Real Estate Blog

Real Estate Marketing Tactics

A real estate marketing tactic that works wonderfully for somebody else may not work for you. From useful tips to delicious recipes, customized real estate marketing post cards can leave positive and lasting impressions about you and your services at affordable prices.

Persistence - Repetition is a big part of real estate marketing. If you make them a staple of your real estate marketing efforts by pursuing them consistently you should be able to develop a steady stream of prospects and a solid income within 3 - 6 months, depending on your local market conditions. False: Web traffic = web leads True: Web traffic + lead generation = web leads I would say website lead generation is the most important aspect of real estate marketing online.

From this brief sample, you can see how attrition shadows all aspects of your online real estate marketing program. You’re the most powerful real estate marketing tool you own, whether you realize it or not.

As the revelation of practical uses for this new medium become more and more apparent to business owners, a new form of online real estate sales begins. Keep using them until the opt-in rate drops so badly that it isn’t worth wasting that precious online real estate on your site. Real estate online is so hot that Google is talking about creating a whole separate Google directory just for real estate.

Other online marketing courses and training modules are also as accessible as online real estate courses. Ezines - By getting your articles published in other people’s ezines, you can get a link on the most valuable real estate online, a targeted prospect’s email “inbox. Thanks to online real estate courses, even the plain, good housewife can now extend to others the secret to good home building.

Billions of dollars for online real estate advertising will continue to shift in the next three years. From this brief sample, you can see how attrition shadows all aspects of your online real estate marketing program.

Create A Dream Team For Your Real Estate Investing Business

One of the first things I heard when I started going to seminars to learn the investing business was that I would need a “Dream Team” of professionals with whom I would be working in my new company. People who know and can handle the areas that I can’t or don’t want to. There are several professionals that we probably all need as well as a few more who will make our lives easier and/or keep us out of trouble.

I was very surprised when I heard that we need to have a real estate agent or broker on our team. I had always thought that they would be my competition and it took me some time to come around to the other view. You will want to partner up with a good realtor in what should be a symbiotic relationship. He or she will run across people who for some reason can’t list, but still need help getting out of a problem and it will work the other way as well. She may be willing to provide help with comps when you are attempting to price a property. He can be the person who presents your offers on properties that are listed with a realtor, and on, and on…

You will obviously need access to a good title agent who understands the sometimes different ways that we do business. Simultaneous closes are one type of transaction that aren’t done often in the regular real estate world and they need someone who is up to speed on them. A good mortgage broker is a real asset on the team.

Your attorney specializing in real estate law in your area is an essential part of your team. If you are in a state where you don’t use title companies to close your deals, then all the more so. You will need someone who understands the various real estate contracts, reviews all of your forms to ensure that they satisfy local laws and practices. Things like AITD’s, (All Inclusive Trust Deeds, sometimes called Wrap-Around Mortgages), can be very confusing.

You need an accountant who keeps up with and understands the ever-changing tax laws and keeps you out of trouble while minimizing the amount of damage that you are subjected to. Both the accountant and the attorney will be critical partners when you get into doing 1031 tax-free exchanges.

You’ll need access to home inspectors to look over the houses to identify all of the issues before you buy them and contractors to fix the small things and rehab the big ones.

Once you establish relationships with most of these professionals, it shouldn’t break the bank for you to use them. It will be a two-way street in that you will be providing them with significantly increase business so they will be likely to give you reduced rates in return.

How Real Estate Title Insurance Works: Three Scenarios

1. You are about ready to purchase a parcel of real estate. Before closing the sale, you have a title insurance company do a preliminary title search to make sure there are no defects in your title. Everything is OK, so you arrange to close the sale as soon as the title insurance company can issue you a policy. The title insurance company does a last-minute search to make sure there haven’t been any changes, closes the sale, and issues you a title insurance policy.

2. The title insurance company finds that the seller’s title is fine, but alas - you are paying for the property with a bank loan, and the bank wants a mortgage on the property in exchange. So tell the closing agent to get you a title policy that makes an exception in its coverage for your mortgage. The bank, meanwhile, will issue the money only when it receives a title policy showing that it has a valid first mortgage on your property. Except for that mortgage, you’re covered against any encumbrances or other title defects on the property.

3. Your title insurance company checks out the seller’s title and discovers that it has a mortgage on it (probably taken out when the seller purchased the property). So make sure that the closing agent closes escrow only when the title insurance company issues a policy that does not list the owner’s mortgage as an exception to its coverage. Of course they’re not gonna do that until the mortgage is paid off, thus putting the ball in the owner’s court. But you can smooth this one over by agreeing with the owner that part of your purchase money be paid to the holder of the mortgage in order to extinguish it. This will clear up the title and cause the title insurance company to issue a policy with no exceptions, clearing the way for you to close the sale on your terms.

Real Estate Law

Real Estate also called immovable property includes the ownership and possession of land along with anything permanently affixed to that land such as buildings, garages, improvements and buildings. Substances that are beneath the land (such as gas, oil, minerals) are also considered permanently attached. However, other items, which can be attached to the land, but are not permanent, such as mobile homes and tool sheds, are not considered to be real property.

Real estate is often considered synonymous with real property as opposed to personal property, which includes all other property and is also called realty.

Real estate is one of the oldest areas of law and contains many archaic terms and concepts. Many consumers find the unfamiliar terms used in the real estate game trifling confusing when they enter the realty market. However, today we find that many of the rights and responsibilities regarding real estate have evolved and been updated as society has changed.

Owning real property - The real estate law says that when you own property, Intellectual Property, you have the right to do whatever you want with the land, except what is restricted by the real estate law. You have the right to use the land, rent or lease it, sell or transfer it, use it as collateral for a loan, bequeath it to a beneficiary or even just gift it away. You could also let it sit idle but in some cases, this may infringe on laws imposed by the state.

There exist some restrictions imposed by real estate law on owning real property. Although, on one hand, it is said that one can do whatever one wants if he owns the property, there are some restrictions imposed by the government - federal, state, country and local law enforcement agencies. Violation of the real estate law can result in hefty fines, penalties, injunctions and in some cases even criminal prosecution. The three most common restrictions are:

Zoning- Zoning laws restrict the use of the property with regards to residential, industrial, agricultural or commercial purposes. The size and height of improvements attached to the property are also subject to restriction. Environmental Hazards- This informs you of what materials can be stored on the real property as well as who is responsible for removing environmental hazards from real property. These would include government-regulated materials such as asbestos, lead paint, petro-chemicals, radon and toxic wastes. Public Easement and Right of Way- Some portion of the real property will have to be left open for others to use. Easements and right of way are used to allow access to other property to provide for roads and sidewalks as well as to enable electric/gas/telephone/sewer lines to be installed. Besides the above-mentioned restrictions, there are also some non-governmental restrictions like those of private parties that may be imposed on the use of your real estate property. For instance a real estate developer will have to decide on lot sizes, architectural design and vehicle parking subject to conditions put up in the purchase contract. The results for violation of private party agreements include an award of damages against the violator and injunctive relief.

In addition to the rights that you attain by owning real estate property, there are also several responsibilities and potential liabilities to others which result through ownership of real property.

You may own property subject to a mortgage. However, if you fail to pay the mortgage, the lender will take the property back A lien for payment of a debt can be placed against your property. If someone is injured on your property, you may be held liable to the injured person for all damages resulting from your negligence.

Real Estate Financial Perspective

Efficiency is the primary quality measured in the Financial Perspective, and with the Balanced Scorecard used as a measurement system, it particularly means that the strategy execution should lead to improved results. Planning real estate processes should be focused on the strategic importance of occupancy costs to define, manage and measure them. It will provide information of business’s true profitability and lead to more accurate valuation of real estate assets.

Occupancy cost escalation has a significant impact on how firms use their office space. If the business occupies too much space, it leads to overpaying that does not match the budget, and the company carefully reconsiders the utilization of the office space in an effort to reduce occupancy costs and achieve planned income goals. This primarily concerns law firms ? large consumers of office space. Among cost-saving measures there are strategies including moving support functions to less expensive space within a building or a combination of less expensive space and lower improvement costs which can also reduce location expenses. However cost-sensitive firms seek to measure and compare occupancy costs before considering facility relocation.

Sometimes it is problematic to assess true occupancy costs because of complex leases, billing procedures which often result in billing errors, and unexplained charges assessed by landlords and property owners. Besides, business costs can be disguised as occupancy costs and distort the productivity of a particular real estate asset. Without a good benchmarking system occupancy cost accounts are often used inappropriately and can hide the real expense of the use of an asset.

To solve these problems the National Association of Accountants (NAA) has established benchmarks for defining occupancy costs related to the use of real estate assets by business. The number of items which are assigned to occupancy costs can be broken into two types: those that fall under costs of operation and those that are associated with costs of providing the fixed asset.

Day-to-day operational expenses like maintenance, utilities, and management provide examples of costs of operation. Capital costs, property taxes, insurance, and depreciation charges refer to costs of providing assets.

Following the principle of charging costs to occupancy expense accounts as they would be charged in the open market, the NAA suggests four tests. The first focuses on the question if the expense reflects a cost of providing, maintaining or using real estate, while the others center on the cost as it compares to current market conditions. Accounting occupancy cost separately provides a basis for comparison, measure business performance exclusive of occupancy costs, and measure underlying real estate values separate from business performance.

On the whole companies consider Financial Perspective as a factor determining long-term profitability. One of the prerequisites for building up a profitable real estate business is assessing the corporate strategy shown in the balanced scorecard with regard to the perspective in question, assuming it is of key importance to business performance as it tells whether the strategy execution is leading to improved results.