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Interesting Ways to Use a Blog in the Real Estate Business

Websites have been popular for sometime in the real estate business. Now, just like every other business in the world, so are blogs. Blogs are not just web logs for those who want to journal their thoughts and diaries, they are high power marketing tools for business. Blogs are many times part of their own network offering marketing services to the blog owner. This is like having someone optimize and market your website for your and all you do is provide the content. On that note blogging becomes the easiest way to market to market your services and your real estate listings on the Internet. Take a look a at some interesting ways to use a bog in the real estate business:

First we should look at the value of a blog in marketing. Ideally a blog is to be updated on a regular basis. This means new content daily. Every time there is new content update on a blog the search engine crawlers will pick it up and more frequently crawl the site resulting in higher rankings. Providing daily content on a real estate blog to increase visitors to both the blog and a website is a quick and easy way to increase business.

The content of your real estate blog should be small, brief entries. If they are busy and surfing fast, many blog surfers will skip over those blogs with too much content. Blog posts can be lead-ins to what the visitor will find when they get to the website. The blog is almost and small advertisement for your real estate business, where as your website is where all your business information is.

These brief entries can also include one MLS listing and photo. Perhaps you can list the day or week. The photo will help attract visitors. This can be a place where you make a complete dovetailed description of the listing, in much greater detail then the MLS. Be sure to make it easy to lead to other listing or your web site. Your links should fall in to the posts naturally.

Another way to provide daily content is to offer the current financial information on the real estate market. Let visitors know what their mortgage rates are doing. Explain common mortgage and lending procedures. Offer resources if you do not have information in this area. Just be careful not to lead your visitor away from your blog to quickly. For instance, the finance resource link could be on your webpage. Meaning, your visitor would get their via your website.

One of the greatest benefits of the blog is the comment section. This can be used when listings are posted or perhaps when real estate tips or common questions are answered. Not only is this a great resource to your client, but also every time you or one of your representatives responds to a visitor, your real estate business is being represented. Real estate clients are always full of questions and the ability to access a blog on their agents site to engage in dialogue about certain topics or listing only strengthens the relationship. Each question answered is another reference to visitors. Visitors and clients enjoy the dialogue. Most often it is those blogs that leave comments unanswered begin to loose visitors and comments all together.

Every day the Internets search engines are filled with real estate questions. Learn what keywords are being searched for on Google and Yahoo, and then you can determine how and what to write about. Using popular keywords in your content will direct more traffic to your Blog. In the real estate market there are prospective sellers, buyers, and even renters. These are all the visitors you should be marketing to. Deliver quality content, information, and resources.

Remember that it is not the length of every post, but the consistency. Content and more content is what the search engines are looking for. This is what will get your blog noticed on the Internet and in the real estate business.

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Ice Tower Failed – Panama Real Estate Bubble Bursting Now?

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Today (062307) one of our major Panama newspapers carried the story of Ice Towers failing to move ahead to completion. Ice Towers was a Panama City icon condo project projected to reach 104 stories in height making it one of the highest residential buildings in the entire world. Ice Towers was to come complete with shops, hotel, casino, amenities etc. It is now been announced that the project will not go ahead and be built to completion according to La Prensa Newspaper today.

This is the second major project that has officially announced failure to complete, the first being Placio de la Bahia which was another icon projected to be 97 floors also on Avenida Balboa.

We hold the opinion that these are not the only projects to fail. They were some of the biggest and grandest with a lot of publicity. It is possible that other projects have failed already and it is impossible to know that. A significant amount of these projects are nothing more than a piece of land with a fence and a billboard portraying the project in all of its projected glory. These projects stay in pre-sell mode and the developers keep hoping to sell enough to move ahead. Only time will tell if they ever complete. The official loss of Palacio de Bahia and now Ice Towers is certain to cool down what was a sizzling real estate market. The modification recently in the Panama Tourist Visa Laws reducing tourist visa to 30 days down from 90 days, will certainly only serve to cool things down further since a lot of people simply wish to come to Panama a few months a year as tourists and reside in the home in Panama. Now they are forced to pursue a residency program they did not foresee pursuing when they bought their home.

For many months we kept driving by the site of Ice Tower and were wondering why we just saw a big hole in the ground with some lights and a few guys working. This was not consistent with a world-class project that should have been built out much sooner. Now we know why.

Our contacts in the building industry inform us that once you get up over about forty floors the construction costs soar to about triple what the lower floors cost. Think about hauling up all those construction materials with super cranes for starters without even getting into foundations, wind shear, internal integrity, plumbing, phones, electrical, etc.

Many of the speculator owners of Ice Tower units paid 1000.00 a sq. meter and now rates for icon projects have soared to 2000 all the way up to 3500 a sq meter.

It was announced that the owners would be receiving refunds. No dates for the refunds were announced in the newspaper. The newspaper did not say whether or not any interest would be paid on the money put down or if so what the rate would be. It was also announced that another real estate project would be built on the site for current fair market values. No further details were provided. It is doubtful that it would be anything as dramatic as Ice Tower. The site is on prime Balboa Avenue property with unobstructed water views and could undoubtedly house a prime project but probably one of no more than 50 floors.

Our law firm has been advocating to our clients that they should only buy real estate, which has already been built. If you can?t go into the condo or single-family house and flick a light switch and flush the toilet don?t buy it, it may never get built. The prices of the older condos and homes are much cheaper and the houses are better built.

Our law firm also advocates strongly never buying any real estate or renting any real estate without having a Panama Attorney review any documents before you sign them and never place any funds down on a property without paperwork previously reviewed by a Panama lawyer.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Panama Real Estate Market. We will be posting articles any time a major development occurs or if there are any changes to laws that would affect tourist, homeowners or real estate investors.

Real estate is a tried and tested asset class and the majority of people agree that as a long term investment commodity there is nothing really to beat it for consistently returning strong growth and increasing yieldshowever, when a country’s housing market goes temporarily cold as real estate prices move outside of the affordability gap, real estate investors often look overseas for the development of their property based portfolio.

Currently the real estate markets in countries such as the UK and US are slow and the ability to profit from property locally is reduced – therefore more people than ever are thinking about moving their focus abroad and starting an overseas real estate portfolio to enable them to build a passive income for life.

If you would like to learn more about building a passive income for life from investing in overseas real estate here are the main five considerations to bear in mind to maximize profit, reduce risk, increase yields and capitalize on opportunities as they present themselves but before we begin it is always prudent to mention that the value of any investment can always go down as well as up, and that investment decisions should be taken carefully and be made with the assistance of qualified and experienced advisors.

Tip One – Real estate markets around the world emerge, boom, go bust and re-emerge all over again, but they do so at very different points in time as each market is heavily dependent on the current state of the economy in the given country. As we all know economies ebb and flow like the tide and there is no such thing as a guaranteed market where property prices will keep rising. However, there are countries in the world going through major economic change where the real estate market is emerging and where the long term forecast is for a period of prolonged growth. An investor who is not risk averse and who is planning an overseas real estate portfolio should try and identify which countries have a strengthening economy and an emerging real estate market.

Tip Two – Having found an emerging market an investor needs to determine the key factor that makes an investment into real estate in the given country a good decision. I.e., if a country’s property market is simply booming because of hype and an investor can see nothing to support the long term success of the market then they should walk away. If an investor can see massive room for growth but an interfering government who may attempt to restrict property investors from taking their profits then an investor has to decide whether or not they can still make enough profit from real estate to make any investment worthwhile.

Tip Three – Having determined that there is potential within a given market an investor needs to learn how to harness the power of other people’s money! As real estate is an expensive and slow to liquidise commodity it is unwise to pay cash from personal funds for an investment property, rather it’s wise to raise finance at a low interest rate from a secure financial institution. An investor should look into whether an international mortgage or a local mortgage is possible and affordable when buying overseas real estate.

Tip Four – As previously stated, over the long term real estate is considered by many to be one of the most consistently returning asset classes the key to this consistent success is however the ‘long term’ bit! I.e., when buying real estate abroad for capital growth and rental yield it pays to be able to keep that real estate for ten years or more to ensure the greatest reward is derived from the investment.

Tip Five – And finally, having determined that the key factors exist to suggest that a property market has legs to run and that any hype surrounding its progress is based on fundamentally accurate facts as detailed in Tip Two, an investor need to ensure they buy real estate that will suit the market demand that is making the real estate market successful! Therefore if the baby boomers are driving a given market consider buying single level properties in secure communities, if on the other hand the young professionals are driving the market think about purchasing well located, designed and facilitated apartments.

How to Set and Achieve Your Goals in Real Estate

I want to ask you two questions. One, do you have a Will? And two, do you have written goals for the next one, three, five and ten years? If you answered yes to the first question but no to the second, you are planning more for your death than you are while you are here. Think about it. I want to challenge you to start setting some goals, but remember if a goal is not in writing, it is simply a conversation. It must be in writing and it must have a deadline. Here are a few guidelines for setting goals. Oh, by the way… you need a will also.

Goals Must be Specific

I want you to be specific and include details but start rough. When you start rough for example, you want a Mercedes. You do not have to get into the details about what color, what options, that sort of thing, just write it down. Make your list huge, what kind of home do you want, what you want for your family, college education, spend more time, travel, anything you can think of. You can come back later and prioritize them and set them up as to what you want in one month, three months, six months, twelve months, then three, five, ten, twenty, thirty year goals. The more goals you have, the happier you will be, the longer you will live, and the more prosperous you will be.

Goals Must be Believable

Remember this, your goals must be believable, by you, or you will not pay the price. They must be believable, they must be just out of your reach, but you must know you can reach them, if you really strive to do it.

Goals Must be Measurable

You cannot set a goal to be financially independent. There is no way you can measure that. You need to set a goal for the amount of income you want per month, per year, the amount of equity that you want in properties one, three, five, ten and twenty years. It must be measurable. That way you can break it down to what I call reduce it to the ridiculous. If you know you want to earn 100,000 a year, you know that is 8,333 per month. Thats just one deal a month where I live. One of the things I have learned is, successful people set their goals quickly and they make adjustments as they go along. Just like successful people make decisions quickly, they do not vacillate in indecision or what I call sometimes; get mixed up in a funk of negativity.

Goals Must be Congruent

Your goals must also be congruent with your actions. You cannot set a goal to work harder, longer hours AND a goal to spend more time with your family. Those are not congruent. They must be congruent with your actions.

Visualize What You Want

Another good thing that will help you with your goals is to visualize what you want. If you see yourself as already having achieved the goal, you will fake out your mind and your mind sees the goal as already having been achieved. Its called fake it till you make it. I used to do this all of the time. Just take a minute or two each day and think about life as it is with your goals already accomplished. Its really easy when you get used to it.

Work Your Goals

The next thing you want to do is work your goals, work on the priority that moves you closer to your goals every day.

Number Your Goals

Number your goals in the order of importance. Not only is the goal important but so is the reason. Sure your want a car, but why do you want the car? Sure your want more money, but why do you want money? You want to be able to spend more time with your family, you want to be able to travel, you want to buy a Hummer, and you want to have an ocean front condo or send your children to the best college. Whatever it is, the reason must be there. The reason is more important than the goal itself.

Review, Monitor and Make Adjustments

Another thing you need to do is review, monitor and make adjustments on your goals. You have to be flexible. Some things are not going to happen, you have to face that; but you need to continuously strive to get better every day. If you will work harder on yourself than you do on your job then you will always be growing. Remember that last sentence and write it down as it is worth repeating.

The Goals Must Have a Deadline

As I mentioned first, your goals must have a deadline. A goal without a deadline is just a conversation. When beginning to set your goals, I want you to set your goals in four basic areas:

Financial

You will set goals based on income, equity or net worth and cash flow. All of these are financial goals.

Fitness

This is your health. If you dont feel good, chances are that you are not working at your maximum capacity. So, I want you to set some fitness goals to stay healthy. Remember an apple a day? What if this is right and you are not doing it? Start small though, you dont try to tackle all of these at once; but you need to be healthy not only for you but for your family as well.

Family

Set family goals. What is an example of a family goal? Maybe you want to take four vacations a year. Maybe you want to visit a new state, three times a year or five times a year. Maybe you want to go see the Grandparents two or three times a year; but maybe not. Anyway, you get the point.

Faith

You need to set some spiritual goals, some faith goals. I am not going to get into a lot of detail about that but that will help you along your way. Remember, if you slip in one area of your goals, you are probably slipping in some other areas. Another thing I want you to think about is the people you associate with. Take a minute and think about this. If you think about your ten closes friends annual salary and divide it by ten, then that is pretty close to what you make. Im not telling you to get rid of your friends, all Im saying is whom you associate with, is who you are like, so please keep that in mind. Dont get rid of your friends, just get some more that are where YOU want to be financially. Most of the people I hang out with now, we all make over 500,000.00 a year. That just blows me away. I never imagined I could make that kind of money. Well I guess I could, as we are talking about goal setting and visualization arent we?

I hope you have enjoyed this article taken from my course called the Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine! that teaches how we buy and sell 5-10 properties a month, never look at them and have them sold in less than 2 hours. For many more articles and a 10 part ecourse on how to create your own Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine! as well as over 50 training audio recordings you can listen to online, download and collect, simply go to www.LarryGoinsFreeOffer.com where you will gain instant access to all of this and 51 Exclusive Editable real estate investing Forms and Documents all FREE! You will also get two FREE real estate investing eBooks, A free Personal Coaching Profile to help you jump start your real estate Investing, FREE Nationwide Wholesale Property Listing Notification, FREE Weekly Training Teleconferences with Different Topic Each Week, FREE subscription to Larry Goins Almost Weekly Investing Newsletter, FREE Admission for Two to Investor Palooza 3 Day Training Event, FREE Admission for Two to Larry Goins 3 Day Boot Camp, Plus over 31 Exclusive Articles on real estate Investing and Much More! Just go to www.LarryGoinsFreeOffer.com

Thanks and I look forward to working with you,
Larry Goins