Minnesota Real Estate Investors Association, Inc.

It has been a couple of months since I have been able to post anything on the blog. I have been rather busy lately as we have made a lot of changes around the office, and I was working on a new project that I finished just before the holidays. Hopefully I will be able to post more frequently now that things are starting to settle down a little bit again.

In December at out Monthly MnREIA Meeting, we had a great panel of REO agents. And we had one of our largest attendances in a long time, we usually have between 125-160 people at all our meetings, but December brought in 181 for the REO Panel. If you missed the meeting, the audio archive is available for MnREIA Members at www.MnREIA.com/Events.aspx?ID=REO-Agents-Panel-10-12-7-2010.

The biggest project I have been working on though is a Rehab Estimate Worksheet. The worksheet is designed to allow anyone, regardless of your level of experience to easily and quickly determine the estimated cost of a rehab for a property. First you have to setup some default costs/factors, which will be easy enough to determine the defaults, because it shows you the state/local and national averages, and with one click of a button, you can set your defaults to either the local or national average defaults. You can then come back and adjust each individual item as time goes on and you get a better feel for your own individual costs/factors. 
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It probably won’t work for you if you still think that it won’t. I used to think that for a few years because I wasted a lot of money on direct mail marketing a few years ago, so I stopped direct mail and migrated to online advertising and that worked for a while. But the pendulum has swung back again and I am now getting some good results from direct mail marketing again.

My response rates are still low, but the responses I am getting are better quality leads than I have been receiving from online advertising and fishing through the MLS. I started a couple marketing campaign s a couple of months ago, with little to no results. But I just started hitting the same list a second time and in the past week, I have received 4 good leads. One I have an offer in on a free and clear property, one the seller is still stuck in fantasy land and the other has two rental properties that need short sales, but the numbers look good enough to try them. 
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When it comes to all the technology and options that we all now hold at our finger tips, whether we know it or not, it’s important to recognize that because tools exist it’s not a reason to use them! There is a lot of buzz going, especially in a relatively new internet environment, that suggests that your business NEEDS to implement these tools. This message has its pro’s and con’s because it exposes people to new tools, but sends a message that they must be used. Such a message can really overwhelm and confuse investors who are just trying to get a grasp of the tools available. The confusion stems from one undeniable truth.

“Tools are meant to serve a purpose, not the other way around!”

We’ve been working hard to get the message out that it is incredibly essential to get a website (preferably one of ours because they are specifically made for investors with years of experience behind them), but when we pull you into the internet age we are bringing you into a whole Home Depot of tools.
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On our Monday night Training Webinar, I was asked a question from one of our students about driving traffic to their websites/Default.aspx" target="_blank">free website that everyone receives with their free account at Real Estate Promo. I gave them a suggestion to find another investor who has a property for sale right now and get their permission to market that property(s) on their websites. Then start creating ads on craigslist, kijiji, backpage and other online / offline marketing medias. This sparked a lot of interest and questions, so I decided to post a blog about the idea for everyone.

One of the struggles new investors have is activity. They spend all their time learning how to invest in real estate, but they don’t take a lot of action right away. This is probably due to fear and their misconception that they need to learn everything before they take any action. I am sure a lot of you seasoned investors can relate to this feeling of a newbie. Our Free Weekly Webinar Training is designed to not only to educate the new investors, but also to encourage them to take action, even if it is just small little baby steps to get started.

One of the struggles for seasoned investors is selling/renting their inventory. Personally from my own experience, my biggest struggles is when I have a property for sale, I spend all my time trying to fill the property that I stop doing what I am good at, which is locating and negotiating good deals. After I have that property filled, I then get back to finding more deals. All that time I have been marketing and driving traffic to my website. But if I don’t have any properties for sale on my website for a month or two, I am wasting good traffic from buyers, so I occasionally will market properties from fellow investors, just so that I have activity on my website. 
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While working with one of my students this week on the FREE Weekly Training Webinar, I received an email with a discouraging attitude about using craigslist. You see, I gave everyone the assignment of creating and digital flyer and posting it on craigslist. The assignment wasn’t meant to generate an immediate lead, while that is what we all want from our craigslist ads, the assignment however was to get them doing something to start the marking process.

Here is her email to me:

Hi Mike, I posted this ad on Craigslist, I put a code where it made the picture fill up the whole page. I got a big fat 0 number of responses. I went with a gloomy appeal. Please let me know if it sucks, as a newbie, I need all the help I can receive.

Here is my response to her: 
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I do a live weekly webinar training for real estate investors from all over the country. The weekly training is designed to help you either get started or get back on track. We have a vast verity of investors on the weekly training call from beginners to seasoned investors and one thing that I have been trying to emphasis on the training calls is that there is no one magical technique for success.

There are common traits and behaviors of successful investors, but they all have their own (sometimes unique) business models and they stick to it. However, in today’s rapidly changing market and economy, even those seasoned investors have been forced to change their strategies recently, myself included. That is why we have been seeing so many seasoned investors looking for answers.

I have been working with everyone to help them understand that one key fundamental to long term success in real estate, or any other business for that matter is the ability to change with the market. The market has changed and so must we.

So I am reaching out to all my fellow investors, new and old to find out what is working for you in your market? In the comments section below, tell us what is working for you, or what you have been doing lately. Then join us on the weekly training calls to continue this discussion on a weekly basis.
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Approaching your advertising can be a bit of a daunting task, but fortunately there is an old school approach that holds just as true now as it did 100 years ago. The formula for advertising success can be summed up into four little letters AICA (Attention, Interest, Conviction, and Action). It’s not just the 4 elements that are important, but also the order in which they lay.

• Before anything will peak someone’s interest it must first get attention.
• Before anything will convince someone it must be of interest to them first.
• Before anything will cause someone to take action, they must be convinced to do so.

The main point being that when you’re advertising you have 4 steps to walk your prospects through and between those 4 steps there are 3 bridges you must get them to cross once you have their attention.

There’s real beauty in the simplicity of this formula that gives you a great framework to analyze your current marketing as well as formulate new marketing:
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I’m sure by now that every real estate investor surfing the internet for information is well aware that the big 3 (Craigslist, Kijiji, and BackPage) are an essential tool in generating leads online. However, there is a disconnect between knowing and doing and what often stops people is ‘Where do I start?’ Well just starting and only having the idea in your head that you have to post doesn’t really leave much conviction for the poster if they don’t really understand the ‘why?’

Today we’re going to be covering the nuts and bolts of ‘The Big 3’ and laying out a game plan that answers the question ‘Why?’ Keep in mind this is to generate seller leads or to build your buyers list, if you’re posting properties then the recursion trick at the end isn’t going to be a factor since listing a property is time sensitive, as where lead generation is constant throughout your time as a business.
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In the first two installments of this series we covered how the internet can help supplement your core real estate tasks. However, for real estate investors the internet provides two incredibly helpful roles that every investor should take part in… networking and education! These are essentially two things that the inspired investor can’t ever get enough of.

If you’ve found your way to this blog post you probably have an idea of what the internet can provide as far as education goes, but for those of you who aren’t, this part is for you!

Now one of the most abundant sources of real estate education can be had at your local REIA’s home page which may feature audio of past meetings, replays of past webinars, and archived newsletters with articles galore. This is the information that you want to access first because not only will it be information geared towards real estate, but it’s also geared towards your market as every market is different. This will also expose you to the rest of the resources that are made available by your local REIA (always a good practice).
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Last night we talked about Activating and Setting up your FREE Professional Real Estate Website.

websites/Default.aspx" target="_blank">Click Here to get Your FREE Professional Real Estate Website Now!

We also shared the benefits of using the Premium Features:

• Create Custom Pages
• Create Custom Special Reports – with Squeeze Pages
• Control what links are displayed on your site and their location
• Add Custom content to the Master Page Theme
• Add Google Analytics Tracking
• Use AutoResponders for:
  • Buyers
  • Sellers
  • Special Report Leads
• Use your own images
• And Much More...

Finally we discussed ways to generate traffic to your new Professional Real Estate Website. We talked about both online and offline marketing ideas that are either free or very cheap and effective.

REP Premium Members can watch the replay of last night’s training call at: www.RealEstatePromo.com/MyAccount/WeeklyTraining

Register for a Free Account and Signup for the Weekly Training Webinar @ www.RealEstatePromo.com