About a year and a half into my new job I had considered moving out and either renting an apartment or buying a condo, townhome, or single family home. After finally getting sick of living at home and not wanting to "throw rent money away" I decided to look into buying a place.

I had first considered condos due to a lower price point as well as less maintenance. What turned me off however was the high association fees. At least mortgage interest is tax deductable, however association fees or dues are not so though you often do get things for that money such as a gym and property maintenance essentially that is money that is completely lost.

Now part of my problem was I was looking at poorly run buildings where there were a lot of shortsales and foreclosures and due to this fees had increased as less people were paying into them. Don't get me wrong some condo communities give many ameneties for the price. One for example in my area has a free daily breakfast, free shuttle to the train station, boat rentals, free skiing, all types of events for young people and singles. All this for about $300. Other condos however were charging upwards of $400 for a dated mediocre property with no amendities aside from a tennis court with chipped concrete, certainly not worth that $400.

Eventually I shied away from condos in favor or either a Single Family Home or a Townhome. One other thing that tilted my decision, though I believe real estate should be looked at as a place to live and not an investment, especially following the housing crisis, I still think future value should play some role in deciding on a property and condos tend to appreciate at a lower rate than single family homes and townhomes. I also liked the idea of having my own yard for my dogs, to have people over for BBQ's, things like that.

Then I wrestled with the option of Single Family Home versus a Townhome or Duplex. I was finding single family homes out of my price range so I opted for a Duplex or Townhome.

After finally narrowing it down to a Townhome or Duplex I was faced with another question. Do I buy one with an association or no association? I decided I wanted no association as A. I didn't want to pay someone to cut my postage stamp size yard and shovel my one car driveway, something I could easily do myself. I also didn't want my hands tied by crazy rules as we have all heard so many horror stories about no satellite dishes allowed, fines for all types of things. Not being able to park your own car in your own driveway, etc.

I opted to go with no association. I looked in a neighborhood of Duplexes with no association and eventually bought one. Let me briefly digress to tell you I really wish I would have opted for an association for several reasons. Sure some associations have very high fees with very little you get for your money, however oftentimes duplexes and townhomes association dues are only about $100-$150 each month. Depending on the assocation what's covered can vary but generally they do your landscaping and lawncare as well as snow removal in the winter if you live in an area with snow. This may not seem like much and it may even seem a lot to pay to mow a small yard for example but I really wish I had opted to have this covered.

Though my lawn is small and doesn't take that long to cut, you don't think about all the tools and expenses that go along with having a lawn. You have to have a lawnmower which costs a few hundred dollars, you need gas and oil for that lawnmower as well as Spring and Fall maintenance on it. You have to buy mulch, paving stones, fertilizer, shovels, sprinklers, hoses, etc. All this stuff begins to add up. Also, though you may think you can handle the work on this relatively small yard just fine, keep in mind your a young person, you probably like to be out with friends on the weekend, having fun, traveling, and probably don't want to spend your time in your yard doing yardwork, even if it is a relatively small amount of yardwork.

The biggest factor in my opinion however in terms of why to choose an association is exterior maintenance. With most associations in townhome or duplex communities part of the dues go to a fund to pay for exterior maintenance on all the properties. If for example you need a new roof over time, or new siding, with an association generally that's covered with no fees to you,however without an association that stuff ads up to big money. Also, even something like damage to a roof or siding in a storm without an association that's on you to repair, with an association not only is the money covered by them but they hire the workers and take care of the whole shebang leaving nothing for you to do which is also a bonus.

Looking back I wish I would have opted for a place with an association because although it may feel to you as if your throwing away money, if you find a place with reasonable association dues or fees and you actually get a good amount of maintenance and insurance for that fee, it will save you time and money in the long run.

Well, I just wanted to briefly touch on my experience in choosing between a Condo, Duplex/Townhome, and Single Family home as well as my thoughts looking back on that decision as well as the decision to go with an assocaition versus without an association another thing I wanted to touch on was just the experience of being a young person owning a home.

There are definately positives to it. I enjoy having a home, it's something I take pride in, I enjoy having people over to my home and entertaining friends which as a young person can save money over going to the bars. It's fun having your buddies over on a Sunday for some beers and food and to watch a game. It's fun having a place to invite a lady over for dinner. It's nice owning your own place and not having landlords check up on you.

There are also downsides to owning a home though. It's a big responsibility. You essentially have a large bill  you owe for the next 30 years. As a young person you may want the flexibility to move to a new city for a job. Not that you can't do that with a home but it complicates things as you now have to sell your home or rent your home before you move.

Owning a home also somewhat locks you into a job. They say now days people change not just jobs but entire careers something like 6-8 times over their grownup working life. When you have a mortgage your are somewhat tied down to your job as you need a steady paycheck. Without a home if you want to explore a new career or even just find a new job your pretty much free to hop around. You probably have the ability to either move back in with family temporarily or crash on a friends couch for cheap rent. When you have a home however you really need a steady paycheck so switching jobs or careers is more difficult as well.

Back to some of the plus sides. As a young person you tend to have a lot of friends and associate with a lot of people. It's still socially acceptable to have roomates in your twenties and even early thirties and maybe you have friends looking for a place to live. This happenned to me and I wound up having two buddies move in with me. This was fun as not only was I able to have my friends as roomates but I was able to offer them rent cheaper than they could find elsewhere all the while they were paying my entire mortgage for me leaving only utitlies and insurance for me to pay.

I wound up having two buddies live with my for about 3 years and over the course of that time had my mortgage paid by them my entire time allowing me to either overpay on my mortgage and knock down the principal, or put money away into savings.

Currently I'm renting the home out and looking to purchase another property to live in while keeping that property as a rental property.

Though there are downsides to owning a home, especially to owning a home at such a young age, there are definately positives as well and overall I am happy with my decision.  Were I faced with this decision to rent or own again I would choose to rent again. A few changes I would make I may have opted for a Condo over a Duplex. Sure it's great to have a yard but it's also a lot of work and oftentimes if you find a good one condos can come with some fun amenedies such as pools, workout centers, business centers, etc. Were I to choose between an association or no association I would definately opt for an association providing I found one that covered lawncare, exterior maintenance and insurance for a decent price.

If your considering purchasing your first place and are wresting with the decision to rent vs. own as well as what type of place to buy leave a comment below.

Technology & Social Media for the Real Estate Professional

Technology & Social Media 

For the Real Estate Professional

Well, first off let me tell you I’m not a realtor so I will be writing this from the perspective of my observations. I did however buy my first home within the last 6 months, and currently have that home on the market. This is also obviously the first home I’ll be selling, so as a potential client of yours I have some tips to offer.

Pet Peeves your clients have...

Location, Location, Location...They say the number one factor in Real Estate is location. Not only is it important, but it’s an element that is unchangeable. It is also the number one thing your client wants to know about the property. People prefer locations for a variety of reasons whether it be close to an expressway, close to public transportation, near good schools, near parks, shopping, etc. So why would you not post the location of your property? 

There is no good reason to not post the location, and the only plausible reason I can come up with as to why you wouldn’t post it is because it’s a bad location. When I was looking at homes if Realtors didn’t post an address or at least the nearest major cross street I would not even bother to continue looking at this home. I also definitely wouldn’t work with the realtor. 

Posting a location allows your potential clients to hop on google maps or www.zillow.com and look at a street view of the home and neighborhood, potentially saving both you and them the trouble of looking at a home they may not be interested in after seeing it’s near train tracks, a power lines, a hospital, a school, a busy road, etc.

Price... Again, why wouldn’t you post the price of a home you have listed? Again, as a potential buyer the only good reason not to post a price is because the place is overpriced and you’d like them to see it not knowing the price, fall in love with the place, and then hope they will pay the overinflated price or closed to it. 

Be it  a menu at an expensive restaurant, a vacation package, or a car; the only reason not to post a price is because it’s not a good price. If you don’t post a price I don’t care enough to contact you to find out what that mysterious price is.

Pictures... What the property looks like is critical to me buying it. Why wouldn’t you post a picture of the property? I see countless posts on craigslist with no price listed, no location listed and a generic cartoon picture of a house. If I don’t see the picture upfront I will not contact you to ask you to send me pictures, I will move onto the next listing that does have pictures. 

With technology today you could literally within 3 clicks of your thumb and 30 seconds have photos of a property on the web; so why don’t you??? If taking photos and posting them is too much for you to handle you should either hire someone to handle this aspect of your business or get out of the real estate game.

Pictures & Videos

I mentioned this in my pet peeves. Pictures are a must if you are a Real Estate Agent. Videos are not quite as essential as photos but it’s a great tool to have at your disposal. It doesn’t cost much if anything, and it gives you, and your listings something that most others won’t have.

As a buyer I like looking at pictures but I also realize pictures can be somewhat deceiving. When it comes to things like room size, colors, textures, a picture often just doesn’t do it. A realtor is also obviously going to take pictures that show the property in the best light possible. Seeing the actual property may not be quite as nice.

A video allows me as your potential client to get a feel of what it’s like to come to this property, walk in the front door, go to the kitchen, walk up to potentially my new bedroom, etc. It even allows you to maybe take a quick stroll through the neighborhood and get a feel for the traffic in the area, if neighbors are outside playing, working the in the yard, etc, basically just gives you a feel of the area as well as the actual home. Something you just can’t get from a photo.

I can do a follow up article on exactly how to take video, how to upload videos, how to host videos, and how to use videos in your listings. For now however, were going to keep things relatively simple.

As far as the type of camera to use for your video, you have many options. Most new smart phones have pretty good video cameras these days. You could potentially shoot and upload video with your phone in a matter of minutes. You should however already at least have a digital camera if you are a Realtor. You will most likely be able to use your digital camera to shoot video.

Most newer digital cameras have a video feature. If you don’t yet have a video camera or a digital camera consider buying one. You will definitely get plenty of use out of it in your Real Estate business as well as on family vacations and in your personal life.

Many websites, articles, and people in Real Estate are crazy about these Flip video cameras. They are easy to use. It’s also nice because the USB port to hook it up to your computer is actually part of the camera. You have no USB cables to lose, plus you always have the ability to hook your camera up to the computer and put video of a new property up onto www.youtube.com or even directly onto your listing.

A better route would be to run out and get a digital camera with a video feature. The sound will be better, the picture will be better, the zoom will be better and best of all it’s comparable if not cheaper than a Flip camera. You can pick up a Canon Power Shot for barely over a hundred bucks on www.amazon.com, I even have an Amazon widget on the side of this page with the actual camera model I use if you’d like to check it out. I personally think this is the route to go, and digital camera with video functions are pretty simple to use.

Editing

Again, I’m going to keep this relatively simple, if you are interested in learning how to edit videos for Real Estate purposes either e-mail me or leave a comment below this article and I will post a follow up article with step by step instructions. For now however I’ll just briefly touch on editing.

When it comes to editing you have two choices. You could hire someone to do your editing for you which will be costly and a bit of a pain coordinating it, and expressing what you want done. The other option is to do it yourself which is surprisingly simple.

When it comes to doing the editing, you basically have two choices. Both should be free if you have a relatively new computer. Mac has a program called iMovie. I don’t care for Mac or any Apple devices so I use Windows Movie Maker on PC. To make a simple video you just open up Windows Movie Maker, click upload music or video, select the file and you have a video made. You then just click the Youtube icon and it begins uploading the video onto youtube. It’s as easy as that, you just made your first video walk through of a property.

If you’d like to have your video look a little more finished and professional it’s very easy to add title pages with the properties address, your contact info, price, etc. You also are able to add music and animations like pages disappearing into the next. I won’t get into that now but again, e-mail me or leave a comment if you’d like a follow up article and or videos on how to do this.

Posting Your Videos

 

This was just touched on in the previous section but we’ll add just a few aspects to this. Posting is very easy through Windows Movie Maker. Once your video is complete just click the Youtube logo in the upper right hand corner and your video will begin saving and posting to Youtube.

There are various other places to host videos online but I like Youtube for a couple reasons. First it’s easy, people are familiar with Youtube, and people know how to navigate Youtube. Second, Youtube gives you a whole new market for your homes. Youtube has millions of viewers. Those millions of people all have a chance of stumbling across your videos.

If you want a different site than Youtube for whatever reason, there’s plenty of other video hosting sites such as www.vidilife.com , www.fliqz.com , www.brightcove.com , or www.photobucket.com, along with a few dozen others. Again, the reason I personally prefer www.youtube.com is because the reasons I mentioned above, but also because it’s a Google product. If you have a Google account you can have your Youtube account in the same place along with a Blogger account incase down the road you’d like to start a Real Estate blog. It also has Picasa, which is a photo editing and photo hosting site. Basically you can have all these tools in one place without having to visit half a dozen sites and remember half a dozen passwords.

What to do with these hosted videos?

So now you may be wondering, great I have these hosted videos but what do I do with them. You can put the links to the videos in your MLS listing so when potential buyers are checking out your homes they can also see a video along with the pictures.

This is great not only because it separates you from the pack of other agents and properties; but also, as I mentioned before, someone watching a video may decide they don’t care for a property without ever having seen it saving both you and them time. This will allow you to narrow down the time you spend together house hunting on properties that will work for the client. If you’ve ever had one of those clients who drags you around town for months on end showing them property after property, this tool will be invaluable to you.

Back to the topic of what to do with these videos though. In addition to placing them on the MLS you can also add them to other sites you post properties on such as Craigslist, Yahoo Real Estate, Zillow, Trulia, Blockshopper, etc. If you decide to start a blog you can also embed these videos directly into articles you post to your blog. You can also have these videos on your facebook page, your myspace page, and well your at it why not send a few tweets telling people about the property while including a link to watch the video.

How about a Real Estate Blog???

In my search for a new home I was curious about a Condo development I wasn’t that familiar with. In searching on the Internet and www.City-Data.com, I wasn’t finding much info about the complex, what it’s like to live there, etc. I wound up stumbling across the blog of a realtor who blogged specifically and solely about this large complex. It became clear to me from reading this blog that this Realtor was extremely knowledgeable about this complex.

My home search is temporarily on hold until I sell my current home, however once I sell I definitely plan on contacting this Realtor to show me these condos. This is a perfect example of how a Blog can help your Real Estate Business.

Not only is a Blog a great way to display your knowledge of Real Estate and also certain areas in your community; it’s also a great way to demonstrate your competent with technology. If I’m planning on listing my house and have one Realtor who knows how to use the Internet to sell properties and another who can’t figure out how to work a digital camera who do you think I’m going to go with?

A blog could be as simple as pictures and videos of properties you have currently listed. This is better than nothing but it’s really not that interesting to readers.

A great way to draw attention both to your properties and to you as a realtor would be having a blog about real estate topics such as how to give your home good curb appeal, how to de-clutter your home for better showings, etc. 

Basically give people ideas that will add thousands onto their sale price. Doing this will both display your knowledge as a realtor as well as give people a reason to visit your site. In turn learning about you and your Real Estate business as well as the properties you currently have on the market.

Social Media for Realtors

Social media is important and something that can help your business grow. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and Photobucket are all valuable tools that cost you nothing to use.

You may be asking yourself, how will these sites my kids play around with help my business grow. First off people use these sites, and other realtors use these sites. If you’re not using them you have less exposure to potential clients than other realtors.

As a first time homebuyer, picking out a realtor and the entire process can be intimidating. Normally the process of selecting a Realtor is seeing a smiling man or women on a bus stop bench or shopping cart and calling them. You look at a few properties with them and if you don’t mesh you move onto the next Realtor.

By having a presence on the web, specifically on social media sites you give yourself an opportunity to show your face, give a friendly introduction, and share the knowledge you have as a Realtor. Maybe you’ve moved a lot in your life. The about me section of your facebook page would be a great place to say something like...”I’ve moved around a lot and understand it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all  complexities of moving. Having to sell a home as well as shop for a new one. I understand it’s easy to become overwhelmed and would love to share my knowledge and experience with clients to help them during these stressful times.” 

Btw, having a social media presence also allows you to demonstrate that you are skilled with technology and the internet. If you have a presence on the web and your competition doesn’t you have that many more avenues to sell someone’s home for them.

Another reason for you female Realtors to have a presence on social media is because men buy houses. Men are extremely stupid. I can say this because I am a man. A friend of mine recently suggested I use a Realtor he knew. Was it because she had sold the most properties out of anyone in her office? Was it because she was recognized as top Realtor of the year in our state? Nope, it was because as he put it...”She’s super hot dude.” When selling the biggest investment of your life, something that potentially can either gain you or lose you a years salary if not more you’d think you’d want to go with a Realtor who’s experienced and knowledgeable. However just as my story illustrates, there’s plenty more idiots like my buddy out there, and if you have a pretty face and a social media presence that may get you some business as well.

In addition to social media being a way to communicate with your clients social networking is also a great way to network with other Realtors. Sure you probably talk regularly with other Realtors within your office but you probably have many other acquaintances from different brokers you see on a regular basis. 

They have homes they need to sell and you have buyers who need to buy homes or vice versa. Having a presence on a social network like Twitter allows you to send out a Tweet to those Realtors letting them know about a great new property you listed. Or maybe you have a friend at with another broker who is looking for a home for a picky buyer and you have a listing you think may be the perfect place. Visit their Facebook page and write something about it on their wall. Not only will they be aware of the place but anyone who frequents their page will also see the property on their wall along with your contact info.

Wrapping Up

We just briefly touched on the different aspects of social media and how it can help grow your Real Estate business. I’d love to hear your comments as to whether you agree or disagree with what I’ve said. Are you implementing some of these tips into your business? If so how is it working out for you.

Because I just briefly touched on these topics maybe there’s something that piqued your interested and you’d like additional info. If so feel free to e-mail me at rulesforrebels@gmail.com or leave a comment below this article. If you request it, I’d be happy to do a follow up article in more detail on a specific topic or even put together a how to video tutorial on how to do some of these things.

I’m also happy to do some consulting work to help you establish a social media presence for your Real Estate business or just to help teach you how to take videos, upload videos, or make a video walk through. Just shoot me an e-mail.