Diversify, Diversify, Diversify.

Great advice from successful business owners...

How do you diversify in our field?

1. Interior Decorating

We all have fantastic contacts and what better way to receive more business than by meeting people that are moving. Most homeowners are uninformed about cost when it comes to decorating - leaving brochures with them or better yet send a thank-you note to them and thank them for their business and invite them to use your services in their new home.

2. Redesigning

Using what homeowners already have and moving items to create a more visually pleasing home. With little or no money to put in (besides your wage) it's a fantastic way to update homes. I know I personally am constantly moving around items in my own house simply because I like to see new perspectives.

3. Seasonal Decorating

Helping clients decorate for the holiday's or different seasons is a fun and great way to add to decor without breaking the bank. Using what they already have is a great way to save money. I don't know how many times I've moved items or used existing items in a whole new way and the client has said...I never thought of that.

4. Colour Consultations

Helping homeowners with paint colour is a terrific way to change existing houses and again if they can do it themselves very inexpensive. A gallon of paint is usually only $20.00 (decent brand of paint) and what a difference paint can make.

These are only a few idea's to help keep you busy and to help round out your business. I try to alway's remember that while diversifying is alway's a great idea that over extending yourself is not. I try not to take on more than I can handle.

I hope that it helps you and your business. Have more idea's? I would love to hear about them.

Thanks.

After scanning over my blog I realize we are on a lot of great mailing lists. Getting news from industry leaders is crucial to staying on top in any business. It's what separates savvy investors from "flying by the seat of my pants" investors.

One mailing list we are so grateful to be on is Garth Chapman's of Jencor Mortgages and Remasoft. Garth is a wonderful mentor to us and has helped us streamline our investments to both our and our joint venture partner's benefits. He knows real estate investing from all angles, as a successful investor, from developing a software system specifically for investors and as a mortgage broker.

An excerpt from his last mail-out:

Canadian real estate correction was side-effect of recession, not cause, while U.S. market still faces challenges, report says.

While it's tempting to think of a "housing correction" as a continent-wide phenomenon, National Bank Financial says the Canadian and U.S. markets couldn't be more different.

"The two have absolutely nothing in common," senior economist Marc Pinsonneault wrote in an economic update Monday. "In Canada, the correction got under way much later and lasted nowhere as long."

Mr. Pinsonneault said "prudent lending practices" in Canada prevented the housing market from falling as hard as its American counterpart, and pointed out that Canada's crisis was a side-effect of its recession rather than its cause.

Here are four ways the markets have differed:

Duration of slowdown

The Canadian market began to slide in Octobe,r 2008, while the American slump has lasted 2 1/2 years.

"People wishing to sell their homes either cut their asking price or quite simply took their property off the market," he said of the Canadian market. "Lower interest rates, lower home prices and renewed consumer confidence led to a quick recovery in sales, so much so that as early as last May, these had surpassed pre-recession levels.

The American market still faces challenges - the number of sales has to increase 70 per cent "to return to levels in line with a normal situation."

Price declines

According to Teranet, Canadian home prices fell 8.9 per cent from their August, 2008, highs to their recessionary lows eight months later. In the U.S., the S&P/Case Shiller index shows prices slid 33 per cent in 33 months.

"In Canada, in three of the six metropolitan areas covered ... namely, Halifax, Montreal and Ottawa, the correction was rather ephemeral, lasting from three to six months," he said. "In addition, it proved pretty light, with prices retreating less than 5 per cent. Moreover, since the market trough, prices in these three areas have already made up the ground lost during the correction."

While prices in Vancouver and Calgary took harder hits, they still did better than the worst U.S. markets.

"Prices there fell in a measure comparable to that registered in the U.S. cities least affected, that is, Denver, Dallas and Charlotte," he said. "The market began recovering only recently and, therefore, a return to pre-correction price levels is not imminent.

Delinquency rates

Canadian banks have seen delinquency rates climb to 0.4 per cent, compared to the 0.65 per cent high reached in 1992. The number is far greater in the U.S., at 3.67 per cent.

"Before the market's collapse, the maximum ever observed had been a little more than 1 per cent back in early 1986," he said.

Consumer spending

When home prices are under pressure, consumers tend to reel in the spending.

"According to Statistics Canada, from the end of Q3 2008 to mid-2009, the value of household real estate wealth sagged only 1.1 per cent," he said. "The impact of this impoverishment on consumer spending has been negligible."

In the U.S., the value of household real estate wealth dropped 18.2 per cent. The Federal Reserve estimates that for each dollar lost in housing wealth, consumer spending pulls back up to 15 cents.

"Based on these figures, the loss in household real estate wealth in the United States has brought about a contraction in consumer spending of 5.5%. The macroeconomic impact here is blatantly clear."

Seller Resources

For Sale by Owner

Thinking of Going it Alone?

If you sell the home yourself, you will get limited exposure by putting up a sign, running some ads, and telling your friends. On the other hand, if you work with a REALTOR® you will get instant and mass exposure to a large number of prospective home buyers.

A REALTOR® has access to the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) System. This computerized system operated by the local real estate board, compiles information about listed properties in the area and makes it accessible to member companies. As a result, when a REALTORS® lists your home, REALTORS® from other companies learn about your home and try to match it with buyers with whom they are working. These buyers may include people from out-of-town who are trying to relocate to your area.

A REALTOR® can speed the selling process in other ways:

• By specializing in real estate, a REALTOR® knows market values and can therefore help you set a competitive price for your home.
• A REALTOR® can free you from the hassles associated with showing your home and screen out people who are merely curious.
• A REALTOR® is objective when negotiating with buyers and experienced in reading the fine print of contracts.
• By staying on top of the mortgage market, a REALTOR® may know how to wade through financing tangles and clinch a sale.

Selling a home is not something that anyone can do in their off-hours. It's a specialized service, best handled by a professional REALTOR®.

Reprinted From Calgary Real Estate Board www.creb.com

I wanted to make a new Lethbridge real estate website that I could use for doing some testing of some fancy geek technology that I have been messing around with lately. Of course, when you are setting up a website primarily for experimentation and it is in total development, you don't want to spend a ton of money on it.

I chose to use a point2 template site, bought a godaddy domain, did a redirect, and spend an hour putting up the following website:

http://www.lethbridgerealestateonline.com

Now I will admit the site isnt pretty and sure wont win any awards the way it looks and functions yet, but it does have a few key components in it that I plan to build upon and see what I can achieve with them. It is about 2am on the 5th of November, 2009 and I am curious how long it will take to get that website spidered into google and ranked. I plan to spend about 2 hours this weekend doing some optimization, and then let the site sit for a week.

The end of November I will tweak the site and add more content to it and see if I cant push it into the top 20 searches for my local real estate market. That will be quite an accomplishment if I can do that within a month, but it is a great goal and I think I have a plan and the tools to achieve it WITHOUT spending a single dime on marketing.

Testing 1 2 3, lets give this a shot.

I would love feedback from anyone who clicks on it. What parts need work, what parts look okay the way they are. I am a bit of a rookie HTML programmer, but can do enough clean it up if suggested.