Posts tagged: how to get more sales in real estate

Did you know that you can sell your home and save commission using the latest ‘for sale by owner’ methods which are available? This means that you can profit and profit in a very big way by seeking out the services of a company that’s designed to help you sell your home so that you can skip using an agent all together. Pretty great, don’t you agree?

Nobody is crazy about the idea of using a realtor and for good reason. The typical real estate agent can be a rather arrogant person and somewhat pushy. He may insist that you follow his set of rules. He might tell you that you have to re-arrange your furniture multiple times or do something like buy new curtains so that your home ‘looks right’ in his eyes. Plus, he will undoubtedly give you all types of other directives which you may not appreciate too much. To add insult to injury, you will be told (often at the drop of a hat) to leave your home whenever a prospective buyer is coming for a walk-through. This can be very inconvenient as you can imagine – especially if you have small children and pets.

You may think that you don’t have what it takes to conduct a private real estate deal. But if you think about it, who knows your home better than you do? You purchased your home because of it’s unique character, charm, building style, features, etc. This makes you the perfect DIY real estate agent because you can tell interested buyers all the great things about your home and why you bought it in the first place.

You can literally save thousands of dollars in commission fees by using a service which provides you with everything you need to sell your home. For a nominal fee, your property will be advertised on many of the largest existing real estate websites for several months. You also will typically be given a ‘for sale by owner’ sign, a ‘sold’ sticker as well as a simple guide which walks you through the entire process of how to properly conduct private home sales.

An increasing number of consumers are choosing to use this type of service which makes it very easy to sell a no agent property. If you choose to go with a service which helps you sell your home the DIY way, you can expect to be given access to no-cost, ongoing professional advice and assistance from a licensed real estate agent who can guide you in the right direction so that you will not have that ‘for sale by owner’ sign in your yard for long.

Due to the less-than-optimal economic conditions we have been forced to live with during past few years most of us these days are watching our money and are ‘tightening our purse strings’ so to speak. Many people are drawing up household budgets, are becoming coupon-clippers and are watching for discounts and sales on everything from clothing to food – all in the attempt to save money. Consumers are also looking for ways to save money whilst selling their homes so it should come as no surprise that many sellers are choosing the DIY route.

Private homes sales are now routinely being done each and every day and are quickly becoming the norm in the real estate world. This is because an increasing number of home owners are realizing that selling their own properties is far easier than they had previously thought. And, because no agent is involved in a private home sale, all of the commission money is pocketed by the seller.

By taking the ‘for sale by owner’ path, not only can you save thousands of dollars in commission, but you also will have 100% control over the price you are willing to accept for your home. When you are using an agent, it is very likely that he will allow a buyer to ‘talk him down’ a few thousand dollars just because he is eager to close the deal. Don’t let an agent walk all over you – sell your home yourself and save a bundle as well as a ton of headaches.

When building customer-base for real estate, success is not an overnight feat. It will involve a lot of hard work. Letting other people know of your business or about the property you sell does not totally mean that you have to place lots of text-based ads all over. You have to be creative to excite your potential buyers. Here are some tips for your next real estate advertising goal.

1. Create a video walk through of the house. Take advantage of the technology offered by smartphones and drones. Using them plus your creativity, you can shoot at different parts of the house to present realistic view of what you are selling.
2. Build free offers to collect email addresses. If you are observant, you probably can see that a lot of websites and blogs have pop-ups offering free trials, free newsletters, pdf downloads of articles, and a lot more. By simply filling out the electronic forms, users can give you email addresses which you can later use to send out your offers of real estate properties being sold.
3. Be a resource person for local TV networks and radio stations. By being an expert person on real estate, you can actually gain the attention of local TV networks and radio stations. It’s like applying for a job but if you’re able to hook with them, you will have a great venue to advertise the properties in your portfolio. You can email them to send either a letter stating your endeavor or a short video presenting yourself as an expert and willing to be their resource person on subjects related to real estate.
4. Take advantage of the trending internet memes. Admit it or not, you are also among the bunch of internet users who are enthused with the trending memes we see. They carry a range of graphics ranging from animation characters, Hollywood stars, animals, and a lot more. Depending on the graphics and the texts that go with them, they become instruments to send-off messages to those who see them. With this said, then you can have memes that actually persuade people to buy the property you are selling or call them to action to avail your services as a real estate agent.
5. Have video testimonials done by previous clients. Go beyond the usual testimonials which are fully textual and placed on specific sections of the website or blog. Instead, ask for video testimonials from your past clients. Aside from presenting their real experiences, you present real people to potential customers.

Go unique. Go beyond the usual. Exhaust your creative juice to excite your clients. Real estate marketing is tasking and will need you to work your way to become a brand and an authority.

You’ve undoubtedly heard somewhere – television, the newspaper, online – that there is a whole lot of unclaimed property out there being held by the government. Maybe you even went to a state’s unclaimed property website and looked around and found some nice sums of money that were owed to people. If you poke around in your state right now, you’ll probably find at least a few people who are owed a few thousand dollars. The next logical step is to wonder how to collect finders fees for unclaimed property, by letting these people know about their money.

When learning how to collect finders fees, the first thing you need to do is to read up in your state’s unclaimed property code, and find out what the limit is for what a person can charge as a finder fee. In most states it is around 10%. Next, you’ll need to try to locate the owner of the funds. Often, they no longer live at the address the state has on file, and that’s why they aren’t getting notifications of their unclaimed funds.

Finally, once you find them, you’ll need to try to get them to sign a contract agreeing to pay you your 10%, before you divulge where you found the record of the money. Unfortunately, since most states have an unclaimed property website, if these people are smart, before they sign anything with you, they’ll go search the website themselves and collect without paying you anything.

Sounds pretty bleak, right?

This is where most people give up on learning how to collect finders fees altogether… and that’s why there are a few secret sources of unclaimed property still left out there that are making the few money finders that know about them rich. These funds are held outside the state level, and thus aren’t subject to finder’s fee limits. They are generally created from real estate transactions, and thus are often in the five figures, or higher. And best of all, they are never shown on the state’s unclaimed property websites, and their owners are almost always unaware of their existence.

If you can locate records of these funds (and there are a lot of them), and locate their owners, it’s fairly easy to get them under contract, process their claim, and get paid 30-50% per transaction. This is by far the best and easiest way to collect finders fees for unclaimed property. It’s a very simple process: find records, find owners, get signed contracts, process the claim, and get paid.

Are you running out of creative juice for your needed daily or weekly blog? Are you having some sort of repetitions just after two months or so? If you are in this situation, you’re probably thinking of how you can possibly sustain readership with writing ideas or topics that are sure to entice readers to follow you. Here are some topics you can write about for the next days.

Local activities which kids and teenagers would probably ask permission from their parents to join. Every community conducts activities for children and teenagers. These activities are geared to enrich the knowledge and skills of the participants. Most of them are conducted during summer months. But there are also some activities conducted during the other months of the year. These activities can range from art workshops, sports clinics, dance competitions, talent shows, and a whole lot more.

Current news in your local community and even important events of the nation. News affects all. Whatever is happening in the community and in the nation has impact to everybody. Discuss how these events can affect the families and individuals in the community. Assert your point. Give insights on how these events can shape the local real estate industry.

Present places of interests to your readers. Make your real estate blog a reference for readers to familiarize themselves with the community’s various interesting places. Let your writings take them to the vest restaurants, entertainment hubs, museums, shopping destinations, and even tourist spots. These local crowd-drawers deserve to have their spotlights on your blog. It will also help if you’ll notify merchants, establishments or entities which you’ll mention in your writing. Through this, you are getting them fueled to share your writings in their respective platforms. This will eventually increase redirects from their spaces to yours.

Dissect local market studies. Different studies present various insights. They send signals to buyers and sellers alike. Present statistics, data, and other information which will be valuable and influential to the decisions of your readers. Will this month be good to buy a house? Will next month see home prices increasing at least for your market?

Give tips, suggestions, and advises. Your blog can also serve as a communication line between you and your readers. Engage them in your posts through tips about home staging. Suggest ways on how they can better rearrange the room of their sons or daughters. Give advise on how to deal with noisy neighbors. There are plenty of topics in which your expert opinion and advise are warranted.

Turnkey websites are hot sellers on the Internet. They’re so popular, in fact, that they’ve given rise to a whole new business genre: the turnkey website reseller. This form of virtual real estate selling can be a lucrative online business to run.

Turnkey sites are, essentially, pre-built websites. They are the virtual equivalent of the “modular home”. These sites are ready-made to be uploaded to the Internet within minutes. The purchaser need only input his own information and text into the designated areas within the site’s pages. These sites are so-named because the purchaser can simply “turn the key”, so to speak, to get the site up and running.

Turnkey websites are popular because most Internet entrepreneurs are not expert Web designers. Internet developers who create new sites don’t necessarily have the budget to hire a designer to create a custom website from scratch. Turnkey sites eliminate the need for an expensive designer and cut down considerably on the entrepreneur’s costs.

Ironically, the demand for turnkey sites has spawned a new kind of online retailer and entrepreneur: the turnkey website reseller. These entrepreneurs open up their own virtual stores and sell site templates, plus hosting and many other features associated with this type of business.

The turnkey website reseller doesn’t need his own server in order to make money this way. Instead, he purchases server space at wholesale prices from a hosting company. He then resells that space at retail prices.

This kind of business is similar to the idea of buying a franchise business. The purchaser does not have to start a business from scratch. Instead, he purchases not only the business, but all of the equipment needed to run the business, including the product to sell.

The purchaser owns the business outright and is completely independent from the parent company. However, he has access to all of the products, equipment and support needed to run his business.

Turnkey website reselling works similarly. Resellers pay for a specified amount of server space. They also receive a certain number of turnkey website templates, which they can also resell to the public for a profit.

Depending on the parent company, the reseller may also be able to offer other features and services to its customers. Some of these include:

* Domain names

* Commissions on parked domains

* Bonuses, like Google AdWords gift certificates/credits

* Supplemental software and/or templates

* Ongoing access to new templates

Most turnkey website resellers also have access to ongoing support from the parent company.

A purchaser can set up his own website with his own domain name for his business. He is then free to market his turnkey websites in his own way. His customers need not even know that they are purchasing hosting from a secondary source.

The cost for running a turnkey website reseller business varies and depends on the kinds of features desired. Packages are available from as little as one hundred dollars per year to 50 dollars or more per month. The more features an owner wants to offer or have access to, the more he will pay.

Admit it or not, finding clients on the vast real estate market is very challenging. It is challenged by the existence of big real estate firms which employ hundreds of experienced real estate agents on their teams. If you are a newbie, you could easily be swallowed by the efforts exerted by the established firms. But have you ever think that they also started out as rookies in the field? If you are in this situation, here are some tips to at least give you a leverage on finding the right clients for you.

Create your own circle of offline connections and influences. As much as the online world is essential to widen your connections, the offline connections and influences is equally essential. Start with your family and friends. Then add your past classmates even those from your elementary days whom you still remember. Your teachers can be great additions. Move on to those whom you are tapping services as professionals such as your doctors, dentists, hair stylists, pet groomers and fitness coaches. The parents of your children’s classmates and friends can also expand your offline connections. If you have business contacts, add them as well. Don’t forget your neighbors. They can be great sources of referrals.

Build a better online network of friends. Through social media, you, as a real estate agent is bestowed greater power to enhance online connections. Your network can be a greater web of interconnected persons starting with your family members down to their own friends, acquaintances, friend of friends, and so on. Before you notice it, your network has expanded to include professionals of diverse titles not only in your locality but also in adjacent towns and nearby cities. If you think they are not relevant, you may be wrong with the impression. Anyone in your online network of friends can always be a great source of referral even those who you seldom see to be adding activities in their social media accounts.

Send mailers, both online and offline. Now that you have established both your online and offline connections, it is time to introduce yourself as the rookie real estate agent. For offline mailers, be sure to have a formal tone. Give your full name, license number, the firm you are connected too, its address, and contact numbers of you and the firm. Inform them of the services you are offering.

For online mailers, the same can be followed. But since it is an electronic form, you may want to add some enhanced graphics and video.

Create your own website. For personal branding, having an own website is an essential. This is where you can provide listings, value added services, frequently asked questions, and even informational articles that can help spark the interest of your potential clients. Support it with a blog, and connect it with your social media accounts in different real estate online platforms.

People generally get confused with the term real state and real estate Business. Real estate itself is not related to business as it represents a property of land and building that too, including the natural sources, such as flora, fauna, crops, parks, pools etc. that are immovable and lies in the property’s premises. Whereas real estate business is the profession of selling, buying or renting these properties.

Real Estate Agents

It’s a tough task to match the needs of buyer and property sellers, as buyer may not get his dream property and at the same time the seller also may not get the price of his wish. To establish a good connection between buyer and seller and to find the right buyer for a seller and vice versa, Real Estate Agents can be hired that are easily available in the market. Real estate brokers or agents are the ones, who acts as an intermediate between property buyer and seller and tries his level best to match their demands. Buyers for buying and property owner for renting or selling their property get in contact with the agent. The agent listens to their demands and try hard to fulfill them, for a property sold or rented in his supervision, the agent charges some percent of the price of that property from both the parties, i.e. the owner and the buyer. Agents use websites to promote the sale of properties, often work at nights and weekends busy in showing properties to buyers.

Things you should know about Real Estate Agents

Although agents are such a bliss to those who are struggling to get a property or a price of their interest, but we have to be wise when it comes to choosing an agent. Agents are not bound to show you best properties or tell you all the things they know, they might get greedy sometime and show you properties that are going to profit them more than you. On the other hand, for property owners they might end up, leaving you with paying guest that can trouble you in future, in fact, as the general goal of an agent is to sell the property as soon as possible, they may excite you and ask you to sell your property at comparatively lower prices than that you expected, and would be getting after some days. It’s better recommended to choose your agent and the other party to buy or sell wisely, after taking your time, and not to get excited on every other offer you get.

New Real Estate Business Mediums in market

Now-a-days many online sites and applications have been developed to remove the work of agents. Both the parties contact with each other directly and choose the deals of their interest. Though, this move has increased the transparency between both the parties, but because of being fully online, may result in misleading each other. That’s why it is highly recommended to see the property in person before booking it. As the thing that seems to be good and satisfying online can be completely opposite from that what you will be getting in real.

When you sell your home yourself, you are doing what is known as a for sale by owner, of FSBO. Many people choose to go this route to avoid hefty fees charged by real estate brokers. Avoiding these thousand dollar fees is just a good a reason as any to sell your home FSBO. If you choose to go this route to sell your home, you should keep in mind that the process requires some dedication, persistence, and a little bit of know how.

To sell real estate in Connecticut you must first determine the value of your home. This step is necessary so you can properly price your home. You can find out the value by doing some research on similar homes in your neighborhood that have recently been sold. The homes that are currently on the market are also a good indicator for valuing your home.

Once you determine a price for your home, the next step is to advertise it. One of the best ways you can advertise real estate in Connecticut is through use of a FSBO website. These websites allow you to list your home similar to a newspaper listing. Using a FBSO website increases your ad’s exposure to tens of thousands of people. This is the easiest and most convenient way to advertise your website since more people are using the internet to search for homes.

After listing your home, you will soon begin to receive inquiries. Some of these will be from people who are just trying to find out more information and some will be from serious buyers. In either case, you should be prepared to show your home to prospective buyers. Make sure repairs have been completed and your house is presentable for showing. The last thing you want is for your advertising efforts to go to waste because the house was not presentable.

The real estate world has seen a dip in the dealings be it leasing, buying or selling, especially in the recent times. In today’s tough economic times, making a new customer is challenging and so is retaining an existing one. Real estate agents have to be at their marketing best at all times and for it they need to be tech friendly.

You might be the best at what you do, but until you communicate it in the right way with the right tools, your efforts might be getting wasted. Technology and communication need to go hand in hand and failure in this issue can see you lag behind compared to your competitors. More importantly, there needs to be a balance between the two and to bring that balance in your profession you need to be working on both the aspects simultaneously. Everything from client communication, connecting with new customer database, sales pitch, after sales service and other such interactions need to be done effectively with the help of technology.

Being in the real estate business, you might have noticed that the presentation or bidding of a real estate agent lacking in the technological aspect affects the whole deal. So instead of avoiding technology why not adapt it to fare better as it will assist you in ways you couldn’t have thought possible. All you need to do is incorporate a few of the technological tools in your everyday dealings making it swifter for you and effective for the customer.

Here are some tips to get you started.

• Smartphone

If you are still using your old mobile phone it is time you switch to a smartphone with a data plan that lets you incorporate database tools. It will prove to be really helpful when you need to contact your prospective clients no matter if you are in the office or out on the go. You can do it all from your smartphone be it sending or receiving emails, browsing property websites, downloading real estate related news apps, communicate instantly no matter where you are.

• SMS marketing

SMS marketing is an highly effective way to keep in touch with your regular clients and even getting acquainted with new ones. Make it a part of your client communication strategy where you can send notifications, inform them about new properties on the market, send reminders for installments, invite them for property related events, send them links, details and other market related information.

• Email communication

Emails have become an essential feature when it comes to client communication. It is a quick and convenient way to reach out to property agents, builders, customers especially when it comes to commercial property clients. Make sure to use the best data software for both your computer and smartphone so you can send and receive e-mail even when on the go.

• Software

Many software packages are especially designed for the real estate industry and are available at affordable prices to assist the real estate professionals. You can integrate it in your system for database entry, facilitate management of broker, staff, leads, quotes, customer account, auditing and other processes. The softwares are designed to meet the ever-growing demands of the real estate industry and can be used by all, developers, builders, contractors, infrastructure developers.

• Website

Your personal website can boost your clientele and your work reputation as it will be easy for clients to know all about your work increasing the trust and dependability factor. They will have a gateway where they can access your property listings and inspection information related to all the properties that you have on offer.

• Presentation software

While presenting a property to many clients or a team you could make use of presentation software with the help of which you can add site photographs, 3D images, manage content, basically create an awesome visual experience for the client giving your property bid a boost.

All these and more can be a part of your everyday dealings when it comes to presenting, negotiating, selling or closing a deal. Like every other field, real estate too is embracing technology and it’s time you too go for it.

Good news for the real estate builders, who have been facing a slowdown in buying activities at least for the past 18-24 months. According to a report by Indian Ministry of Finance, a staggering rise of 40 per cent has been marked in the purchasing volume of properties worth more than Rs 30 lakh in fiscal 2006-07.

Inferences have been drawn that property and real estate has emerged up as the most preferred tool of investment among high Networth Individuals (HNIs) and upper middle class.

The Indian real estate builders are also keeping their fingers crossed over the emerging picture of real estate sales in the quarters between Oct-Dec and Jan-March, for FY 2007-08. The cut in home loan rates by all leading public and private sector banks from 50 to 100 basis points has also augured well for Indian property markets.

When they contacted Sanjay Chandra, the managing director of India’s second largest real estate developer- Unitech Group, he said, “Cut in interest rates combined with the onset of the festive season should boost residential property sales….

Those customers who have been postponing their buying decision in anticipation of interest rate cut are likely to come into the market now…”

Interestingly, the investor interest in India has been gradually shifting from equity, bonds and other financial instruments to real estate, owing to the way it has outsmarted the other investment options as far as returns are concerned.

Also, there was a dip in investor interest in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), once most sought-after tool of making money in short term, between April 2006 and April 2007.

Nevertheless, the real estate builders enjoy the trends, and say that property investment not only brings you wealth but a sense of future security, as well. However, the biggest challenge that a Real Estate [http://www.magicbricks.com/property/faces/jsp/indexc.jsp] investor has to face is the near term fluctuations. It may happen that your property values go down by substantial levels due to some concerns on the fronts of infrastructure, economic meltdown, or other micro and macro economic issues, and you panic. A long-term perspective is thus, one should always bear in mind.