How to Make Money in a Bad Real Estate Market!

There is no bad real estate market, only people with problems who happen to own real estate!

To build your own real estate investment company, to become a real estate entrepreneur, you need a system that combines the tools and knowledge to provide solutions to these people’s problems. These are human problems, not real estate problems. People die, they lose their jobs, they get into financial troubles, they get divorced, etc.

These “Trigger” events, combined with the lack of cash savings and little equity most homeowners have in their homes today can lead to extreme financial, emotional and even physical distress; as homeowners struggle to keep up their payments and/or are frustrated by their inability to sell their properties.

Think about it. If the payments on your house were killing you because you were stuck making two mortgage payments; the sale of your old house fell through after you closed on the new one.

Wouldn’t you be lying awake at night, worried sick about running out of money and having to face the embarrassment of foreclosure?

What if you did not have much equity and the costs of a sale, which could be 20% or more of the value of the property, would eat up a good chunk of your remaining savings? Wouldn’t you be praying for someone to come along and solve your problem?

You might even get so desperate that you would actually Give the property away to anyone who would take it, just to be rid of all the stress!

We have just taken a good look at one side of the profit equation, the seller’s side. There is also a buyer’s side.

There exists a Shadow or Phantom market of buyers for real estate. Most are self employed people or small business owners. Others have had recent bankruptcies or foreclosures.

Still others are foreign nationals. They can afford to buy real estate but for various reasons cannot or do not want to qualify for a bank mortgage.

You can solve their problem by selling them the homes you pick up from the desperate homeowners! You sell them with seller financing. The Phantoms will reward your “kindness” by paying you premium prices for your properties!

You can get started as a part time investor with a basic real estate investing system:

· “I Buy Houses” flyers, business cards and ads

· A voicemail system to take calls

· Knowledge to buy properties from distressed sellers “subject to” the mortgages

· A marketing program to develop a pre-qualified list of Phantom buyers

· Knowledge to sell properties to these buyers on Lease Options

If you wanted to build yourself a full time real estate investment business that can generate huge profits, you need a more comprehensive system, which today can be automated and Internet based, but the point is, you can get started today with the basic system!

Luxury Real Estate Marketing Essentials - Specialized Knowledge is Power

How many times have you heard the phrase "knowledge is power"? In the field of luxury real estate, we say, specialized knowledge is power--earning power!

Building a high volume luxury real estate practice begins by acquiring specialized knowledge. Mastery of the fundamentals of real estate sales, negotiation skills and personal integrity is merely the price of admission to the luxury arena. The key to becoming the standout in your market area comes down to your ability to easily and rapidly connect with wealthy individuals. You need to speak their language and comfortably converse on topics that interest them. That's where specialized knowledge converts to earning power.

People like doing business with people like themselves. The more common ground you establish with wealthy individuals the quicker they will be impressed with you and trust you. People also like to talk about what interests them. If you are interested in their interests you can rapidly develop a rapport and create a strong bond.

Many wealthy people have embarked upon "the quest for the best". That is, the best of everything that money can buy. For example, do you know what is considered the best Champagne in the world? If you came up with Dom Perignon or Crystal, which can be purchased for about $120-$200 per bottle you are close. [As an aside, you might impress Dom Perignon lovers with the fact that Costco sells more of that Champagne than any other retail outlet].

The answer is Salon. It distinguishes itself as the only champagne in the world that is bottled to order.

The House of Salon Champagne makes only one wine, the vintage tete-de-cuvee Blanc de Blancs. And, it is only produced in the years when the grapes are at their peak. Since its existence in 1921, it has only made 30 vintages. Salon uses the first pressing from hand selected grapes to assure the highest acidity, aroma, finesse, ripeness and quality. The grapes come from the original 12 acre estate, as well as selected vineyards in three distinct microclimates in Le Mesnil-sur Oger. The distinct difference between Salon and other Champagnes is that Salon does not put its wine through the process of malolactic fermentation. That process involves introducing desirable bacteria that prevents undesirable bacterial strains from producing off-flavors. Instead, eight to ten years of cellaring are required to achieve the perfect balance between fruit and acid.

Salon is kept on its yeasts in deep limestone cellars until a specific order is received. Only then is the yeast removed by hand for each order, with the cellar master inspecting the bouquet of each bottle. The latest 1996 vintage retails for $304. Salon can continue to age for an additional 15-20 years or longer and will develop increased complexity.

Specialized knowledge about subjects such as the making of champagne empowers you to stand out from the crowd. It differentiates you from your competitors. It shows that you have depth. It allows you to confidently engage in conversation on topics other than real estate.

When potential clients discover that you are interested in what interests them (Champagne in this case) they will often invite you to special events such as wine tastings or dinner parties where Champagne is served. Here you will meet others with similar interests.

Be sure to get the contact information from everyone one you meet. In your contact management program (Outlook, Act, Top Producer, etc) make a note about who has what special interest. Build rapport by sending them new discoveries that you make on your personal quest for the best, on this subject. For example, if a certain local restaurant has a particularly good wine list that includes a new Champagne, jot your new contacts a note about it and let them know how well the wine paired with the meal you ordered.

A good place to start learning about Champagne is on www.Wikipedia.org. This is an excellent resource for the luxury realm. Or, go out and buy a bottle. Put it on ice, Invite some friends over. And, celebrate your personal quest for the best, as you embark on your career as a luxury real estate expert.

How do you start building a luxury real estate practice?

Make a commitment to become a perpetual student, someone who continuously acquires specialized knowledge such as the process of making Champagne;

Become passionate about the "quest for the best", yourself.

Become more interested than interesting.

The luxury arena is the realm of relationships. It is just as easy to acquire specialized knowledge about the finer things in life as any other subjects. Your personal quest for the best is the route to building a high volume luxury real estate practice. It can be enlightening, enriching and very much fun!

Sell Your Real Estate Knowledge

Writing a simple e-book on a real estate related topic require no large investment, but has large profit potential. However, this isn't just about passing on your knowledge. You also need to learn marketing skills - perhaps even more than writing skills.

Know something about real estate? You can sell your knowledge. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is with simple e-books. They are cheap to make and unlike with paper books, you can keep most of the money from every sale.

It cost $50 to set up an account with an order processor like ClickBank, and probably less than that to set up a simple web site to sell your e-book on, if you do it yourself. A domain name costs less than $10 per year to register, or about 75 cents per month. Hosting for web sites is as cheap as $6 per month now. If you don't already have internet access, you can get it starting at $10 per month (although I recommend paying $40 for cable internet access).

What other business can you start for a couple hundred dollars or less, and have overhead costs of less than $50 per month? If you use simple articles to promote your web site (as I do), you don't even need to spend a penny on advertising. At 999articles.com, you can even get a free e-book showing you how it is done.

The most common standard now is Adobe PDF. Many will tell you that you have to pay $300 or more for the PDF creation software, but hat isn't true any longer. You can use Adobe PDF online to make your e-books without having to learn nearly so much technical stuff. Get the book right the first time, and you can even do it for free (they usually give free trials). Otherwise, you can pay just $11 per month to use the service as long as you need it.

Selling Real Estate Knowledge - An Example

What can you sell? Try to find a new angle. Books that simply have 70 ways to invest in real estate, or another rehashing of zero-down techniques are tough sells. If you can sell them at all, you probably won't be able to price them very high. People want something new.

Certainly, you can just report on what others have done, and give examples and easy to understand explanations. But is better if you have some personal experience in a specific area of real estate, so you can speak with authority. It is best if you not only have experience making money in some specific way, but it is also a way that can be done in most parts of the country. Leasing cheap land in Northern Michigan to Christmas Tree farmers may have been very profitable for you, but it won't get people in other parts very excited.

Suppose you have learned how to buy houses with basements and convert the basements into legally conforming bedrooms. Basement space adds little to the price of a home until it is carpeted and has proper windows to make it legally habitable space. By doing so you have made a large profit buying and selling several homes. Put your system on paper!

Many areas of the country have homes with basement that are unfinished. There are a lot of investors who can't seem to make any money with their over-priced rental homes - and they would love a new way to make some money. This is a book you could sell.

In the above example, the goal would be to make the e-book as useful as possible. Make it a step-by-step guide and you don't even have to make it very long. Many e-books that sell for as much as $60 or more are less than 100 pages, and why not? One good idea can make or save the reader hundreds of dollars after all. As long as the most crucial information is there, and it is an easy-to-read and easy-to-apply format, you have done your job.

At least you have done your job as a writer. The next important job is as a marketer. This is the job that really makes you the money. In fact, this is so important that you may want to pay for someone to write your sale's page. This can cost as much as $2,000, but you may sell three or ten times as many books as if you did it yourself. Ask for examples of previous successful work.

If you are short on cash, you could try to arrange to pay a nominal fee up front and then a percentage of each sale. This could mean much more in the long run, but keep your initial costs down. It also means that the ad copy writer has a keen interest in making a page that sells.
It is always a good idea to have a bonus or two that go with the book. This can be another short book on a related topic. It can also be something as simple - but useful - as a checklist for inspecting houses or searching for them.

How much can you make? That depends a lot on your marketing efforts. Let's suppose you create a $27 e-book or "e-course". Using ClickBank as an example, you will get to keep about $24 of each sale. You can also offer a commission of say, 50% to other ClickBank affiliates who refer customers to you. These are sales you otherwise almost certainly wouldn't have, so $12 is more than fair.

If, by distributing articles you can generate traffic of 200 visitors daily to your web site, and 1% of them buy the book, you'll sell about 60 books per month, for an income of $1440. If affiliates refer another 20 sales or so your way, for another $240 in revenue, the total would be $1680.Want more income? Promote the book more, or leave the site to do it's thing and write another book.