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Urban Core Properties

I am going to relate a story, you may see yourself in this story or a similarity.  But if you live in say California and are investing in - say - Kansas City Missouri Urban Core Properties, this might be you.

On Wednesday I received a call from suzie seller from out of state, she had a lovely home to sell at 33rd and Askew (not the real address).  She was selling because she "needed the cash" .  Home was worth about $77,000 in todays market, she only wanted $35,000 for it and the home was in excellent condition.

Great, but being a smart investor, I wanted to do a bit of due dilegence on this deal.  (not a good deal at all by the way)

So I went to MLS and looked up this property to see it had been listed as a short sale in MLS and that listing had just expired 4 days ago.  From the photos on mls it appeared to be a 2 story home, that was boarded up, and looks like it had been roughed up a bit and probably needed repair.  And knowing vacant urban core properties, it probably had its plumbing and HVAC ripped out by vandals.

I related this information to the out of state seller.

I received back today that out of state seller had just purchased it 2 weeks ago and she was "told" it was in excellent condition and was rent ready.  She only wanted $28,000 for it today.  She was unaware that anyone had it listed in mls in the past.  Being the good samaritan that I was, I decided to send a copy of the mls listing with the interior photos so she could see what she had purchased 2 weeks ago.

Lo and behold the MLS listing had been relisted at $9,500 by the same listing agent who had it listed a few days ago, same boarded up 2 story home in the photos and the listing now states that the home is  in overall decent condition but that it does need interior and exterior repairs and the HVAC system is missing.

My offer on the house was if I had to buy it, I would pay maybe $1000, but not a house I would want to buy.  The highes price sold with in a 1/4 of a mile was $6,000 on one house and $9,000 on the other - in the past 200 days.   There were active listings for less.

For our out of state buyers, buying in the urban core - before you plop down your hard earned cash on a clunker, get a dis interested third party go look at it and take photos and get you some comparables of houses around the area.  Hire a buyer's agent or just hire someone to do comps and go look at it for you.  Don't buy sight unseen and don't trust the seller or seller's agent - even if it's me.

Even the most honest of seller or agent can miss things.  So for example when I sell a house I try to send photos to my out of state buyers and give them a good list of what needs fixed, I still miss things.

Sorry guys had to vent, I have had about 10 out of state sellers trying to sell me some beautiful $5,000 house in our lovely urban core for $50k, $40k, $30k, $20k and going down.  Our standard offer if we buy it is $5,000 or less and on some, we would need to be paid to take it.  There is someone in Kansas City or some bulk reo seller selling houses for way too much money with really big stories of values. 

The true value right now in our urban core for the most part is in the cash flow in the property.  So for a fully renovated, with all it's working parts, AND a paying seasoned tenant in place, you can expect to pay between $30,000 ($600 month rent), $40,000 ($700 month rent), or $50,000 ($800 month rent) on average.  These values might go up a bit in revival areas where there are a lot of nice, clean, owner occupied homes.

And this is probably going to be fairly standard in other midwestern urban core properties, not just Kansas City Investment Properties.

Kim

Build your Real Estate Investing Team in Kansas City

The guru's all tell you that your first step in real estate investing is to build your team.

So if you are new to investing, or just new to investing in Kansas City, you need to build your team in Kansas City.  The best place to start in team building is the Vendor Page our web site. 

We currently have about 500 current and previous members who utilize our Vendor Page on a weekly basis as a place to start when they are looking for a service.  We also log about 20 phone calls a month at the office for referrals for service providers.  We always send them to the Vendor Page first, then we go through MAREI members.

If you need a product or service, start on our vendor page, if you can't find what you are looking for, log into the member's area and click on profiles to browse all of our members and see who does what.  More than likely you will find the service you need. 

Real Estate Events in Kansas City

Do you have a real estate event to share with the public?

 

Get it on MAREI's calendar of events and share with the public.

• Investor meetings and networking events.
•  Auctions and sales.
• Legislation & Regulation
• Cash Flow Games

As long as your event is not a real estate investor training event we can publish on our calendar for $25. 

If you have a real estate training event, we would love to look at your training outline and joint venture with you on the event.

Real Estate Investment Groups - Why Join MAREI

"You CAN Get Rich in Real Estate . . .



But Not Without Help!"



"The best thing about MAREI for me has been the access to the knowledge of others.  When I have a question or need a referral for a title company, an attorney, a home inspector I can go to the message board and pose my question to the entire membership and get multiple responses.

Your best resource for successful real estate investing is a group already succesful investors as well as people learning just like you in your own area.  When you read Napoleon Hill's  book, "Think and Grow Rich," he talks about the "Mastermind Group" necessary to achieve your success . . . think of MAREI as your mastermind group. Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors is a vital part of your real estate investing plan.  A source to find partners, funding for deals, and a support group of people who have been exactly where you are today!  Ask any guru or read any how to book, and they all tell you to build your investing team and to do that they tell you the best place to start is your local investing group. 

"I can't think of any better resource in Kansas City for investors than joining the

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors.  The resources and networking you will gain access to are invaluable and the dues of only $99 a year make it very affordable."

 

Membership in MAREI gives you accountability; we have a code of ethics that all of our members are required to adopt.  As a member of MAREI we expect you to conduct yourself in an ethical manner, and can expect other members to do the same.  Plus we find that members of MAREI tend to do business with other members.

Membership is just $99.00 per year (add a family member or business partner - using the same address for just $50) and includes free admission to monthly meetings (a $275 value), plus free admission to our sub-groups across the city. If you have a business that you would like to promote through our association (very effective, indeed), Please click here for more information about Business Membership.

Mainstream Press Reports Benefits of Real Estate Investor Clubs

All of these mainstream publications have reported the benefits of joining a local real estate investors association.

 

"Real estate investment clubs have helped many to learn the business and launch a successful real estate investment operation." - About.com "Real estate groups aren't about joint decisions or communal investments. Instead, they're about education and networking." - MSN Money "Where landlords go to schmooze" - CNN Money "One of the best things about being in a club... is the access it provides to reliable contractors, suppliers and other skilled people." - New York Times

 

Through our website, our social media and at our meetings you have access to hundreds of other investors who are like-minded ("creative" real estate entrepreneurs).  You can find a lender, a property locator, title people, and any number of other business associates who can be a vital tool of your investing team and your success.  Our meetings feature both local and national professional experts who speak on topics that help you think "outside the box" in real estate investing.  We also feature a number of special seminars and workshops, that are offered at a discount to our members.

 

Access to the Online Membership Area

Members get access to the secure online area, which features priceless benefits to the Real Estate Investor.

Interactive Message Board

Meet our other 500+ members and discuss deals, share advice, get referrals, find partners and more!

Property listings

Post a property for sale, for rent or rent to own in our classifieds and our message board..  Upload a picture of the property.  Offer a referral fee and get your property sold or rented faster!

Calender of Events

View and register for events and download information directly to your Outlook calendar!

Real Estate Articles

Read our daily news feed of industry news and articles on the real estate industry.

Document Library

Download legal forms, including deeds, mortgages, notes, contracts.  Read dozens of special reports and e-books valued at hundreds of dollars!

Audio recordings

Listen to streaming audio recordings of webinars, teleconferences and meetings. Yours FREE as a member!

Member Discounts

We have partnered with local and national vendors to bring you money saving discounts. 

 

Can you believe all of this is just $99.00 per year?  For less than the cost of a cup of coffee  a day, you can get all of these benefits!  Since 2003 there's been no better value or better resource than membership in the Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors.

 

Online Marketing on Twitter

Twitter is another tool that Than Merrill discussed when he spoke in April.  As real estate investors, we can attract both buyers and sellers using social media, and there is a lot of tools out there to get all the social media pages to either do things automatically or talk to each other.

For example it is possible to sit up all these social media sites and then make one post on just one site and have it talk to all the others.

Three sites you need to be on are:

http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.twitter.com/

If you join these pages, look up us up:

Kansas City Real Estate Investing or MAREInet

Let's Talk some Tools:

• Hummingbird is one of the cool tools Than talks about.  When you are on Twitter, you want a large following.  To get people to follow you, you need to follow them.  This takes a lot of time and you can either hire someone to do it for you, or buy this tool for $97.  It can complete about 8 hours of work with just about 10 to 20 minutes of set up time on your part, then set up time goes down.
• SocialOomph is another great tool.  So you are going on vacation and don't want to take the time to post 4 tweets a day or to get on facebook and make posts on your schedule.  Using this tool, you can prewrite posts and preschedule them.  You can even save them to repost again at a later date.
• Twitterfeed  allows you to feed one web site into twitter or the other way around
• Ping.fm is one we really like, it allows you to post one post on Ping and have it repost on just about any other page.  You can even create posts using email.  This one is improving.

If you use the Hummingbird page, it has a bunch of online videos that explain not only how Hummingbird works, but the whole concept of using Twitter as a marketing tool.

So a sample online marketing plan would be to

1.  Set up accounts at all o the above tools 
2.  Get all posting sites talking to each other and posting in sequence
3.  Using Hummingbird once a week, work to get more followers on twitter
4.  The write a series of short blog posts with a free report for your blog page 
         (schedule them to appear one a day or so in advance & include a way to sign up to get a free report)
5.  Blog will post on schedule, then feed to twitter & linked in

You can set up a series of short articles and a free report:
1.  How to stop foreclosure to get short sale dels
2.  How to sell fast, for just about any kind of seller
3.  How to get started as an investor, to build your buyer's list.
4.  How to be a private lender
5.  How assignments and double closings works - for a title company marketing
6.  How insurance works for rental and vacant properties

Hope these ideas help you in your marketing, and think outside of the box to fit your business.

Putting The "Service" Back In "Customer Service"

Posted by Sean Cohen
The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever. But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?
Today, finding customer support is as simple as writing an e-mail or picking up the phone. But, even though you’re not face-to-face with your customers, you still leave a lasting impression. Do you come across as caring and competent, or menacing and mechanical?
Offering stand-out service on the Internet isn’t as hard as it is rare. Take these simple steps towards old-style service in the digital age:

1. Give Each Customer a Personal Response
2. Be Clear, But Sincere
3. Offer Live Customer Support
4. Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All the Answers

Give Each Customer a Personal Response

When a customer sits down to e-mail your company, it’s because he needs help. He chooses e-mail because it’s quick, but his request still warrants a satisfying and personal response! Companies eager to save time and money often take automation too far in their customer support. Each customer has a unique question, and deserves a unique answer. Even if you save time by copying and pasting stock replies, change the opening and closing to make the message sound less robotic.

Be Clear, But Sincere

When responding to customers’ e-mail, be sincere and to the point. Before sending a message, try turning the tables. Ask yourself, “Would this answer satisfy me if I were the customer?” Take that extra moment to give your customer the help he deserves. It might mean the difference between a satisfied customer and a credit card chargeback!

Offer Live Customer Support

E-mail has become an acceptable form of communication. But, live customer support is still necessary. The plethora of information available online can be overwhelming to customers, especially those new to the Internet! Single your company out from the crowd by providing customers with a real person to talk to. Live phone support is an invaluable way to foster trust. When your customer has reached the end of his Internet rope, and just needs help, your toll free number is the answer he’s looking for.

Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All The Answers

The presence of phone support will do no good if your staff doesn’t know your product! Customer support reps should be warm and friendly, and willing to help with any aspect of your product. What a good feeling it is to talk to someone who feels confident in his product. It’s even better if he’s knowledgeable enough to solve your problem without transferring you all around the company!

Provide Stand-Out Service; Gain Lifelong Customers

Too many e-businesses skimp on customer service, hiding behind web sites and message boards. Customer support is an integral part of every company, even those operating solely online. Be one of the few to offer stellar service, and gain customers for life!     Tune in next week for our next article in this series:   Spam: Where it Came From, and How to Escape It by Tom Kulzer Long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. The company has produced over six billion cans of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam. Learn about the origins of spam, and how to escape it today.  

Yes, we thought this was a real estate blog to, but did you know that as a real estate investor as in any business, that MARKETING IS YOUR BUSINESS.  And one of the cheapest ways to market is with email.  And be sure to network and learn with other Kansas City Real Estate Investors at Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors - http://www.mareinet.com/

New Lead Paint Regulations that started April 22nd.

Lead Safe Work Practices

MAREI in the News

• KC Star Article from Alan Goforth
• Interview with Maria Antonia of KMBC-TV 9

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Effective April of 2010 (and earlier in some State), the EPA final Rule, referred to as the “RRP Rule” (Renovation, Remodeling and Painting Rule), will take effect. One of the many requirements of this new EPA Federal Regulation is that construction related activity persons (Carpenters, Roofers, Painters, Remodelers, Renovators, HVAC Persons, Electricians, Plumbers, Carpet Installers, etc) who will impact 6 square feet or more in total (some States are using 2 square feet) of any and all surface coatings (paint, stain, varnish, shellac, polyurethane, epoxy, sealers, etc) or lead-contaminating materials in a pre-1978 structure, as well as all commercial Daycare centers and Kindergarten facilities, will have to receive the mandated Lead-Safe Work Practices (LSWP) training from an approved Professional Training Provider. 

State or EPA certification /licensure will be required for construction related activity persons (Contractors) and those persons must receive training from an approved Professional Training Provider. When the new RRP Rule takes effect on April 22, 2010, Contractors will have to take the mandated training from a Professional Training Provider that has been accredited by tht EPA or in the specific State in which the Contractors want to provide services.

---

 Resources

• Replay March 2010 Meeting - Down load MP3
• Brochure on RRP from Kansas Healthy Homes
• Information for Property Owners of Rental Housing,
• Information for Property Owners of Rental Housing,
• Information for Contractors
• Information for Realtors and Property Management Firms
• Read about lead-hazard information for renovation, repair and painting activities in the EPA lead hazard information pamphlet Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers, and Schools (PDF) (20 pp, 3.3MB) | en español (PDF) (20 pp, 3.2MB)
• Read about lead-safe work practices for contractors in the EPA pamphlet Contractors: Lead Safety During Renovation (PDF) color, in English (2 pp, 826K) | color, en español (PDF) (2 pp, 334K) | HTML version | Other formats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Web Sites for Real Estate Investors

When Than Merrill was in Kansas City in March to talk about Marketing and Wholesaling real estate, he talked about a lot of tools to help real estate investors work smarter, not harder.

One must have tool he talked about was a web site.

We have several options from free to for a fee.

You can do a lot of stuff yourself using wordpress.com or google sites.

Just be sure to have a message that is targeted to your audience and then give away something like a free report in exchange for name and email address:

We have found a great tool to add forms to your site: 

http://www.emailmeform.com/ allows you to create a form to collect information and have it send an email to where ever you want and redirect the viewer to another page with the free report.

Now you can use the free sites to create your own web site or you could turn to a premade web site that has templates that are fully customizable, property marketing, email follow up, auto responders.

One web site that Than Merrill recommended and that we have used in the past with great satisfaction is
INetUSA  They have prices from $24.95 a month to about $75 a month depending on the different services you access.  And if you visit Than's CT Homes web site, you will see he is currently using .INetUSA  

It also has one other option, you can "turn on" google ads fairly easily and if you get any amount of traffic to your web site, you may be able to collect enough clicks on the google ads each month to pay for the web site.

Confirmed Opt-in Myths Exposed

Posted by Sean Cohen
Confirmed opt-in as defined by SpamHaus, who is one of the most respected anti spam organizations in the world:

Known as “COI” in the legitimate bulk email industry, also known as “Confirmed Opt-in”, “Verified Opt-in” or sometimes “Double Opt-in”.
With Closed-Loop Opt-in the Recipient has verifiably confirmed permission for the address to be included on the specific mailing list, by confirming (responding to) the list subscription request verification. This is the standard practice for all responsible Internet mailing lists, it ensures users are properly subscribed, from a working address, and with the address owner’s consent.
In the event of “spam” accusation:
The Bulk Email Sender is fully and legally protected because the reply to the Subscription Confirmation Request received back from the recipient proves that the recipient did in fact opt-in and grant verifiable consent for the mailings.

Source:Spamhaus Website

Numerous myths have circulated regarding confirmed opt-in and its effects. There are many misconceptions out there, and we’d like to help clear those up.

Myth 1: My List Size Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Some addresses entered into your form will not confirm — that much is true. The percentage of addresses that don’t confirm depends on many factors, including the quality of your traffic and how effective your thank-you page, confirmation message and incentive for confirming are.
Percentages aside, there are compelling reasons that having fewer addresses on your list is a good thing.

Sometimes Less is Better

I know. You may be asking, “How can a decreased list size be a good thing?” Well, let’s consider:

5-20% of all web form submissions are undeliverable right off the bat.

This means that of your total list size you can cut that by 5-20% because these email addresses are simply dead. Remember these are not temporary undeliverable but permanent dead addresses.
Now, add on the bogus and malicious sign ups that undoubtedly will happen. For example, someone comes to your website and decides to put in bob@aol.com. Well, bob@aol.com was once a real email address and because you were not using confirmed opt-in you are now classified as an unintentional spammer.

A recent study by MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm found that only 68% of users always enter a valid email address.

So, nearly a third of respondents knowingly enter bogus email addresses.
- Source

ISPs do not differentiate between unintentional spammers or actual spammers. The potential for you to be blocked or even worse, blacklisted, remains the same.

Less Can Be More Too
A study done by AWeber shows that using confirmed opt-in also reduces unsubscribes and complaints. This means that you keep more of your subscribers (the ones that actually want your email).
Read more about that here.

Myth 2: My Mailing List Is Different! I Don’t Need Confirmed Opt-In.

Let’s be clear, confirmed opt-in is for all businesses, plain and simple. Anyone collecting subscribers and in turn sending email needs to confirm that those people intended to sign up to your mailing list and want to receive your email.
In this age of email regulations and massive volumes of spam email, deliverability can be an issue. Why increase your chances of not getting delivered by putting yourself at risk.

Myth 3: No One Else Uses Confirmed Opt-In. Why Should I?

This is simply not accurate. Our own campaigns here at AWeber use confirmed opt-in for all email marketing activities. When someone signs up for a Test Drive of AWeber, they must confirm.
After setting up an account, if they want to receive our customer training email course, they must confirm. The same goes for our affiliates and their email training. Even when someone subscribes to our blog, they must confirm.

Ok, but AWeber must practice what they preach, who else?

If you want to sign up for the mailing lists of these organizations you will need to first confirm:

CNN	Microsoft
Oprah, CNet	bellagio.com
IRS.gov	weather.com
ign.com	maxim.com
tgifridays.com	olivegarden.com
pbs.org	visitpa.com
Whitehouse.gov

The list goes on and on…

Myth 4: Subscribers In My Market Don’t Know How To Confirm.

The simple solution is to tell them. The first page after someone fills in an opt-in form, commonly called a “thank you page” should tell the visitor exactly what to do next. Often this is done most effectively with a picture showing visitors what the confirmation email will look like.
An excellent example is our test drive sign up video on the thank you page showing visitors what to do.

One variation of this myth is:

“Subscribers in my market don’t know how to click an email link.”

Honestly, if they can’t click a link then you probably should be marketing your business offline. If someone can find your website online I guarantee they can click a link.

Myth 5: My Sales Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Have you tested this assumption? The answer is always, “No, but I just assume” or “No, my colleague told me it would hurt sales”.
It’s best not to assume anything, but rather to seek out your own answers by testing and observing your own campaigns. We have found from our own testing that while the raw number of email addresses on our list declined when we switched to confirmed opt-in, sales did not.
This means that the people who did confirm were the ones that truly wanted the information that they had to offer and the ones that didn’t were not left to bloat the mailing list.

Grow Your Business Without Risk

Will your results be exactly the same as AWeber or even anyone else? This can only be determined by proper testing and measuring.
Use confirmed opt-in as an opportunity to make sure that your lists are 100% clean and that you know without a doubt that 100% of the people receiving your mail have specifically requested it themselves.
Spend your time and energy building your business with subscribers who want to hear from you rather than dealing with issues created by people who don’t want to hear from you.

Free Video from Our Confirmed Opt-in Seminar

Ready to optimize your Confirmed Opt-In process?
Join our Education Team for a recording of a recent live seminar for a demonstration of what you need to know to maximize the number of responsive subscribers on your list.
Watch the Confirmed Opt-in Seminar Video

Don't miss the next post in our series, Putting The "Service" Back In "Customer Service" by Sean Cohen


The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever! But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation? 
 
Be sure to subscribe to our blog on the right  ----------------------->

Email Newsletter Open Rates

Posted by Justin Premick

Multiply Profits AND Automate Your Business

AWeber's email marketing software makes it easy.



Learn how they can do it for you, too.

Name:

Email:

Think you know the best day and time to send your email newsletter?

Ever wonder if your fellow email marketers are all sending at the same time you do?
Convinced your open rate is too low (or amazingly high)?
Some recent statistics pulled from all AWeber users may help you answer these questions:

What Kind of Open Rates Are People Getting?

If you’re sending HTML emails, you probably use your open rate to help gauge your success.
Even though it’s not a perfect measure of whether people are actually opening and reading your emails, it’s useful as a relative measure:

If it goes up over a short period of time, more people are probably reading

If it falls over a short period of time, it’s almost certain fewer people are reading.

Plus, all other things being equal, it can give you some motivation (if your open rates are lower than other senders’) or satisfaction (if your rates are higher).
So, here goes…

Average Open Rate Last Month: 13.6%

When Is/Was The Best Day To Send?

You’ll often hear (at least, I often hear) that Tuesday is the optimal day to send, because on Monday people are catching up from the weekend, and that on Tuesday morning you’ll have their undivided attention before they jump into their work for the upcoming week.
Do the numbers back up that theory? Let’s see.
The breakdown of open rates by day of the week:

Monday

13.67%

Tuesday

13.21%

Wednesday

14.07%

Thursday

14.52%

Friday

13.25%

Saturday

12.09%

Sunday

13.26%

Last month, Tuesday was actually the second-worst day to send, at least if you’re measuring by open rates.
(While we’re breaking assumptions, I should point out this, too: the hour of the day that got the best open rate was not 8-9AM, or 9-10AM, but in fact 2-3PM Eastern Time — email newsletters sent during that hour last month enjoyed a 19.1% open rate.)

Does This Mean I Should Switch My Campaigns To Thursdays?

In a word: No.

Don’t break with your readers’ expectations just to try to follow the latest day of the week stats. You might actually reduce your open rate by doing so.

In both March and February, Thursday newsletters got the 3rd-worst opens vs. the rest of the week.
I hesitated a little to publish these stats, because I’m concerned that people might flock to sending their newsletters at the day or time that happened to get the best results lately.
Please, don’t drastically change your sending times/days just because you see that the average last month, or any month, happened to be higher on a different day or time.
Yes, you might eventually be able to shift your sending schedule, or split test some broadcasts, but if you up and move everything, you may throw off subscribers who are used to hearing from you at the usual time.

“It’s So Busy, Nobody Goes There Anymore”

To get at the other reason for not shifting your sending based on these stats, let’s paraphrase Yogi Berra (see above).
If everyone switches their sending schedule to send on say, Thursday, then recipients will start getting a ton of email that day, and start paying less attention to each individual email.
One possible reason for Thursday’s success last month may be that it wasn’t as popular as say, Tuesday or Wednesday for sending email:

Percentage of Newsletters Sent by Day

Monday

16.0%

Tuesday

17.7%

Wednesday

16.9%

Thursday

16.6%

Friday

15.2%

Saturday

8.8%

Sunday

8.8%

Those higher-volume days mean more emails in readers’ inboxes, which might contribute to reduced open rates. Following that reasoning, some people may look at the low weekend volume (more email newsletters were sent on Tuesdays than on Saturdays and Sundays combined) and see an opportunity to get their audiences’ undivided attention.
My main point in showing these is to point out that our assumptions about what works are often quite wrong, and that you ultimately have to test for yourself to see what best suits your audience.

Some Inspiration… And Some Help

Are you getting better open rates than this?
If so, GREAT! Give yourself a pat on the back…
…but don’t get complacent. Open rates aren’t the be-all, end-all of email metrics. They don’t guarantee that people are reading your emails, only that they have images turned on and that they probably saw your email for at least a moment.
Plus, there’s always room for improvement, right?
Some ideas that can help you raise your open rates:

Ask people to add you to their address books. Some email programs will display images from senders who are in the recipient’s contact list.

If you are putting pictures in your emails, use the ALT text for those images to pique readers’ interest in what the picture is, so that they enable images. Or, just directly ask readers to turn on images!

Add a picture of yourself to your emails, near/next to your signature. People like seeing your smiling face, and if they see it in one of your emails, they may be more likely to turn on images to see it again later.

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Don't miss out on any of our articles on email marketing for our real estate investors in Kansas City and across the country, be sure to subscribe to the right of this post.  Our article next week will talk about Confirmed Opt-in Myths - do you know what confirmed opt it is?  When you subscibe to an email newsletter and it then sends you a confirmation to make sure you have opted in.  This is the scoop that you need to know - will be posted next week.

April Meeting - Real Estate Investing for the Regular Guy

If you sincerely want to make more money in a slow real estate market, this could be one of the most important meetings you will attend this year!

Here's why:

Our speaker is a Kansas City man who routinely makes 40%, 60% and more in real estate profits for himself and a select group of private investors who literally fly in from around the country to invest with him.

He's perfected a simple, but amazingly profitable turnkey system for creating real estate wealth on demand. He's so good, he's been written up in local newspapers and featured in a national magazine. But he's not one of those late-night guru types. He's an average guy making above average profits in real estate.


Meet Dan Reedy, the man one magazine calls the 'King of Kansas City Cash Flow Real Estate'

What makes Dan Reedy, co-founder of the Missouri Real Estate Exchange, so worthy of this distinction by a national magazine?

Simply put, he's a 'real deal' investor who weathered the ups and downs of a slow real estate market to bank nearly 1,000 transactions in the past 5 years - generating millions of dollars in turnkey real estate wealth. Its no wonder smart investors line up to invest with him... and why we asked him to share how Regular Guys and Gals at MAREI can get started investing, just like he does.

Meeting
Tuesday April 13th
6pm check in
6pm networking
6pm vendor hall with 5 vendors
7:14 Announcements
7:30 Presentation

Cost is $25 at the door - No charge for MAREI members and pre-register online now for discount.

April Investment News is posted

April Newsletter is Posted

Table of Contents


2 Member Profile:  John & Donna MacNeil

6 The Kansas City Gold  Rush

7 April General Meeting:  Real Estate Investing for the Regular Guy

8 Open House Preparation:  National Open House

10 Rehabbing:  What to look for in a house

12 Marketing:  The do’s and don’ts for your real estate marketing

14 Rentals:  Applicant References

Advertisers

2 Yellow Letter.com*

5 Sherwin Williams**

7 MAREI General Meeting

9 Realty Resource of KC

11 Home Depot* **

11 T.O.T.L. Renovations*

13 kcmoHomeBuyer*

15 Accurate Title*

16 Become an Agent

Network Nationwide

Social Networking


We are all on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, and others and we should be. But these are out there for all kinds of people. There have been several private social networking sites set up for the real estate investor community where you could network with all kinds of people and share deals, but many of these want $39.95 a month.


Now there is a totally free social networking site just for real estate investors and you should check it out. It has several uses.

1. Posting your profile and networking with others

2. Sharing Ideas

3. Marketing your wholesale properties

4. Finding wholesale deals.

So check it out now - go to www.realtyjoin.com/marei right now to sign up.


1st Steps:

1. Create your profile
2. Browse around and see what other people's profiles look like

3. Edit your profile

4. Join some groups

5. Invite a friend

While you are there look up Kansas City Real Estate Investors and join us in talking about Kansas City real estate.

www.realtyjoin.com/marei
 
Now for those of you who are working to increase your google rankings you may find that links back to your web site from posts on this new site may help you.  Try it out.

New Reality TV Show

PROJECT ENGAGE


OVERVIEW

Now more than ever, people of all ages are concerned about making the right decisions to protect their retirement and provide for their children’s future. And…never before have people been more interested in taking active control of their own investing.

Sponsored by a large financial institution and distributed by MSN.com to an audience of millions, “Project Engage” is a new reality web series that is focused on helping real-life investors representing a broad cross section of American life with how to gain the skills necessary to become more actively involved in
their investment decisions. The goal of this series is also to facilitate a dialogue about common financial issues that a wide  range of individuals deal with but rarely discuss openly.

Our investors might differ in their amount of investable assets, their life stage or their financial goals, but each of our cast members will have one thing in common, the desire to take more control of their investment decisions. To help achieve this goal, we’re bringing together an elite team of financial advisors and specialists to assist our investors in honing their money management skills in order to strengthen their portfolios and
eventually, transform their lives.

If you or someone you know is interested in receiving the tools to become a more actively engaged investor, than this could be your once in a lifetime opportunity. If you’re ready to get more involved in planning for your financial future, please contact our Coordinating Producer, Bryce Gipson at Generate LA at 310-
255-0460. Bryce is also available via email at
brycegp@gmail.com.

When is a real estate auction called for? - thanks to Robert Mayo for the Article

Most properties are salable by auction. All types of real estate, including residential property (e.g., town homes, condominiums, cooperative apartments and single-family homes), commercial and industrial property, vacant land and even boat slips are sold at auction. Not all property, however, is suited for auction. If a property will only appeal to a narrow market, auction may not be the most effective marketing method.


Ever wonder how you can tell if a property is well suited to auction? Think of your listing, then take the Two-Thirds Rule test!



One method to determine if auction is the best marketing strategy is the Two-Thirds Rule. This involves analysis of the market, property and seller situation. Generally, if two of the three parts (market, seller, property) lean towards auction, then auction should be offered to the seller as a sales option.



Market (Buyers) -- A good auction situation is one where the market is:

• A changing market

• A dull market; too much product but buyer interest is expressed

• Not enough of the property type (unique, lake front, etc.)

• An emerging market -- new developments could kick off a sales program, once some of the properties were auctioned

• A seller's market where there is known high demand and a lot of competition can take place



Seller -- A good auction situation is one where the seller:

• Needs immediate cash

• Has a partnership or marriage break-up

• Is moving out of the state

• Wants to liquidate an estate

• Is retiring

• Is an auction-minded seller

• Has a listing that is about to expire

• Has already purchased another house

• Knows the auction will bring a fair market price

• Has financial problems

• Has high carrying costs on the property



Property -- A good auction property is one that:

• Has a lot of equity (25 percent or more)

• Is unique -- there is enough buyer/market interest to encourage competition (unique properties are difficult to appraise)

• Has a lot of high carrying costs for the owner

• Is vacant -- vacant properties may encourage vandalism

• Is difficult to appraise



If you would like additional information regarding real estate auctions, or how you can keep your listing and have an auction without being an auctioneer, please give me a call at 816-361-2600.

Thank you,

Robert Mayo - CAI, AARE, ATS, GPPA-D

2007-08 Kansas State Champion Auctioneer

Auctioneer - Real Estate Broker - Asset Appraiser

Mayo Auction & Realty

8253 Wornall Road

Kansas City, MO 64114

robert@auctionbymayo.com

www.auctionbymayo.com

816-361-2600 - MO

913-390-9393 - KS

816-699-9883 - Cell

Email Deliverability Tips

Can You Have More Sales, Too?

Helping over 75,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.


Take a Free Test Drive today!

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

• Website URL:  Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

• Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

• Images:  Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

• Attachments:  With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com/
• http://www.habeas.com/

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

  

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

-------------------

So be smart in your email marketing as a real estate investor, a mortgage broker, a realtor, a contractor, title company or anyone else out there trying to build and maintain your business.  Don't miss our next email in this series Email Newsletter Open Rates to be posted next week.

Email Marketing

As real estate investors, realtors, mortgage lenders, contractors or just about any business out there in the Kansas City Market from Liberty to Spring Hill and Grain Valley to DeSoto or anywhere in the country for that matter, we will be utilizing Email Marketing.  And if you do your job right you will be emailing to more than just 10 or 12 people.  You will be working to build an list of people who receive your emails in the 100's of email addresses.

Once you are sending out emails to more than 10 people you start hitting snags in remembering to use Blind Carbon Copy, getting your email past spam filters, being able to just click one send button and send out more than 50 emails at once.  To do all of this, you need some sort of email marketing service provider.

Three email service providers you should check out are:

aweber

constant contact

infusion crm

All 3 have templates, can send out 100's of emails at once, have tools you can embed in your web sites to collect emails automatically for your newsletter, and I think have free trials.

And be sure to stay tuned because over the next few weeks we will be sharing a few articles to help you understand how to use email marketing:

1. Email Deliverability Tips
2. Email Newsletter Open Rates
3. Confirmed Opt-in Myths Exposed
4. Putting the "Service" Back in "Custmer Service
5. Spam:  Where it Came From, and How to Escape It
6. Meat and Potatoes for your Affiliate Diet
7. Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You?
8. Holiday Action Saves a Sour Shopping Season (yep, not quite Christmas, but we need to know early)

And to save you time, we are not going to spread these out over so many months that you forget you were coming back to read our posts, we should have one article a week starting this week.  Be sure to subscribe to our blog at the right so you don't miss an article.  Once they are all posted, we will try to come back and link this article to all the other posts.