Nate Blankenship - Spartanburg, SC Realtor

Many programs, seminars and boot camps on real estate teach a specific step-by-step strategy in an attempt to help newbie's learn how to become a real estate investor. I have taken such strategy based classes, and have taught them too.

The focus is usually on specific strategies and the step-by-step process by which to execute that strategy. The idea is that this gives you a repeatable, easy to understand process that you can learn and implement quickly.

But after years of learning about real estate and then years of teaching and consulting I have realized that this approach can inhibit your ability to understand how real estate investing works at the most basic, fundamental level.

It is sort of like teaching a kid how to play baseball by saying:

1. Get a hit.
2. Get on Base.
3. Score a Run.

While this is an easy "strategy" for scoring, it leaves the player with no understanding of the fundamental skills necessary to get a hit.

It's exciting to think about scoring the winning run, or making $50,000 on one real estate deal. However, most people who can do that on a regular basis have been working at their craft, diligently practicing and mastering fundamental skills.

These fundamentals are really the keys that unlock the door to investing success.

Home run king Hank Aaron's success was in his mastery of the fundamentals of a proper batting swing. That swing gave him the ability to break the most famous record in all of Baseball.
A real estate investor faces the same challenge when trying to "hit a home run" and make big money with real estate.

Like star athletes, you must master the fundamental skills of your craft, and learn to apply those fundamentals to every prospective deal. The bottom line is if you want to be a star in the "game" and make the big money you have to be good at the right things. But strategy based training tends to divert our attention away from the fundamentals.

Back in the early 1990's I heard Carleton sheets saying that rental property was the way to go. I went to a seminar and heard another guy named Russ Whitney saying that I should be finding houses that were in bad shape and fixing them up.
Then I saw another guy on TV talking about how he got cash back at a closing, and actually made money by buying a house! It certainly seemed that there were plenty of ways to make money in real estate. Still I had what some people refer to as "Analysis Paralysis ".

Today I realize that my "analysis paralysis" was caused by a lack of understanding. The plain fact was that I simply did not know the fundamentals of real estate investing. You might say I knew I needed to "get on base", but I simply did not know how to "swing the bat properly".

After a few months of reading articles, searching real estate websites, buying books and tapes, and going to seminars, I piled in the car and started looking at houses. But every time I looked at a house, I felt confused and unsure about what to do and how to know if this really was a decent investment property. For some reason, I just could not seem to connect all the dots

It seemed like my "career" was going nowhere. I went from one seminar to another hoping that each one would be the one that would clear up all my questions. Finally, out of sheer frustration I decided to get my agent's license. As a new agent I was required to take some classes on Real Estate Finance.

We learned to calculate net profits on a sale, buyer's payments, and how to do comparable market analysis. These calculations were not such exciting stuff at the time, but several years later, when I made the jump to become a full time buyer for an investment company, this gave me the ability to adapt to the investment market quickly.

Using my baseball analogy, you might say "I was working on my swing."
I did not know it at the time, but I was honing those fundamental skills that would later enable me to get involved in bigger deals with higher level investors.

Looking back on all this experience I can't help but notice that the most successful investors, the ones who are truly financially independent as a result of their real estate activity, are those who have mastered these fundamental skills.

Every property has a value, location and character all its own. Mastering the fundamentals means being able to obtain key pieces of information, and then let that information dictate the investment strategy options based on that information.

The greatest single problem facing most investors in the current market is a lack of adaptability to changing circumstances. I believe that this lack of adaptability is primarily the result of not understanding the fundamentals of Real Estate Economics. It sounds pretty highfalutin' but all we're really talking about are the Real Time Market Value, income potential, and costs.

Each property will dictate to you what your best investment options are if you can gather those key pieces of information.

Your starting point is to understand your market well enough to define an average of property values by the square foot - NOT house to house, as with comparable market analysis.

In a stable to improving market as we had from 1995 to 2005, it is easier to avoid mistakes when calculating value. But in a changing market where prices are tending to shift down because demand is changing or slowing, it is essential to be aware of what I call the Real Time Market Value. Learning this fundamental skill is critical for hitting "home runs" with real estate deals.

Fundamental Skill number one: Know Your Real Time Market Value, and use this value to calculate your offer price.

When you pay too much going in, few, if any, strategies will keep you from losing money.

The auctions for your city or county are naturally published in a legal newspaper or the legal segment of your home paper. You could also subscribe to information service offered, which would fax, mail and/or email you this information on a usual basis. If you are following an exacting property, contact with the lender is attorney or the trustee for information about the sale date. Call the day before to make certain the auction has not been postponed or deferred by the lender or by the borrower filing for bankruptcy.

Before Going to the Auction

Before you even deem bidding at the auction, you require doing some homework. Remember that your bid at the auction is absolute; there is no backing out. Your due assiduousness in researching the property could be quite time-consuming, and chances are you would not get a huge bargain. It is, but you must try it a few time to get a feel for the process. Choose a few neighborhoods that could familiarize you with and offer only on those properties.

Check the Condition of the Property

You require driving by the property to find out what condition it is in. Good luck in trying to get inside, since the homeowner isn't probable to let you in. If people are living in the property, you could make the assumption (most of the time) that there is running water and electricity in the house. However, you must imagine the house needs at least the basic cosmetic upgrades: carpet, paint, new appliances, new kitchen cabinets, and new vanity in the bathrooms. If the house looks empty, take a peek inside the windows. The less information you have about the inside, the more conservative you require being with your fix-up estimates.

Real estate sales are alive and well on Craigslist with the real estate sales section as the #3 most popular category, more agents are realizing the power and value in using Craigslist to reach new buyers.

What is Craigslist?
Started in 1995 by Craig Newmark, Craigslist.com was initially created to help people find affordable housing in San Francisco. Craigslist is now the most popular online classifieds website in the world, with over 10 million visitors monthly and growing. Craigslist features 300 available cities across 35 countries for posting. Everyday people come looking to buy, sell and lease property. Agents can capitalize on this traffic by posting free ads and answering ads seeking homes. It truly is a real estate agents dream marketing tool.

Getting Started
Agents interested in using Craigslist can get started by visiting the Craigslist.com website and deciding which cities to post in. Research other ads in your area to identify areas in need of property listings and to find out what your competitors are posting. The real estate section of Craigslist is divided into sections to direct traffic to specific areas including rooms & shares, apartments/houses for rent, housing swap, office & commercial, parking & storage, real estate for sale, sublets & temporary and vacation rentals. Posting an ad is free except in New York City, which just started to charge $10 for rental listings. Once you know where you'd like to post, create either single ads for hot properties or a combination ad listing all your available properties for that area.

Creating an Ad
Ads are simple to create and are mostly text and require no design or html experience. Your ad should be descriptive with contact info and supporting photos. Images of your properties will increase response by over 200%, so be sure to include shots that really help sell the property. Images can be easily uploaded during the posting process.

Posting Your Ad
Posting an ad is as easy as picking your city, choosing the correct category, selecting post at the top right corner and entering your listing into the form. You will need to come up with a good title to get people�s attention. Your ad should also feature keyphrases that people might search when looking for your property region, style, features, etc. Once you enter your text into the form, upload your images. You will need to enter an e-mail address, but you can choose to keep it anonymous. Then you simply submit, review and wait for the link in your e-mail to publish.

Reposting, Multi-Posting and Auto-Posting
Once published, your ad will remain on Craigslist for 7 or 45 days, depending on your selected city. Staying on the first page is very important but you are only allowed to post the same ad in more than one city very 48 hours. However, to get around this rule, create multiple ads for the same property, but slightly different text or use a different e-mail for each ad. To succeed you will need to repost at least every 48 hours as new buyers come to the website all the time. To automate the reposting process you can use an underground auto-posting service or purchase a script. These programs are not sanctioned by Craigslist but are widely used and highly effective. Keep in mind that buyers are turned off by spam, so be sure to only post your property once a day, per city and category. This ensures you get great placement without coming off as desperate or overly aggressive.

As you can see using Craigslist is a very easy and affordable way to reach new customers. This is only the beginning of what agents can do to promote properties on Craigslist. As Craigslist becomes even more popular it is the agents who not only use the service, but can effectively navigate and exploit creative out of the box ideas that will win.

The search engine local advertising market is booming, and it is only going to get larger and more important in the future as search engines learn how to better organize local listings, and 10 lb. phone books go the way of the dodo.

So, what can you do about this boom in local searches? Get listed of course! I will start with Google as it is by far the most important, and serves more searches than any other service combined.

Get Listed on Google Local

1. First, you will need to get a Google account. You can do that HERE
2. Second, login to your new account and go the Google Local Business Center Page: HERE
3. After you Type in all the information for your business, you will need to wait until you get a card in the mail from Google. This will confirm that your business is physically at the address you listed.

As this post is primarily for individual real estate agents, you will probably run into your first roadblock when it comes to the address. Assuming you work for a broker and a larger company... for our example we'll use Re/Max. If your Re/Max office is already listed in local.google.com, you will not be able to use that office address again for a personal business listing. This presents an immediate problem. You are trying to get your personal service listed under your office's address, but your office is already listed... There are a couple work arounds for this problem:

1. Use your home address. Many agents work from home these days anyway... but if you don't like the idea of your home address popping up on local searches... there is another alternative:
2. Since P.O. Boxes are not allowed, you can still get a mail box from a company like the UPS Store. They allow you to rent a physical address with a suite number, so it appears to be just another local address, when in reality, it is only a mail box. I haven't tried this personally, but I'll bet it would work as a physical mailing address in Google's eyes.

In my research, I found that most real estate offices are NOT listed in Google local... and in that case you can use just the office address. As of now there are no rules against this, but as the search engines get smarter, this option may go away, as a listing for an individual real estate agent isn't as valuable as an office listing for the same address in the eyes of the Search Engine.

I hope those suggestions were helpful. Your number one priority for Google is to get listed a physical address listed with them. This will give you a foot in the door for the other hints I'm going to give you now:

* Once you've been listed, you should be able to find your local listing in a search. For example: "castle rock, CO real estate" or "real estate agent castle rock, CO" You can either search directly on local.google.com, maps.google.com, or just Google.com
* Depending on the competition in your area, you may have to browse through a couple pages of competing listings to find yours... but don't fret! You can change that...

Now, here is the fun part. In order to set yourself apart from the compeition in your local market, you will probably want to pay for a sponsored listing. (note: as an individual agent, you will already stick out, since most of the listings will probably be for entire offices, not individual agents)

Here is how to get a sponsored Listing:

1. You will probably notice that there are already some sponsored listings in your area. It would take too long to explain why, but those will probably all disapear when you create your listing since they are just keyword text ads and not local listings.
2. Go to Adwords.com. You may be able to use your Google login to signup, but may have to register a new account (Google is wierd about that sometimes).
3. Once you sign up and login, go to "Create New Campaign - Keyword Targeted"
4. Complete the steps, and make sure to choose "Regions and Cities" in the location area.
5. Now, choose your cities. Don't use the pre listed cities. Type in your own. This way you can get as detailed as possible. List every possible town/city in your market area.
6. Create your text ad. (I highly recommend having a property search tool that is easily accessible on the URL destination page that you choose.)
7. Choose your keywords. I suggest basic words like: real estate, real estate agent, realtor, realtors, etc. (remember, this is for local search. It works differently than a normal adwords ad.)
8. Enter your daily budget, and CPC(cost per click). I suggest $0.10 or higher. You may need to adjust it later depending on the competion, and desired results.
9. That's all! You should be able to see your listing appear higher than the others on local searches.
10. BONUS TIP: You also now have the option of adding extra flare to your ad. Navigate to the adgroup you just created. Then click on "ad variations". From there click on "local business ad". Search for your local listing, and then choose an icon, picture, and list any other information you like. Now when you search for your listing, you will see the special icon you chose on the map, your enhanced information, and top ad placement, which should truly set you apart from the competition.

I really hope that this guide will produce some solid clients for you. Studies have shown that specific local searches have a very high conversion rate.

The reason I was so excited about this is because I took some serious time searching about 3 large markets, and didn't find any local sponsored results with enhanced listings. For only $0.10/click... it's a no brainer.

That's all for now... I'm going to break this into 2 parts. The next part will be how to get listed in MSN(Live.com), and Yahoo's local search results.

You should be on the look out for any major problems which may cause you significant problems and money later on down the line! It's a good idea to do your homework when you're looking to purchase an existing home or any home you may be considering. You want to know what you should be looking for? Well consider some of these tips and information while you're shopping for an existing home:

1) Consider having a home inspection done on the property you're thinking about purchasing. This is very important! By having a home inspection, you will be provided with valuable information about the condition of the home you want to purchase by an independent expert. You can find a certified home inspector via the American Society of Home Inspectors(ASHI) www.ashi.org. You�ll be glad that you hired an independent inspector to go over the home you may want to purchase. It may save you major headaches in the long run! Make sure to make the home inspection a contingency of the prospective purchase agreement of the home you�re considering.

2) Look at the price the existing home is being sold for. In most cases you're able to get a better price for an existing home than you would for a new one. The existing home is usually in a neighborhood which is already established. In addition, the home will probably have upgrades already done. If you have children, schools are usually already established for the neighborhood that you may be planning to live in.

3) Try to steer away from existing homes which have some form of preexisting structural and roof damage. If you don't, this could cost you thousands of dollars in the long run!

4) If you decide to purchase an exiting home, you may want to establish a home maintenance account for any potential repair problems in the future.

5) Make sure you check out the landscaping of the home which of course includes the lawn, plants, flowers, bushes and trees! If there is a potential problem with the landscaping, you can put in your contingency agreement that this problem must be corrected by the seller, prior to you purchasing the home. This could save you money in the long run.

6) Research and investigate any easements on the property you're planning on purchasing. You want to make sure if there are any easements, that this will not create a problem for you in the long run.

7) Purchase title insurance! This will protect you from any potential problems that may come up about the legal owner of the property that you have purchased.

8) Find a real estate agent you'd like to work with because it costs nothing to the buyer and you get loads of benefit. Agents have a greater understanding of the real estate market so if you're thinking of selling this house in 10 years, she can tell you how the market may be in the current area that your house is in.

The purchase of an existing home can be a good thing if you do your homework before and during your prospective purchase. There are some great deals on existing homes if you do your research. Just keep in mind some of the tips and information that you've learned, while you're planning to make your purchase. You'll be glad you did.