Real Estate Investing Facts

One way to get involved with real estate investing is through wholesaling, which is purchasing a property wholesale and selling retail. The concept of flipping houses is not very popular these days but basically you’re just wholesaling. What you’re doing is buying at a discounted price and than reselling it in a short period of time. Scouts, dealers and retailers are the different types of people involved in wholesaling.

An inexpensive way to get involved with investing in real estate is as a scout or bird dog. A scout or bird dog is someone who gathers information, locates potential deals and then sells the information to other investors. When you become a scout, very little knowledge or money will be required. The scout will locate distressed properties, gather the information and then present it to another investor for a fee. With all the foreclosures happening there are many deals for a scout to locate. A scout generally gets paid $500 to $2000 on each lead he provides to an investor depending on the price of the property and the potential profit.

A dealer will locate a distressed property and enter into a contract with the owner. Dealers sometime buy properties wholesale and then sell it retail or sell the contract to another investor. Being a dealer is more risky then being a scout because dealers put down their own money to secure the deal. A dealer doesn’t have to deal with tenants and can make a larger income with out having to fix up the property.

What a retailer does is buy properties from dealers. Retailers fix properties up using their own money, therefore assuming the greatest risk but also receiving the greatest profit.

I hope I’ve given you something to think about. You don’t need a great deal of money to get into this business, just a little nerve to make phone calls.

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Hans

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Whether you are a realtor,  property investor or business owner, selling your commercial properties can be a very trying experience, depending on the state of the market.  One way to give yourself an advantage is to market your properties to the max in the most cost effective manner.

For most people involved in commercial real estate, radio and television advertising is way to expensive to warrant spending your marketing dollars on, in most cases.  Advertising in your cities yellow pages is an option for real estate agents and brokers, but depending on which city you do business in and how big of a display ad you wish to run, it could run you thousands of dollars a year.

Another option is to advertise in your local papers commercial real estate section.  Again the price will depend on what city you do business in and the size of your display ad.  A single property listing could easily cost you $250 per month.  If you are running a half or full page listing, it could easily run you a thousand a month.  This kind of advertising can ad up very quickly and is definitely out of the question for the average real estate investing enthusiast, and this is money that could easily be spent more effectively some where else.   

There are Commercial Real Estate Brokerage companies, realtors who specialize in commercial properties, business owners and individual commercial real estate investors, who spend a lot of money having websites created for them and some of them are extremely successful. But, the truth is for every one successful real estate website, there are thousands that are at the opposite end of the spectrum.   It’s not because their websites don’t look good, and for several thousand, if not more dollars, they better look good!   It’s because so many of these companies and realtors believe it’s like the movie Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner, when Shoeless Joe Jackson said,  “If you build it, he will come”.  A lot of people believe once you build a website the traffic will come, wrong!

Once you have your website you will either need to hire a search engine optimization company (very expensive) or teach yourself. A very large real estate company may decide that with the very large amount of listings that they have, hiring an SEO company would not be out of their price range.  Unfortunately that is not the case for realtors whose broker is not interested in spending any money, small business owners, or property investors who wish to sell their properties without the aid of a realtor.

In the latter situation you would then need to learn about search engine optimization techniques,  search engine rankings, an understanding of how Google and other search engines work, Social bookmarking, Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Video Marketing, Article marketing and submission, Google Adwords, Press Releases, Blogging, generating Back links, Keywords, optin methods, email autoresponder software knowledge, building a list, I think you get the point!  To have a successful website that will generate leads requires the use of the above mentioned activities, which requires a tremendous amount of time.  And don’t think that once you are set up, your good to go for ever.  This is an ongoing constant process that requires full time attention, by a full time employee.  Each listing or property should be inputted into all of the Web2.0 activities that I have mentioned and a few more that I have neglected to mention. 

Whether you are an owner of your own real estate brokerage, a real estate agent, business owner or a real estate investor, there is an alternative option to get your commercial properties, businesses or investment properties in front of millions of potential leads on the World Wide Web.

There are companies that are dedicated to commercial real estate marketing like For Sale For Lease who still use traditional marketing methods like the Financial Post, The globe and Mail, and various daily’s across the country.  They are also ranked by Alexa.com the Internets website ranking authority, who ranks them in Canada as one of the top sites for Commercial Real Estate ahead of almost all other commercial real estate sites in Canada. Using a company like For Sale For Lease, who has already established themselves using all of the Web2.0 strategies we talked about earlier, makes a lot of sense.  They have various product packages available to suit all aspects of commercial real estate from big companies or businesses, to the small business owner or property investor.  My personal favorite is the deferred marketing fee where For Sale For Lease will take your commercial real estate listings including vacant land, leased property, luxury homes, businesses for sale or investment properties, apply all of the Web2.0 methods I mentioned above, blogging, social bookmarking, press releases, etc., and not charge you a penny, unless the property is sold or leased to one of the leads generated by For Sale For Lease. 

Although this company is based in Canada, the unique visitors to their website also come from the United States, United Kingdom, India and many other countries.  For this reason and the investment opportunities that are now available in the United States, For Sale For Lease will be adding a New Category for United States investment properties.   They will also accept real estate investing opportunities from the international community as well.

As we have learned, having your own website does not guarantee leads or sales, and a lot of work and money is required to have your website appear high in the search engine rankings.   We have also learned that their are professional companies that are all ready in a position to assist with the commercial real estate marketing side for our properties.  It’s now up to you to decide which method you will choose, just make sure you use one of them.

For more information on For Sale For lease contact Hans Anderson at toll free 1-800-673-9716 x219 or cell 1-705-730-3693, email;  hans@forsaleforlease.ca

Hans Anderson

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When you’re offered the opportunity to buy a good property, take it. When you bargain with small defeats, you could end up losing the whole deal.

Hans Anderson

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The old saying is “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach
a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime.”

Today, I’m going to begin to teach you to fish.

The Most Important Strategy for finding great deals is to learn to
think backwards. Here’s what I mean:

You want to make money from real estate, right? That means you’ve got to find great deals. What is a great deal?

Find Great Deals

A great deal is a scenario that will likely lead to your making a
profit. The two most obvious things to look for are:

- Houses you can buy far below their actual value

- Houses that include very favorable financing

Let’s consider the first scenario: buying property below value.
The question you have to ask yourself is this: Why would anyone
ever sell a piece of real estate for less than it’s actually worth?

Oddly enough, there are many, many reasons for this:

- The owner doesn’t know what the property is really worth

- The owner has been trying to sell their house for a while, and they’re just ready to “get it over with”

- The property is in bad condition, and the owner doesn’t want
to fix it

- The owner is facing foreclosure and will lose the home if he/she doesn’t sell

- The owner is an “estate”, and the heirs of the estate just want to see some money as quickly as possible

- The owner is facing significant personal or family challenges
which require him to move a long distance away very quickly and so
he’ll take a low price in exchange for a fast sale.

There are many other reasons as well, but this is enough for our
example. So, continuing to “think backwards”, the next question
is: How do I find out which home owners are facing these challenges?

Let’s consider one example: Properties in bad condition. Since we agree it’s reasonable that a home in poor condition represents a potential opportunity, it follows that we need to find some of those properties! But how?

Finding Fixer-Uppers Strategy #1

One way is what some people (with too much time on their hands
do this is called “Driving For Dollars”.

It’s really simple: They get in their car on Saturday morning They then drive around in neighborhoods for hours at a time looking for properties in disrepair. Some evidence to look for is: Broken windows. Tall grass. Signs of abandonment. You get the picture…Does this work? Yes. Is it time consuming? Yes, again.

So let’s think backwards again – what is another way that we could
find properties in disrepair?

Finding Fixer-Uppers Strategy #2

Who do you know that already does a lot of driving around in your
area? Postal workers? Pest control companies? Appliance
repairmen? Etc. The point is this: You probably already know
somebody who must spend their time driving around anyway, so why not offer them a simple “bribe” to help you out?

For example: Offer them a few bucks if whenever they see a rundown property, they’ll write down the address for you and take a couple of pictures of the outside. Or maybe instead of money, you’ll buy them a nice dinner once a month or so. Pretty easy, huh? Pretty cheap, too.

Finding Fixer-Uppers Strategy #3

Wouldn’t it be better if instead of driving around (whether it’s you or someone you bribe), you could just get a simple list of properties in disrepair? Well, you can!

It works like this: Pay attention to other real estate investors you know – the ones who do a lot of rehab deals. Find out which real estate agents that they use. Then contact those agents and form a relationship with them. Why? It’s likely that the agent is finding some of the deals for your investor friends. And you can be sure that the agent wants as many ready, willing and able buyers as possible – including you! Also ask the agent for names of other agents who do a lot of fixer-upper business.

Thinking Backwards, Revisited

It you consider what has happened here, it’s pretty impressive.
At the beginning of this e-Lesson, the question was how to find
great deals. By just thinking backwards a bit, the question has
changed drastically. Now we must ask: Which (or how many) of the 3 strategies discussed above will you use to find great deals?

Now that you know how to “Think Backwards”, I challenge you to
consider other circumstances mentioned before, such as foreclosures, estate situations, etc. “Think Backwards” about each
one so you can come up multiple strategies for discovering great
opportunities of all kinds…

Aiden Win Mr. Foreclosure

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P.S. Another strategy is to have deals sent right to you in the
comfort of your own home. As a Foreclosure Insiders Club member,
you get access to the hottest pre-foreclosure deals, some which are perfect for a rehab / renovation project. Join Today

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Buying and selling real estate requires time and patience, unlike the possible quick profits that can be made on playing the stock market.

Even though it is possible to make quick money on flipping or wholesaling, investing in real estate is not a get rich quick scheme.

The risk that is involved in investing in the stock market far outweighs those of real estate investing.

It may take a little longer but the small investment and the time delay involved in real estate investing makes it a lot easier to sleep at night then if you had invested in the stock market.

Canadian Foreclosures

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Hans Anderson

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