I did a quick survey during the webinar I did last Saturday. The question is: "What is the most important skill a real estate investor needs to have, is it...
a) Raising capital
b) Finding good deals or
c) Selling or leasing a property quickly
25% answered Raising capital
25% answered Finding good deals
and 50% said it's Selling or leasing a property quickly
All of the above skills are important. YOU need to develop all three skills but if there's only one thing you NEED to absolutely learn it is...Selling or leasing a property quickly. Here's why:
1) You can buy properties with "no money down". I've bought my first $3 Million worth of investment real estate all with "no money down". It takes a little bit more work to buy properties with "no money down" but it can be done. You need to find the right seller in a situation such that he/she will be amenable to you taking over his/her property with no money coming out of your pocket. For one example of how to do this, you can read my book "Think Rich Quick" and read the chapter on Rent to Own.
2) You can get good deals from other investors called wholesalers. You can buy them to renovate or rent them or re-sell them (what I call "Affiliate Real Estate Marketing"). The beauty of this approach is that you don't have to do the work of inspecting so many properties, make a ton of offers, deal with unmotivated sellers, etc. The deal is a "done deal" and all you need to do is buy them. Of course, you need to know how to evaluate whether a deal is a good one or a bad one. You need to know how to do your due diligence. BUT bottomline, finding good deals can be outsourced.
3) A good deal can become a bad deal if you can't sell or lease it quickly. I don't care even if you have acquired the deal of the century. I don't care even if you have bought a property at a 50% discount. I don't care even if you get a property NO MONEY DOWN. If you cannot sell or lease a property quickly enough, YOU WILL LOSE MONEY on the deal.
You lose roughly 1% of the value of the property every month it's vacant. For a house left empty for 12 months...and let's say it's worth P5 Million or $100,000...you'll lose P600,000 or $12,000! Ouch. And that's on the "low-side". A vacant house costs a lot because you need to pay real estate taxes, insurance (a vacant house insurance costs 5 to 10 times more than regular insurance), utilities (depending on the location, you need to have the heat ON or the electric ON), and of course the monthly amortization or mortgage payments. What if the house gets vandalized or broken into? What if someone takes over the house and just squatted on it? What if the pipes get stolen? I have all these "bad things" happen to one of my vacant houses and it's very painful. I lost money on that deal.
BUT Trace, I don't KNOW HOW to Sell!
I've heard this complaint a thousand times so here's the answer: get over it - it's NO big deal. You can learn HOW to sell if you want to truly succeed in real estate.
Most people think that in order for you to sell you have to be an EXTROVERT. Wrong. You don't need to be an extrovert in order to sell houses quickly. Most people think in order for you to sell you need to be TALKATIVE or very articulate. Won't you need to "talk people into buying" your property? WRONG - you don't need to be talkative or need to "talk people into buying" your property. Watch this interview I did with one of my students, Will "The Breeze" Abriza. I am calling him "The Breeze" because he sells properties very quickly...almost effortlessly. Will does not "talk people into buying" his properties. Will does not do a HARD SELL on anyone.
Will is an INTROVERT...
In fact, he is one of the MOST INTROVERTED person I know and yet he sells houses in FAST.
Will, as you can tell from the video DOES NOT SPEAK VERY WELL. He is NOT articulate or talkative at all. Notice who did most of the talking in the video - ME.
And yet, Will sold one house in 2 weeks...he sold a condo in 6 days during the Apprentice Challenge and he helped sell Jay Castillo's house in 7 days also during the Apprentice Challenge. Will has only been 'investing' in real estate for only 6 months and yet he sells houses a lot faster than real estate agents who has 6 years of experience!
SO Trace, if an Introvert Like Will Can Sell a House FAST...
Here are the steps to selling a house FAST even if you're an introvert, shy person who does not want to talk people into buying your house...
1. Provide a good deal for your buyer.
It all starts with the deal. Wallace Wattles said in his book "The Science of Getting Rich" you can become rich provided the product or service you provide will give a lot more in "IN-USE VALUE" than the cash value you asked for it. Applied in real estate, DON'T BE GREEDY - sell your house at some sort of discount or provide good financing for it (like rent to own) or make it furnished when other houses being sold are NOT furnished. Make it a good deal for a buyer. Make it distinctly better than the other houses being sold in the area. Provide an "after sales" service like finding a tenant for a landlord buying your house as an example. Provide a good deal for your buyer and 80% of your selling problems will GO AWAY.
2. Utilize YOUR Centers of Influence To Spread the Word
Talk to everyone you know - your friends, family and colleagues. Tell them you'll pay them if they refer you a buyer. Better yet identify influential people or people with BIG network of people who might be interested in properties. Examples of influential people are real estate agents (obviously, they're in the business), lawyers (examples are lawyers who specialize in foreclosures, evictions or ejections of tenants, etc.), bankers and mortgage brokers, architects and contractors, etc.
3. Utilize eXtreme Marketing to Maximize The Probability Your Property Will Sell
eXtreme Marketing is putting out a compelling marketing message to your target market or target buyer, exposed multiple times using multiple media. Whew - that's a mouthful so let me give you some examples. Do not just put an ad in the newspaper when selling a house. Put out an ad in SEVERAL newspapers not just one. Put out an ad online. One of my students have identified almost 100 sites you can post your property for sale. Put out bandit signs, or banners to market your property. Put out flyers. Put out a blog post about your property for sale and post it in your Facebook account. You'll never know where YOUR BUYER is looking or when... so you have to expose your marketing message multiple times (daily) using multiple media (signs, flyers, newspaper ads, online ads, blog, Facebook, etc).
dedicated to your success,
Trace
P.S. Will Abriza through his eXtreme Marketing efforts have now accumulated 104 buyers in his database. Some of these buyers are investors - meaning they want to buy multiple properties. Do you want to partner with Will and have access to his 104 buyers?
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