Just The Solutions Blog

A key component to being a successful real estate investor is knowing your area.  You can’t possibly know your area until you know who lives there, and where they live.  By knowing the value of home you will be able to determine who lives where in your city and know what type of business you can do in that area.  Being able to determine the value of homes allows you to make accurate calculations, to know you are making good decisions, also you will be able to focus your attention on smaller more precise segments of your area.  This will allow you to get more bang for your buck when marketing.  If you don’t know how to segment, then you can’t be successful, this blog post will provide you with a solution to that problem.

To segment a city you need to first determine the median home value of your area.  This can be achieved multiple ways:  one safe and easy way is to check census data(this can sometimes be many years old), have your realtor pull the information(it can take time for them to pull it, they might want to charge you, or worst case if your realtor isn’t very good they might not be willing to do it), and finally you can look it up on the internet(these numbers aren’t always accurate but it can give you a good starting point).  One of my favorite websites to pull this information from is http://www.city-data.com, it is very easy to use and covers most city size areas.

Once you have determined your median home value for your area, you need to break down the area by percentages of mediam home value.  These calculations aren’t always perfect but they give you a good starting point.  Generally, from 70% of the median value down is considered low income.  Low income will be mostly rentals, with more vacant and boarded-up homes, and also have higher crime.  Next, from 70% – 110% of median value will be your moderate income area.  Moderate income has the most potential options for an investor, there are equal numbers of rentals and homeowners, there are also less vacants then low income.  Finally, there is middle income that ranges from 110% of median value and up.  Middle income doesn’t usually have a lot of options for investors, they are mostly owner occupied, and require more marketing, money, and time then lower income properties.

You will now know the different values to determine where your segments are in you city, however it doesn’t stop there.  Go to a map, on-line or with your realtor, and determine where homes that have the values you are looking for are.  You will need to look for clusters of similarly priced homes and make a judgement on what areas fall into what segments.  This won’t always be easy, you will have lots of bleed over from one to the next, sometimes even total overlap.  The more you focus and study your area the better your judgements will become, and the better your numbers will be.  Once you find a few segments that you will target, you need to go out and visit these areas.  There is no way to replace your eyes, ears, and your mind when it comes to evaluating  a neighborhood or segment.

After your visit if you determine this is still an area that is right for your business, then you begin your marketing, research, and farming of the area.  Farming is a very good idea with any new areas you are targeting, what is farming you might ask?  Well, farming is going to a targeted segment of the city and researching as much as you can, writing down addresses and information about the properties in this area that you might be interested in.  Once you have enough farming data, you look up as much as you can in public records, and start calling on signs and numbers you found while farming.  This will be the beginning of finding deals in your area.

Another part of finding deals in your area will be marketing.   Your marketing might mean putting up signs in the target area, you might want to put up door hangers or window stickers, some people send postcards or letters, I have known of people who go door knocking, and pass out business cards, or anything else you can think of.  As long as your marketing is bringing you phone calls and real estate deals, whatever works for you, is what you will focus on.

Now you will know about this particular area, and you will be better equipped to handle calls when they come in. This will allow you to make better and more accurate calculations and make your business more about doing things right, then about getting lucky.  With proper segmenting of a city you will be much more successful as a real estate investor.  When you get better at segmenting, you will find what works for you and what doesn’t, you will also find your niche and what you prefer to avoid, you will become more successful.  You will also become better and faster at segmenting until you have it down to a science, then you can begin to really understand the power of segmenting a city.

Remember: “Knowledge is power…” – Sir Francis Bacon

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In Real Estate Investing, marketing is a key component to success.  A lot of people confuse marketing with advertising however, and though they are very similar, they are also very different.

Advertising is simply putting your name, image, and company in the public eye, it is promoting your product or service to the public.  That is great and essential to success however that isn’t marketing

Marketing is advertising combined with your image, your product, your service, your business model, marketing is how your present your company, yourself, your product or service to the world.  It is absolutely essential to the success of a real estate investing business, because no one will do business with you if your have poor marketing.

The first thing about marketing is that people need to know you are in business, if they don’t know who you are or what you do then they will never do business with you.  Once they know who you are and what you do, they need to want to buy your product or use your service, if you can’t present an image that they want you won’t be successful.  Third, they must trust you, real estate investing is very much a business built on trust, people need to believe you are doing something that they trust or they won’t do business with you.  Another more over looked aspect is referral business; if you are operating your business the way you are marketing your business, and you do right by those you come in contact with, then they are more likely to refer other to you, providing you with even more business.

People sometimes think if they buy some business cards, put up some signs, and make some offers, that they will make millions of dollars in real estate investing, that is far from true.  You need to take the time and energy to put together a consistent marketing strategy and follow it, then you need to spend the time and sometimes the money to make it successful.  If you do that with your business, THEN you have the opportunity to make millions of dollars in real estate investing.  But without proper marketing you don’t stand a chance at achieving continued success.

So take the time and energy to put together a solid marketing plan, write it down, stick with it, and apply it to your business.  Then let me know how much success you find at the end of that journey.

Remember: “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it…” -Unknown

Tags: Marketing
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Welcome to Just the Solutions blog, this is a blog devoted exclusively to Real Estate investing.  Just the Solutions Enterprises LLC, is a real estate investing company in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, and this is the new home of our blog.  We will use this blog to post information about our business, information about real estate investing, useful websites and other useful information, examples of deals we have done, and properties for sale.

There will be no guarantee about how often we will update this blog, because business will always be more important then the blog, but we will try to keep the blog up-to-date regularly.  We will also look for other successful real estate investors to put up guest posts on our site, as well a real estate investing information in the news.  We hope you find this blog useful and check back regularly.  Once again, Welcome to the new blog of Just the Solutions.

Tags: Just The Solutions Enterprises LLC, Real Estate Investing
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