Written on
August 5, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
“Do Not Disturb”
That’s what Freddie Mac’s Chairman is probably thinking right now.
Today, Reuters.com released a news article titled “Freddie Mac chief disregarded warning signs: report.” The article discusses decisions of Freddie Mac’s Chief and how he led Freddie Mac into its financial troubles.
According to the article, New York Times reported more than two dozen current and former high-ranking executives warning the chief of company’s internal financial problems. So what happen? How did the Chief respond to these warnings? Continue reading! »
Posted in Real Estate Market News | Comment Now!
Written on
August 3, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Over the past several years, the Internet has exploded with innovative ways to market and interact with others in order to promote the overall well being of everyone involved.
Compared to other industries such as Electronics, E-commerce, Retail and Automotive, the real estate industry has not been eager to engage in this Internet revolution.
Until the last year or so…
Finally, real estate is using this powerful vehicle to allow consumers take control over their real estate transactions. Today, consumers have more power than ever and the future of real estate is getting more consumer-friendly each and every day. Consumers can research, view, buy, sell, build, demolish and improve their real estate holdings all on their own.
Life when consumers had to depend on real estate professionals is slowly going bye-bye. Don’t believe me? Here’s a sample of Web 2.0 consumer targeted real estate sites…
And remember, this is just a beginning…
LoveThatPlace.com.au This company is based in Australia but they do have something going there. Users can register for free and share photos of their property, gather feedback about their home from other users, and test the market before selling their home.
Realius.com - Welcome to Fantasy Real Estate. Using this site, you can test your market knowledge by selecting a neighborhood and predict home sale prices. Don’t think there are any possibilities for profit?
Think again… Imagine predicting real estate prices in your market and you become a Board Leader. Who do you think homeowners will ask for help? You, the guy who knows how much their house is going to sell for or their local agent who can’t sell a house for six month?
HalfShare.com This site specializes in sharing your vacation property with others. Thinking about taking that vacation and spending it in a luxury style vacation home? Well, you just might be able to do that because this site will help you find that luxury vacation home for a fraction of the cost.
HubBuzz.com This site is still in beta but it already gets a lot of traffic. This site will help renter find his/her next apartments. How? By taking into consideration person’s wants, needs and lifestyle. Then, the site offers relevant community information, neighborhood maps, descriptions and pictures.
Obviously, this is just a sample of dozens real estate websites starting up each and every day. I believe that all real estate professionals need to jump on this wagon, reevaluate their positioning and join this new revolution.
Otherwise, you’ll be left behind.
So, do you have any sites you would want to share? Post your comments here and let me know. Tell me what you think about all this?
Here’s something to think about for today.
If you are still not using the internet for your real estate business, isn’t it time to start, right now?
To Your Success,
Peter K.
Founder of Real Estate Black Book
Posted in General | Comment Now!
Written on
July 29, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Over the past week, I wrote 2 blog posts that discussed real estate social media and outlined strategies showing how real estate professionals can use it for their real estate internet marketing purposes.
In the first post, I spoke about Top 7 Real Estate Social Media Sites that real estate investors and agents can use to gain advantage over their competition.
Next, after receiving some great feedback from my readers, I wrote a post titled “Real Estate Social Media- When Time is of The Essence“. That post focused on sites you could integrate into your real estate social media marketing funnel when you are strapped for time.
Since those 2 blog posts were so successful, I decided to continue on with real estate social media marketing. Today, I will talk to you about 10 different ways you can use social media to improve your real estate marketing on the internet.
Feel free to share this with others, post it on your own blog, bookmark it, or whatever else you want to do with. All I ask is that you don’t change anything and link back to RealEstateBlackBook.com as a source.
10 Ways Real Estate Investors Can Use Social Media
1.
Start a group on social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or Google Groups. You can start a group called “Save my house” to help homeowners in trouble. Since people feel that they’re anonymous on the internet, you’ll be surprised how many people will come and ask for help. Continue reading! »
Posted in Social Media | Comment Now!
Written on
July 24, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Few days ago, I wrote a post about 7 real estate social media sites that you, as a real estate professional, should be using on the internet.
Let me just say, the post was a hit. :) I’m glad to hear it. It even ended up FIRST on the front page of a new real estate social bookmarking site puurple.com
For those of you who commented and voted for my post, THANK YOU very much. I really appreciate your support.
Now, what’s up with this post? Peter, what do you mean by “When Time is of An Essence?” Let me explain…
One of my readers, Brian has asked me the following question… Continue reading! »
Posted in Social Media | Comment Now!
Written on
July 20, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Unless you have been living under the rock for the last year, you have probably heard about social media and WEB 2.0. Social media is THE new internet revolution and it is taking over the internet. For the past several months, I have been using social media myself. I have been able to form many different personal relationships, create business partnerships, gain real estate leads and increase my presence in the real estate world.
Today, I decided to share with you 7 social media sites that will help you increase your internet presence, form partnerships and business relationships, and even flip houses to make some money. But before I go into resources, I need to share with you the reason why you should be doing this.
Why would you need to invest your time into Social Media Marketing?
Here’s the short answer: Because in today’s society, it works. Here’s what I mean by that… Continue reading! »
Posted in Social Media | Comment Now!
Written on
July 13, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
As always, I want to bring you quality information that you can use today to help your real estate business on the internet. We both know that one of the biggest
obstacles people face on the internet is driving traffic to their site. There are certain traffic secrets, as you may call them, that virtually guarantee your success on the internet.
Also, if you have been paying attention to whatI share with you every week on my blog, you know that the strategies I share are very unique and new to help you dominate your market on the internet.
We both know that one of the biggest obstacles people face on the internet is driving traffic to their site.
I just might have the answer for you right here…
You see, John Reese is one of those people that I watch to see what he does and how he does it. Why? Because I think he is one of the best internet marketers when it comes to driving traffic to your site. He is the man who back in 2004 , released his traffic secrets just to make over$1 million in the first 18 hours.
But what does that have to do with real estate? Continue reading! »
Posted in My Recommended Products | Comment Now!
Written on
July 10, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Google has finally updated one of the best keyword research tools out there, their Free keyword Research Tool. It’s been a long time coming. The update is so significant that it has internet marketers around the world updating their keywords and testing the new keyword analysis tool to analyze its effectiveness.
So, what is this Big Google Keyword Analysis Tool Update? Continue reading! »
Posted in Real Estate SEO Tactics | Comment Now!
Written on
July 8, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Today, I wanted to share with you something different. It’s a real estate internet marketing idea that will help you sell your house as soon as possible. Now, I didn’t come up with this concept, somebody else it. But I have to admit, it is very creative.
Here’s the scoop. A real estate agent/mom was trying to sell her house located in West Palm Beach, Florida. Struggling to sell her house, she came up with a creative way to sell her house while solving another problem, finding herself a husband. Ans she did it by using internet marketing to sell her house.
Needless to say, she’s been on news, first page on Digg.com, Ebay and Craigslist. She started with selling her house on Ebay but as far as I know, that listing has been taken down.
You can check out the House for sale craigslist listing (still up as June 7, 2008) and a House for sale includes a wife news story on a local channel.
So, what kind of internet marketing lesson can we get out of this for your own real estate listings?
First, her listing has a creative spin to it. Obviously, you might not be able to auction yourself with the house you are trying to flip but this should give you some ideas.
For instance, what if you could add an extra creative bonus to your listing. Lots of people are struggling with the raising gas prices. What if you throw in $200 gas card in there? If you stand to make $5,000-$10,000 on a house, I think throwing in a $200,$500 or even a bigger gas card is a win-win solution for you and the buyer.
Better yet, put a time limit on the gift card saying “If you buy the house in the next 2 weeks, I’ll give you a $500 gas card. After that the gift card will go down to $200.”
Second, her story had a viral effect attached to it. What was it? Well, the headline itself was catchy. Who sells a house with a wife, right? Last time I heard, her Ebay listing had thousands of hits on it. Also, she had pictures of herself in there.
Her idea was following a simple question-What does media want and feed on? What do people want? As we both know by now, that idea was picked up by the news and plastered over the internet.
So, how can you get your real estate listings noticed? If you come up with a creative idea for your listings, call up your local TV station and tell them about it. Seriously, call them up and tell them what you are offering. News stations are hungry for creative and controversial stories. They need to fill out an entire hour with news and stories. And how do you think they get all those stories each and every day? People call them up.
How do you get it to spread all over the internet?
Well, there are many ways but today I’ll give you one technique that I think is greatly underutilized by real estate agents and marketers. Write and submit a press release about your creative idea. You can get your story on the first page on Google News within 20 minutes by writing a press release and submitting it to a press release site.
What sites should you submit your press release to?
The best PR site on the internet is PRweb.com but you’ll need to spend anywhere from $80 to #360 there. But if you use prweb.com, your press release will be all over the place. Plus, you’ll get tons of backlinks to your site giving you boost in your search engine rankings.
Here are couple of other press release sites that I’ve used in the past which have worked very well.
Webwire.com -You can list there for as little as $19.
Prleap.com - You can list there for as little as $49.
Secret Tip: Combine the 2 sites above and you got yourself a great press release strategy. If you do this right, you’ll be surprised at the results you’ll receive.
Press Release Tips: When writing a press release, don’t advertise it there, NEVER ADVERTISE in there. Remember, most of these press releases are read by media and if they see a sales pitch in there, you’ll never get the attention you deserve. Also, write in 3rd person. Write your press release in such a way that it reads as if someone else was writing a press release about you.
And if you don’t know how, or don’t want to write a press release, outsource it to sites like Elance, RentaCoder or ScriptLance. (Stay tuned for a future post on outsourcing- You won’t believe what you can outsource on the internet for your real estate business.)
To Your Success,
Peter K.
Founder of Real Estate Black Book
P.S.
Here’s a bonus tip. Create a blog, just like I have here, and post your listings on there. Google and other Search Engines pick up blog posts much faster that regular sites. Google likes blogs, especially self-hosted wordpress blogs.
So, that’s all for today. Do you have any creative marketing tricks that you have done and would like to share with me? Post you comments below.
Posted in Real Estate Marketing | Comment Now!
Written on
June 30, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
Today, June 30, 2008 Wachovia has announced that they are eliminating their Pick-A-Pay Program from their loan offerings. Wachovia Pick-A-Pay Program was one of their biggest attractions during the housing boom throughout the Unites States market. People could have paid their loan whenever they wanted it each month. The program allowed borrowers to pay several times each month towards their mortgage. Sounds like a great program, doesn’t it?
Well, not when the default rates on the loans have been higher than they expected them to be. Wachovia is estimating $1.1 billion in losses for their Pick-A-Pay program in 2008. In the first quarter alone, Pick-A-Pay program represented $121 million of their total consumer loan portfolio. Woow! That’s huge.
Now, Wachovia is allowing people to escape their prepayment fees. Why would they do that? They are eliminating prepayment fees so people can refinance and get into a more sustainable mortgage.
That’s very interesting, isn’t it? But let me ask you this Wachovia. Continue reading! »
Posted in Real Estate Market News | Comment Now!
Written on
June 26, 2008
by
Peter- REBB Founder
I know you’ve been there before. You sit down, grab a pen and paper and start to write those killer ads for real estate that will bring you motivated sellers right to your door. Or do you?
Writing real estate ads is not as easy as it sounds, is it? You see that blank piece of paper, you stare at it and get frustrated because nothing good is pouring out on that piece of paper. Your brain just does not want to write ads 
Well today, in a true Real Estate Black Book fashion, I have another free resource for you that will get those real estate classified ads written and written in such a way that will grab your reader’s attention like flies on sh_t. Continue reading! »
Posted in Free Resources | Comment Now!
