Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

Today I have closed my first real estate deal that has been performed by outsourcing the majority of the work. I cannot say I have been successful in obtaining everything I wanted from each one of the people I involved in the project, but it has been a fantastic learning platform for me and I was able to develop a better system for screening contractors and helpers and manage their work.

It has been quite a ride since it involved coordinating more that 60 people overall: contractors, Realtors, appraisers, bankers, mortgage brokers, financial partners, consultants, family, lawyers and paralegal staff, inspectors, yet I am very proud to have pulled it off successfully and within the time I had set for myself and obtaining a bit better price from the value I had planned at the beginning.

I am a foreigner so it has been a bit of a challenge for me to get familiar with the way houses are built or rehabbed in the US and this was not a small project: a 1900 square feet home that had to be totally renovated with the addition of a bedroom. So I had to carefully plan from the beginning what I thought could have been a correct selling price once all the rehab was done.

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I believe the most challenging task in any endeavor is to select and bring together the right team. It doesn’t matter if it is a formal organization or just a free association of people, you still need to get the right mix going. And when you have it you need to keep it going from there on, which means you have got to interest people long enough so that they stick with you.

The only way I found this can happen is through communication and observation of other people’s actions and products. Listen to what they tell you about other people they have worked with, see if they try to get around somebody else: what they do to others they will eventually do to you.

Also my kids Alex and Stefano are building their own team. Look at them playing soccer!
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Also understand what they really want to achieve personally. If you manage to somewhat match your goals with their personal goals then you have some advantage. Rely heavily on recommendations. Also maintain a courteous but firm attitude. You want to be clear about what you want but you don’t want to be brutal when they make a mistake.

Many believe that the only way to keep others interested it through money or fun, but this is too thin. . I happen to be involved in real estate, a field where you heavily depend on others. You need to have finances to buy houses, you need specialists to evaluate the house and the work to be done, you need attorneys and CPA’s to keep the paperwork straight, you need contractors who can perform and finally you need salesmen who can get the product back on the market.
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