Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

The rule is for any kind of investment is: “You make money when you buy”. This is very true also for real estate investment and stays true also for international real estate investors. Finding the true value for a house in the United States without being familiar with the area is somewhat challenging even for an expert evaluator, but it becomes utterly impossible for people who don’t have a clue about the construction methods used in America and much less do they know the repair costs.

Evaluating these data is the toughest challenge for any investor and the recent wave of foreclosed investors is a clear demonstration of the difficulty of predicting both the market and the real After Repair Value of a home. The ARV being the real current selling price that a property can have after you have done all the reparis that are needed in order to make in marketable. The very choice of what repairs to make and the materials to be used can make the difference between making money and losing money on a deal.

Look at how ICO works in real life

This factor becomes even more important when you consider that at this date the majority of actual deals out there come from bank repossessed properties. Here you can find astounding low prices but you know for sure that the house will need some kind of repair before it can be resold or rented. The key difficulty that I find in all my fellow investors overseas is: “How do I know this is really a good deal? How can I find the actual current value of what I am buying considering that prices keep going down in certain markets”.

The usual approach of looking for similar sales in the area or to ask to a local Realtor is no more adequate for two reasons: properties keep coming on the market daily and the best deals get snatched up pretty quickly, the market is so much influenced by foreclosures and bank owned properties that values change continually.

Recognizing this need I have looked for a system that would compute the actual value, reducing the research work so that you can look at more properties per day and capture all the best deals you can. It had to be a system one could use from the comfort of his or her home, no matter how remote from the actual market, because it has to serve international real estate investors who live in Europe or also elsewhere. I found that the best solution for me is www.investorcompsonline.com, the automatic evaluation site created by Mark Jackson. So I have captured Mark’s attention to get him involved in a project that will bring his system to European investors as of the second half of March 2009. It is going to make a huge difference in the amount of investing that will be done from overseas also because it provides personal consultancy on the evaluation, that is you can ask Mark’ staff to double check values for you and also because ICO provides lots of training content to get everybody up to speed.

I have started to learn the system myself in these days and I am putting it to test before releasing it to all other investors across the pond. Some materials will have to be translated so to make it even more usable, but it is a resource that you will also be able to tap into if you need to confirm an appraisal for an investor who is wishing to buy from you.

Here you find the original interview with Mark Jackson (from now on Marco Giacsoni) that spurred all this just one week ago. I have already posted it on my blog but I post it again because I truly believe this is going to be a major, major step into opening the US real estate market to a whole new wave of buyers, and cash buyers for that matter. We’ll be going live with our series of webinars in Italy as of March 12, if you have any specific deal or property you want to pitch let me know.

Look at a short demonstration of Investor Comps Online I have just made.

Brief demonstration of property evaluation with ICO

For an interview with Mark Jackson about the project, go to my previous post:

Mark Jackson the king of evaluation goes international!

Roberto Mazzoni

This is an often overlooked factor, but when dealing with an international real estate investor the tax advantages of having a company setup in the United States and placing the property inside the company can be significant and can add great appeal to your offer as compared to that of any other seller. All international real estate investors buy homes outside of their own land because they want to shelter some of their wealth from the uncertainties of their own local economy. That’s usually the basic reason, and to that you can add all the benefits of having a real estate property in the US, like having a positive cash flow from tenants, having a place to come for their holidays or simply having an asset that can appreciate in value over time and give a positive return.

They never buy with the intention of living in the house and seldom they buy with the idea of reselling it immediately for a profit, although we might see an increase of this latter approach. So creating an entity and placing the property into it and structuring the entity in the proper way so that they are protected from claims (asset protection) and they save on taxes is paramount.

It takes quite some work to know all the different nuances that go into the right entity selection and the proper tax management for an international buyer. If they had to do it themselves they would need to hire lawyers, CPA’s and paying a substantial amount of money, provided the found the right ones. The added value that you can add and that can play big in the value of your offer is for you to partner with an attorney and a CPA that have already done work with international buyers in your area and provide a package that you can sell or add as a bonus to your property. You can make a decent profit from this activity only and the buyer on his own can save a fair amount in taxes, particularly if rehabs are needed or if he plan to rent the place long term. You will have a returning customer who will then refer other buyers to you. It takes some work to get this knowledge, but then you will be paid back many times over.

Roberto Mazzoni

Mark Jackson is one of the most remarkable real estate gurus of the moment. I had the chance of meeting him for the first time in Tampa during a Joint Venture and Internet Marketing webinar last weekend. He was one of the speakers, but even before I had the chance of listening to his presentation, I was immediately struck by his ease and warmth and by his passion, dept felt feelings and beliefs. He is the kind of man who masters immediate trust and respect because he shows he actually cares and that he is at the same time very expert in his own field.

He went through hardships and created his own path with determination and honesty. Before becoming a master investor he became a certified appraiser and eventually has turned that expertise to the benefit of all other investors by offering them the most comprehensive system for evaluating a property and establishing its after repair value before entering into the deal. He provides also extensive training to support the system and can personally validate, along with his staff, the evaluations attempted by his own students. In addition to that he can provide a gateway to some of the best deals available on the market. Here is my interview with him which is also translated in Italian because we will be providing a gateway for Italian investors to access the US market. It will be used for the opt-in page on my Italian blog. A very exciting project!

You can check his site at http://www.investorcompsonline.com.

Many homeowners, investors and real estate agents like to explain in great detail how wonderful the house is, all the little amenities that have been added, all the work that has been done and the little touches that have been added, Although this is more than understandable, everybody is kind of proud of her product, it is definitely not advisable when dealing with an overseas buyer who maybe doesn’t even have the chance of seeing the house in person or who could not understand what is being told even though he were there in person.

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This content is taken directly from an high pressure seminar (JVEvent in Florida – http://www.jvevent.com/) where Sam Bell participated as a speaker. He is unquestionably one of the best Internet Marketers in the real estate field and the real king of Web 2.0 as far as actual results. This gentleman, which is very, very young, has already made millions of dollars by using the techniques he teaches in buying and selling real estate from Atlanta, Georgia.

Look at this brief interview I did with him. It is aimed to the Italian market as well so you’ll have some translation thrown in, be patient, and the noise you hear in the background comes from the huge crowd that was present at the event.

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