#nar-india

Excerpts from the Article "NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS"

The quest for a tomorrow that is better than today - measured in terms of wealth, is what defines the business or mercantile aspect of the Gujarati community. Kalpesh Shah, President, National Association of Realtors – India (NAR-I), believes that the Gujarati community is an apt example of India’s success story: “It is about being unwilling to accept life as it is; the willingness to work hard, take calculated risks and work towards a better future.” 

What sets the Gujarati work ethic apart? It is not just ‘hard working’, but also ‘smart working’, focussed on not just earning, but also the creation of wealth, adds Shah. The one Gujarati who has ‘top of the mind’ recall for Shah is the Late Dhirubhai Ambani. “He went from rags to riches in a way that India wants to emulate,” he points out. As President of NAR-I, Shah represents the ‘global best practices’ being implemented in India’s real estate sector. “Traditionally, the ‘middleman’ in Indian real estate was the ‘grease’ that ensured smooth business. The evolution of the broker or dalal into a professional who is ‘in sync with global trends’ as a member of NAR-I also mirrors the change that the Gujarati community is undergoing,” Shah explains.

BRAI conducted its first sports day at the XLR8 indoor sports stadium on the 14th of April 2013. More than 114 realtors attended this event and made it a grand success. The presence and participation of the President, the Vice President, the IPP and all the Governing Board members was appreciated by all and made the day more eventful exciting. this was the first time I have seen so many realtors under one roof and not talk business !

  Competitions were held in two events - Cricket and Paint ball. The Cricket tournament was won by the team from Estates & properties, the runner up for the event was M/s Mint Realty. The Paint ball event was won by the team from /s Silverline Realty.

Free or Low Cost Web Tools

As a real estate broker or Realtor, you’re well aware of how dramatically the Internet is changing the way you live your life. You regularly go to sites for information, news, and entertainment, but here are some websites that will make your job easier and more profitable:

Elance.com – Do you have a website that needs updating, an article or eBook that needs to be written, or are you searching for the perfect virtual assistant to help you close more deals? If any of these apply to you, Elance is the ideal website for you. Membership is free; you simply post your project and select the bidder with the qualifications and proposal you like the best. Elance makes it possible for you to remotely get more done and their Escrow system lets you and your provider collaborate on your project to ensure your satisfaction, while easing the provider’s concerns that they’ll be paid at the end of the project. (www.elance.com)

Google Picasa – If you have dozens – or even hundreds – of photos taking up valuable space on your hard drive, you’re all too aware of how difficult it can be to organize photos of properties you own or might be interested in buying. Google’s free Picasa software application helps you to organize all the photos on your hard drive so you can locate the photo you need within seconds. (www.picasaweb.google.com)

Google Maps – Do you ever wish you knew the layout of a neighborhood without having to get into your car and battle traffic all the way across town? Google Maps puts this visual information onto your desktop so you can see the layout of a neighborhood or compare the proximity of a potential investment to points of interest, schools, shopping, etc. Little details like these can help you decide whether an investment is a bad idea, a good idea – or a great idea. (www.maps.google.com)

Microsoft OneNote – If you’re as organizationally challenged as a lot of investors, Microsoft OneNote may be just what the doctor ordered. It’s an electronic notebook, so you can organize properties you own in one notebook and create other notebooks – and pages – depending on your needs. You may decide to have a separate notebook for properties you’re considering acquiring. The beauty of OneNote is that you can keep all property details at your fingertips, from legal documents to scanned handwritten notes, photos – even audio files. If you have a fairly new computer, it’s probably already on your system if you use Microsoft office. If not, you can download a free 60 day trial version. (www.microsoft.com/onenote)

The Proper Price for Property

Today most investors are trying to find incredible deals and resell them for a profit. This is a great strategy when you execute correctly and buy at the right price, prepare it properly, price and market it correctly.

Today it is very important that you price the property at a saleable price from the first day you list it! This is because the property gets the most attention the first week it is on market. Very quickly it will lose the attention of prospective buyers and your traffic to that advertisement will fall. That means it will take you a longer time to sell the property and collect your profit!

More importantly, a listing gets the most attention on its debut. This fact was documented by a report that concluded - the week that a listing goes on the market, it is estimated that it gets nearly four times more visits on real estate websites than it does a month later.

How To SELL Quickly!

To sell your property quickly you must have the property fully prepared and properly priced on the day it is listed. It is NOT a good idea to price the house high then reduce the price later. If you do that you will lose a lot of your prospective buyers and the house will take longer to sell. Today buyers search the Internet to locate the properties they want to look at. They often have alerts set up that let them know when a new property is listed. The buyers then have a real estate agent show them the houses.

Ways to Profit from Every Meeting with a Seller

You can make a profit from the deals you find, even when the deals aren't fit for your real estate business. Here are five tips to make sure you get paid for your time.

1. Sign Up the Deal!

This is the most obvious way to profit from every appointment you make.

2. Turn Your "Junk" Into Gold

Take the people you meet who donot fit your business and refer them to people in your network who can profit by the referral. This builds value into your referral network.

3. Get Information on Local Market Conditions

Use the meeting to get information for the resale market and for the rental market. Find out:

What are rental and resale prices like?

How long are properties staying on the market?

What types of properties are most in demand and what types are least in demand?

What is the perceived market conditions according to the sellers?

4. Learn From the Appointment

This is the ultimate way to leverage yourself. What went well with the appointment? What will you do differently next time as a result of what you learned on this appointment? Make sure you take five minutes and debrief yourself in writing!

5. Future Deals

Ways to Build A Buyers/Sellers List

As real estate brokers or Realtors, we buy and sell property. We all need to build our buyers list and sellers list in order to do our work. It is important to have a pool of buyers ready to go when you want to sell a property.

Buyer's List:

Begin networking and asking each investor you meet, what kind of property they invest in. Make a spreadsheet with all of their contact information, what they were looking to buy and their price range and before you know it, your buyers list will begin to build.

Seller's List

You also need to be looking for prospective sellers all the time to build up your sellers list–which is where leads can primarily come in from. As a real estate broker without access to the MLS, you start with nothing - no names, no account base. You have to build from the ground up and this process certainly doesn’t stop.

While calling people out of the blue asking them if they want to sell or buy a house doesn't seem to make sense, there ARE ways to Build your Buyers and Sellers List:

1) Signs: Good ol' fashion "We Buy Houses" signs. In this day and age of online marketing, the keys to a successful sign campaign include the following factors:

Phone Number: Get an easy to remember phone number

Color: Maybe white background with a bright blue font

Sign Size: 18’ x 24’ is a good legible size

Location: putting them in places where traffic stops for a while as well as consistently posting signs at similar locations.

2) Landing Pages: It is worthwhile for a person to provide their name and email address as they will get a free report for example. It is defined as “a web page designed to compel the visitor to take one specific action upon the moment of landing on the page. The sole purpose is to convert the page visitor into a lead.”

3) Direct Mail: While direct mail is certainly more expensive and more work than sending emails, it is a method that generates a mild to moderate amount of leads. Mail physical letters to prospective sellers in order to grow your sellers lists. Focus on targeting only a few different audiences.

How to Work with Realtors

Working with real estate agents can be a challenge if the agent you’ve selected isn’t aware of your needs in acquiring property. They’re accustomed to selling at retail and any deviation from what they consider normal can jeopardize what could otherwise be a great working relationship. The good news is that you have the power to provide the education – if you’re willing to take the time. Here’s how you can do your part. If you’re trying to work with a real estate agent that has never seen – much less worked with – a real estate investor, the first thing you need to do is have a sit-down meeting to explain your goals, your investing strategy, and your needs.

But don’t forget that your real estate agent also has needs. The good news is that today’s market conditions make this a good time to forge what could be a mutually satisfying long-term relationship. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’re pretty well aware that retail buyers have disappeared. Because of this – and low prices – real estate investors are on a buying spree. You can work together and turn incredible profits with the help of a real estate agent that "gets it".

You may be an investor that typically avoids real estate agents whenever possible because you don’t want to deal with real estate commissions. A real estate agent is a known commodity to the friendly banker. Banks work closely with real estate agents on traditional purchases, so there’s an institutional bias that favours the real estate agent.

The bank is more likely to consider an offer that makes sense if it’s presented by someone who speaks their language. Here’s another thought to consider: If a good real estate agent can help grease the wheels and get your offer in front of a lender, you can get an answer more quickly, and potentially close more deals.

There can also be other perks to working with a real estate agent: research. Once you establish a solid working relationship, a real estate agent will be willing to share information with you that would take much longer for you to do yourself. Comps and other MLS data is available through a real estate agent; however, you don’t want to abuse the relationship.