The Ultimate Real Estate Investment Guide: Comprehensive Resource Guides

"The Ultimate Real Estate Investment Guide" is a series of blogs focused on providing resources to fresh faces in real estate.

For any beginners out there, this particular blog post in the series focuses on a conglomeration of comprehensive resource guides that numerous websites provide.

By giving you access to all these guides, I hope to encourage you to sift through not only my blog, but other blogs out there, as well.  This will help you to gain real estate insights you never thought you could have, as you will be searching through the blogs of people who have various perspectives on the market place.  With this first blog, dive in and dive deep.  There is plenty to discover!  Find this blog post here.

Developing the Most Audience Engagement on Your Real Estate Website in 7 Steps

Here are two beautiful examples of optimized home pages for real estate companies. They are simple, functional, and captivating to look at. There is plenty of rich information above the fold, which I will explain in a moment, and they help people to have user-friendly experiences, while on their websites. It is important to optimize your page as a real estate agent in order to get the most leads and develop the most traction from your audience. Here’s seven steps on how to do so with ease.

1) Ace the Homepage Look
Display pictures of real estate or neighborhood attractions as your head image for the site. Keep them rotating every three seconds to keep the attention of your viewer. Have your contact information at the top of the page with your social media sites there, as well. Make sure to keep these images up to date and fresh so that guests do not tire of your websites look. Keep them intrigued with newer and better properties and things to do in the area. If someone does not get what your company is about and who you are by looking at the content above the fold (all the information at the top of the page before having to scroll down), then you need to make changes to your site.

2) Have an IDX
An IDX (Internet Data Exchange) is needed above the fold. Matthew Bushery from Placester states, “[IDX] integration, which allows you to add listings in your area via your local Multiple Listing Service (MLS), is paramount for your real estate website.” Making this the focal point of your website is key to success, because most people coming to your website will be looking for a property dependent on the criteria that they bring to the table. This is what an IDX allows for them to search.

3) Feature Homes or Neighborhoods
Show off your most popular homes and/or neighborhoods on the home page. Keep your audience enticed by the good looks, great statistics, and great prices.

4) Give Your Audience Access to Your Blog
Blogging is the main focal point of your online brand. You must blog to show people you are a resource for the knowledge they seek and that you are active and have something to say. Syndicating this content across your social media profiles is important to getting your audiences to share and interact with your content. Show a featured image from the blog with a small blurb about it on the home page. Let your captive audience explore your blogs from there.

5) Allow Your Audience to Contact You
Make sure to keep a contact form on each page of your website so that interested buyers and sellers can reach you with ease. This will generate leads for you.

6) Share Testimonials
You will want to do anything ethical that you can do to earn the trust of your potential clients. Steadily grow your client’s or potential client’s trust as they surf your website by sharing testimonials on each page.

7) Designate a Page for Staff Members
Keep your entire staff on a page of your website with a photograph, biography, and contact information for each person. This will make your audience feel more comfortable with reaching out to and speaking with you, as this makes them feel welcomed to do so.

Keeping your website optimized is essential to your website’s success in developing leads for you, reeling in potential clients, and making your company the top source of real estate information for your audience. Follow these steps, and you will be well on your way to engaging a captivated audience.

How to Become a Fair, Reasonable, and Profitable Landlord in 6 Simple Steps

Owning and managing rental properties can be exhilarating. From working with tenants to keeping the landscape fresh and clean, there are numerous ways of managing a property that can bring joy and profitability to not only you but your tenants, as well. You will profit financially, while they will profit from the value added to each property you lease to them. Becoming a landlord is no small task, but it is highly rewarding. Here are a list of ways to prepare to become a landlord.

1) Live Near Your Properties
Make sure you live near the properties you are interested in. If you purchase and manage properties that are far away from you, you will have a more difficult time keeping up with maintenance and making sure the staff is doing things correctly. Make sure to check the property regularly for any needs it may have.

2) Know the Law
There are many laws governing landlords and tenants and they vary from state to state. According to Laura Agadoni from Trulia.com, “Most states have specific landlord-tenant provisions that cover issues such as security deposits, level of access to the property, and how much notice you need to give your tenants when you want them to leave. There also are federal laws you need to know, such as habitability and anti-discrimination laws.” Knowing the law will keep both yourself and your tenants safe and sound.

3) Research, Purchase, and Prepare a Property for Lease
Make sure to find a property that has inherent value, whether that value is in its ability to be renovated and used or move-in ready. Find out ways to research properties in my blog on real estate investment here.

4) Review Each Potential Tenant
Make sure to run a background check on each tenant, as well as check their credit score. You should not hire a tenant based on these two factors alone. Get two character references and two previous rental references from each tenant. Interview the potential tenants, as well. These vetting tactics should help you to have a broader idea of who the tenant is and what they are about. You will have a better idea of if they will be caring tenants who treat your property with respect and pay rent on time.

5) Make Tenants Pay Rent
If you are too chummy with your tenants, they can start to be “flexible” with when they pay the rent. Instead of paying the rent on time, they may slide back a few weeks. It is important to A) keep a professional relationship with tenants and B) enforce tenants to pay rent on time. One can enforce timely payment by making tenants pay late fees.

6) Make Specific Leases
If you are going to have leases for each rental property, it is important to hire a lawyer who can create the language for your leases. This will keep you safe financially and legally in the event that a tenant takes legal action against you or you need to take legal action against him/her.

These are simple steps you can take to become a landlord that is fair and reasonable with tenants and profitable at the same time. They are logical steps that make sense in the process of managing and maintaining properties. Make sure to keep in mind that owning and leasing properties do not make your rich fast, but in the long haul, they will richly pay off.

5 Advanced Skills Real Estate Agents Must Have

There are many skills necessary to become a successful real estate agent. Here are some advanced skills that, with use, will take your success to the next level.

1) Self-Educating and Teaching Others
As a real estate agent, you obviously started your education by getting your license. There is more to your education than that, however. Teaching yourself through listening to podcasts; reading blogs, magazines, books, or newspapers; and conversing with other like-minded individuals are all ways to improve your knowledge base and become a more successful real estate agent. This works on the other side of education, as well--educating others. It is important to learn how to be a teacher, as well as a learner. By teaching your clients or potential clients about the housing market or teaching skilled real estate agents how to become better ones will make you a resource to people, bringing more and more business your way over time.

2) Obtaining Future Referrals
Knowing how to negotiate with clients is the best way to gain referrals in the future. Helping clients reach their goals and satisfying their real estate needs through negotiation will help to keep you in your client’s mind as someone who wants to help, while also doing business. Clients will refer you if you help them more than hinder them. There is a fine line between negotiating and demanding, and it’s important to stay on the side of negotiating for both your client’s and your sakes.

3) Knowing Legalese
No one can understand and recite every law in existence about real estate. However, you do need to know when and how to find information and when to refer out for information to an experience lawyer. When you do not know the answer, do not speak as though you do. If you do know the answer, speak confidently with a touch of gentleness to communicate effectively.

4) Being a Cunning Marketer
When you are a real estate agent, you are not only selling a property, you are selling the surrounding area restaurants, schools, attractions, amenities, and economy. You are selling the whole package. Make sure to study up on best marketing practices for real estate agents. Here is a good resource for marketing your brand. However, switch out topics in these tips, such as “100 Great SEO Keywords for Realtors” with “100 Great SEO Keywords for Educators,” to find keywords that help point to the school systems in a local area, for example. Knowing information about all the different aspects of a community surrounding a property will assist you in becoming a wealth of knowledge for your clients.

5) Becoming Tech-Savvy
Our world has drastically changed due to technology. The effects of technology on business are exponential. It is important to know that “Most home buyers search online [for real estate], [and] more than half do so on their mobile device.” It is no surprising fact that this is true in our world today. Learning how to use the internet to research like your clients do will keep you abreast of the latest trends in real estate, as well as help you to improve your visibility online. Using technology to improve your business strategy will give you a hardy return as time goes on.

Teach yourself to become a more effective real estate agent with these skills. Doing so will help your business take off and help your clients to trust you more. What advanced skills would you recommend that real estate agents have a handle of? Tweet me @WDarrowFielder!