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Have you been having difficulty renting your property out?

No Responses on your Rental Ad?

This is for you!

The world of advertising is changing fast and you are getting left behind! Only a few short years ago, landlords were able to put a rental ad in the newspaper, and would be receiving calls off the hook! You could get higher rental charges and had an abundance of prospective tenants to choose from. This is not the case anymore! It is a renter’s market and you need to get with it!  You are up against property management companies and savvy landlords, who have fancy gadgets and sophisticated systems for attracting renters. I will take you through the process that I use to ensure my rentals are filled!

The Future is Coming Fast!

If you are not already aware of this, the top most trafficked websites currently are Google, Facebook, and YouTube! Therefore if you want to get a tenant to rent your property, start thinking about where your target audience is!

From a demographics study at Havard in 2003, they found that 80 percent of renters are  25 years of age and below! I can only imagine that this stat has greatly increased due to our current economic situation. This means that your targeted audience is on the internet!! Forget the newspaper ads! They cost too much, and the only people who are looking at classified ads in the newspaper are prehistoric cavemen. Neanderthals do not make for good tenants. Trust me! Go to the Interweb!

The Social Network

Social networks are on rise, and this is where and the kids are hanging out! Use your existing network of friends to market your property!

Everyone needs a place to live, so most people won’t be offended (I hope) if you put your rental advertisement of Facebook; just be cool about it! Don’t spam your friends!

There is nothing more repulsive, than continuously getting unsolicited messages from a group you didn’t even join! This is lame!

The next social network that you may want to try is Twitter, though I’m not speaking for experience of this one. I’m not sure of its effectiveness!

Please let me know, if it has worked for you!

After hitting the social networking sites, let’s move on over to Google!

Google It

Put yourself in the renter’s shoes! What would you do?

Let’s say that you are moving to a new city.

You will do two things when trying to find a place to live:

1. Talk to their friends on Facebook
2. Search for rentals on Google

So what do you do about this to target your renters?

Go to Google and type in something along the lines of, “Room for Rent, or House for Rent” and then the city that your rental property is in!

Now we all know that there are few people that will go to the next Google page, so naturally you have to have your rental ad on the sites of the 1st Google page.

Hit the top 5 rental services and post your ad on their website. It may cost you around $50 for all the ads, but it will pay off, in that you will be getting loads of responses, enabling you to chose the tenant that will care for your property that best.  The top sites that come up for me, were Craigslist, Kijiji and EasyRoommate.

Don’t Fight the System, Use the System! Let everyone else compete over SEO on Google! Don’t waste your time!

You should be hanging out in tree forts in Brazil!

Your Ad is the Key!

It is extremely important that your rental ad is tailored and attractive to prospective tenants. You want to paint a clear picture for the type of people you are looking for! Your ad should give the renter a good idea of what the rental is all about, before they even contact you. This is best done with high resolution photos.

If you don’t have photos of your rental, you are hopeless!

We have already started to see real estate agents use video in their ads! Think about linking a Youtube video to your rental ad to give yourself a competitive edge.

Remember! Don’t include details in your ad that tenants could care less about. Its all about the renter!

Write for the renters needs!

The 5 W’s

What I use for my rental ad are the classic 5 W’s:

Who, What, Where, When,Why?

Who will I be renting from? Who will I be living with?

What are you renting out? Is it a room, a suite, a house?

When does the rental start? Where is the house?!

Why would I want to live in your house?

Create Once! Use again and again!

Take the time to develop a system of advertising!

Next time you have a vacancy, you can pull out your system that you’ve previously developed, and use it again and again!

No more headaches! Way more tree housing in Brazil!

Thank You for Reading DoorMouse!

This is a good start to developing a more effective way to reach your audience and develop a stellar rental ad!

The world is changing fast and you best be adapting to it!

I encourage any comments, please leave them below! If you liked this post please check out my Blog at http://www.doormouse.ca

I hope this has been helpful in improving your Rental Property Advertising! And I wish you all the best of Success!

Best Regards,

Brendan Benson

Whether your old school or on the cutting edge of technology in your dynamic real estate business, everyone needs a website in this day and age. The benefits of having a real estate website are many in number, and the risks of getting left behind without one are very real. So, what exactly are these benefits? Read on for a brief sample.

1- Build a Strong Web Presence

Get found easier and instantly, via Google searches or links on other sites. Have your office’s address, phone numbers, e-mail address, logo, current listings, and specialization displayed at the click of a mouse. Show up in more places, under more categories, and associated with specific strategic keywords. If you combine your real estate website with the rest of a comprehensive marketing campaign, people can find you in so many different ways, your business will be hard to miss!

Make sure to create a listing on Google My Business for local listings, which are area-specific. Yes, you can select who sees you first, depending on where they live.

2- Generate More Leads

This is a no-brainer. Gone are the days of paying thousands of dollars for Yellow Pages ads and highway billboards, hoping enough people will see it and maybe call your office. Do you also want to pay someone just to answer the phone for you full-time, and rely on methods that the average client no longer uses? Your real estate website is like your modern-day “head office”. This should be the first and most important place your potential clients find you, and if you use an online form to collect client info, then the real estate leads are immediate, free, and warm. A website can also serve as the place that you direct clients to your social media, or vice versa, and have the public sign up for your impactful newsletter for regular announcements.

You’ll also now have a thorough database of potential client info for ongoing listings distribution or announcements.

3- Provide More Exposure to Your Properties

The bulk of a real estate website should be dedicated to property descriptions. This is the opportunity to display full-detail descriptions, brilliant digital photography, and 360-degree virtual tours. You can use as much or as little space as you like, provide clickable links, and make it a more interactive experience for the visitor. The listing created on your real estate website can also be shared (for free) via external links to your own social media pages, other real estate websites, community websites, or anywhere else your marketing efforts lead you.

Again, gone are the days of paying for paper advertising in a weekly or monthly magazine with black and white photos, lost among thousands of other listings in the same book. This just isn’t effective anymore, and can even be a waste of money.

4- Tell Them More About You

A real estate website is the perfect place for potential clients can learn more about you as a professional. This is more important in real estate than almost any other service business. Talk about and splash photos displaying awards you have won, events you participate in, community involvement, as well as your personal background and qualifications. When people get to know you this way (as an individual) they get to like you and trust you. This complements your social media and other real estate marketing strategies perfectly.

5- Tell Them About Your Business

Why wait for a local journalist to write an article about you in the paper or local magazine? Want to be known and respected in the local community? Modern technology puts the power back into your hands. Put the information out there yourself, and draw readers in to see it through strategic web techniques.

For no extra cost, you can regularly publish and update details such as the regions you work in, your years of experience, and areas of real estate expertise. Do you have a knowledgeable team? Are you influential in a hot part of town? Do you specialize in condos, revenue properties, or commercial buildings? Put that out there, forever and visible to the entire world. Include high definition photography and videos to reinforce the message, and make a strong first impression they won’t forget.

6- Create a Brand for Your Practice

If you’ve never succeeded in transforming yourself (and your practice) into a brand, or maybe never thought about it, then this is the way. Think about the biggest, most successful, “celebrity” real estate brokers in your area. They are household names, aren’t they? The public is familiar with their names and faces, the same way they know the name of the local grocery store, florist, or school. Top of mind awareness is ultra important in any business.

Think about it. Your picture everywhere, a logo people will remember, a slogan that rolls off the tongue. A properly executed real estate website can begin this process for you, and position you and your agency as the brand of choice in your local market.

7- Use It as Part of Your Listing Presentation

A listing presentation is what an agent shows to the home seller to convince them that he/she is qualified to sell their home. It usually includes stats, a marketing strategy, pricing, relevant experience, and the added value the agent brings to get the job done. If much of this information is already on your website, you save time and effort. Maybe your potential seller already saw a lot of these details and is already impressed by you before even placing the first call.

8- Exchange Information More Easily

No need for potential new clients to call and wait to speak to your receptionist. This small gesture alone can turn off the ultra busy and impatient 25 to 50-year-old shopper, who is used to having questions answered instantaneously these days. No more need to set up an appointment, drive to meet each other, and invest time just for some initial “this is how we work” info. All this can be accomplished with a few brief lines on your real estate website, which people can read within seconds and move onto the next step.

No need for clients to wait for a form to arrive by fax, or stay on the phone during business hours, to fill in their personal info.

This also allows existing and potential clients to provide feedback in an open forum, so you know what they’re looking for. All this can be done 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and not just during your office hours (when potential clients themselves are most busy).

Are you looking for a profitable commercial real estate investing opportunity? Below are some helpful tips for locating a commercial property to buy.

Before you start your search, you need to decide on your desired property type. Determine the size, type and the location of the commercial property you are looking to purchase. It is possible that you may be looking for a multi-tenant office building instead of a small single-user office building. In such cases, make sure you are clear on these distinctions before you start your search.

Once you have the type of property clearly in mind, there are a number of sources you can use to locate that property:

Internet

The internet is a great platform to use to locate a real estate investing opportunity. There are several commercial real estate industry sites that give you detailed descriptions of properties offered for sale, as well as videos and other statistics that can be a helpful complement to your search. In addition, there are websites that are hosted by professional commercial real estate agents that will show listings of commercial properties for sale.

Another good source to use on the internet is to connect with user groups and real estate forums that can help you in your hunt.

The only downside to the internet is that it can be restrictive, especially if you are looking for a local commercial property. Most local areas do not have a multiple commercial listing service for commercial properties like the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) for residential properties so listed properties are not readily available to research.

Networks

Networking is another good technique used for finding properties. All you have to do is to visit your local real estate investment group and discuss your needs, clearly indicating the specifics of the type of property you are looking for as well as the financial requirements.

The same approach is valid at Chamber of Commerce meetings. You can also join groups of apartment owners, building owners, and associations of shopping center owners.

Professional Commercial Realtors

Last but not least, you can seek the assistance of professional commercial realtors. Good commercial realtors can be a great helping hand in your hunt for commercial properties. Not only will they provide you assistance but they will also help you in locating the most suitable property for your specific investment plans.

Sellers typically are represented by brokers and it is in your best interest as the buyer to have your own professional representation in any transactions you enter into. If you are worried about the realtor fee – it is usually paid by the seller and, therefore, you do not have to bear any expense.

In summary, homework is important if you wish to find a commercial property that suits your requirements. So do your homework and get the professional advice of a commercial real estate broker who will look after your best interests.

There are a lot of financially lucrative real estate investing opportunities in the marketplace. Good luck with your hunt!

The value of real estate has appreciated in the last few years. It also shows great potential for growth. Hence, now might be the best time to look at an investment in property. However, if you’ve spoken to someone who already has his knees deep in real estate investing, you will realize that a lot of things are easier said than done.

It requires skill and experience to scour the market for high value properties.

Then comes landing good buyers.

Finally, there’s a humongous amount of paper work to handle.

This is where real estate investing softwares might lend a hand. They automate the entire process of real estate investing. If you would like to know more about such applications, here’s a low down on some of the common features they offer.

Lead generation –

At the click of a single button you are able to find a comprehensive list of buyers and sellers scattered across the country. The information elicited includes names and mail addresses of buyers, owners of properties, the type of property (bank owned, foreclosed, low and high equity, absentee owner etc.) and amount of cash paid.

Website creation –

Every business needs a website, especially if you do not have a physical location from which operate. Not all of us know the technicalities of writing HTML codes and designing a website. The real estate softwares can help you create targeted and user-friendly websites that you can use to showcase your business.

Direct mail generator –

Marketing is the soul of a real estate business. The more you network the more leads you can generate. The direct mail generator feature helps you setup a highly productive and efficient mailing system. You can send out emails, newsletters, posters and flyers.

There are a range of pre-made email templates you can use to send out messages to your leads. Autoresponders make sure you can keep in touch with sellers and buyers even when you are not physically present to answer their queries.

This feature is a highlight feature of most real estate software given that the savings in time and money are large.

Investing tips –

This is a section that most newbies can benefit from. Most applications include a resource library with info on the basic aspects of the trade. An open community of members can also give you an opportunity to interact and build your resource with real-time knowledge about making, building and closing a deal.

Diverse user base –

Modern-day automated real estate investing software applications cater to a varied group of investors. It includes those who buy, fix and flip properties. If you are a landlord, it can increase the convenience of managing your properties including finding tenants and repairing and renovating properties between subsequent deals. There are also features that rehabbers and builders of new constructions can use.

Contracts and paperwork –

Real estate investment also means a lot of paperwork. Most applications offer tools to generate contracts. Features such as auto-fill enable you to fill personal details into letters, contracts and other property-related documents. You can sign them online, and then email or fax them free of charge.

There is one thing – you need to be realistic. Real estate softwares are tools you can use to streamline your business. You should have a real estate business to start with and some basic know-how on investing.

You might have heard a lot of buzz recently in internet marketing circles about something called VRE. What is VRE and what can it do for me you might be asking yourself? Well this article will answer that question for you.

First off lets define what VRE is. VRE is an acronym for Virtual Real Estate or VRE for short. The term has been around internet marketing circles for a while but recently came into popularity when John Reese published a video showing his Google AdSense account earning. This was a stunning video because John Reese was earning each and every month 5 figures and up which is more then many people make in a year. So the video created a real stir of internet for struggling internet marketers. Who wouldn’t want to be making 10,000 or more each and every month? Not only that these profits were earned predominantly through the Google AdSense program which is a 100% passive money earner. Meaning you earn money from your websites while you sleep. This is great because there is no customer service or clients to deal with just you and your websites. There is also very little holding you back from creating obscene amounts of money this way online. The more sites you develop and the more traffic you get to these sites the more you will earn. What a great combination it seems like a winning venture all the way.

To take it to a little deeper level though virtual real estate websites are really not just about earning money online. It is a new philosophy in internet marketing or a movement of sorts to move away from spammy cheap link directory sites that use black hat seo techniques to earn money. What many internet marketers are discovering is these black hat websites are profitable only for a short time an then they get delisted from Google and other major search engines. So along came the VRE philosophy of building websites. The main idea is to build great quality niche websites that provide useful content for the site visitors and are built using white hat seo techniques so they will stay around for a long time. Thus the term virtual real estate is being used because like real estate these sites will just appreciate in value over time.

The what it can do for you part should be pretty easy to answer once you understand what VRE stands for. These quality websites can produce a huge profitable portfolio of sites that gain in value while earning you a nice monthly income.

So what is the downside? The only downside if you can even call it that is these websites take time to make and some knowledge to market. Just creating sites for the purpose of creating the sties will do you little to no good. If you site does not have any visitors and no one is clicking on your Google ads then they are worthless sites. So the internet marketer wanting to develop their own VRE empire of sites has to learn how to market the sites. This includes things like article submission, link exchanges and other internet marketing technique.