Author: John Peterson

If you missed this months meeting – you missed a lot.

Local REO agent Steve Loffler and expert short sale negotiatior Brian Gormley gave some insight into their business today, and how they are preparing their business for 2013.

Don’t miss our upcoming DC Area Small Business Marketing Classes on Nov. 2nd. and our last WREIA meeting of the year on Nov. 19th.

John Peterson discusses the upcoming October 2012 meeting at Washington Real Estate Investors Association. The panel of guest speakers will be focused on Short Sales, REO’s and Auctions in the DC area.

Fannie Mae owns about 110,000 homes.  They are collecting rent on about 8,000 of those properties.

Some real estate agents are getting upset about the new plan to sell these homes directly to hedge funds and private equity groups.

Let’s run some round numbers real quick:

100,000 Homes
100,000 Average Sale Price
10,000,000,000 – That’s 10 Billion in sales.

Now, the average Realtor commission is about 3% on the sale of a home….

That totals $300 Million in Realtor sales commissions -GONE-  if Fannie Mae were to sell all of their inventory directly to hedge funds.

You can read more about this at http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2012/09/10/fannies-big-foreclosure-sale-maybe-not-so-big-after-all/

Hmmmmm – I imagine if you asked your friendly neighborhood Realtor if they are excited about missing out on their “piece” of that pile of commissions, they probably won’t be too happy.

Next Monday at Washington REIA Network we are going to be talking about the alternatives to the private equity and hedge fund sales – which are short sales and auctions.

Get more details on the WREIA Oct. metting at http://wreia-oct2012-cc1.eventbrite.com

Let me know how I can help you,
John Peterson

Finally – if you enjoyed last months WREIA meeting, you are going to love this:  Profitable Property is going to help you dig a little deeper into effective business marketing. We will be hosting two sessions tentatively scheduled for Friday morning Nov. 2nd in Rockville, MD. Let us know if you are interested by sending an email to ProfitableProperty@gmail.com.

Banks are becoming more and more bold…..

Now that the robo-signing scandle is behind us, and the banks are beginning to pay their fines, you can expect to see more and more properties hit the market in the coming months.

Oct. 1st marks the beginning of the 4th quarter for many businesses here in the United States. Many of the banks are looking to unload properties they are holding, either through auctions or short sale agreements with the current deed owners.  A precious few owners are actually making it through to the other side of a trial modification period arriving safely at a permanent loan modification.

Here in the DC area we recently set aside one of the largest property auctions to ever hit our area.   We notified our WREIA members of the minimal 100k needed to enter a bid for the estimated 23 Million Dollar McLean property.

If you are interested in learning more about what to expect through the end of the year and into next spring, join us on Oct. 15th at Washington REIA Network

In this clip from a meeting just a few minutes ago – listen in as our guest speaker on Monday night shows how he is using a $10 ad budget to get THREE TIMES as many people to connect with the media campaign his client was already doing.

It’s happening everywhere this year – businesses are getting to the 99 yard line, and giving up.

Watch this clip as one of our members learns a simple lesson, and gets a preview of a slide you will all get to see on Monday night at our Monthly WREIA meeting.

Be sure to sign up for the monthly WREIA meeting on Monday night. You can register at http://wreia-sept2012-wreia.eventbrite.com

You have been reading about this….

Some of you have heard stories about people who are growing their business.

Some small businesses are expanding, and hiring new people, and at the very least retaining the employees they do have.

These results posted above are from a survey of over 40,000 small businesses.  Of those that responded over 40% said it caused them to increase sales, and 34% also increased their margins – because of this one thing.

Now, I am all for increasing your sales & increasing your margins. But when you start to hire new staff because your business is growing – you must be doing something incredible, right?

You would be surprised how simple this is to do and how few people actually do it.  Quite frankly, I am thinking of making it a requirement for people I do business with in the future.

And – the cost?  Zero.

My advice to you is to find out what this one thing is, and take advantage of it. 

You can guess what this one thing is over on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ProfitableProperty

If you want to learn how to start growing your business again, you need to join us on Sept. 17th at our next WREIA meeting Monday night.

In 2012 we have been focused on introducing you to local professionals who have been working our business.  Monday night we continue  – and I share some insight into my own business results.

I am going to share a guest speaker with a powerful info-packed presentation.  The presentation will include updates on :

• Email Marketing
• Direct Mail Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Reputation Management

He will also be sharing some insight into topics I don’t completely understand, but he loves to work with every day including:

• Search Engine Optimization,
• Search Engine Marketing,
• Mobile Ads,
• Marketing Test Results (One slide has results from 19 recent tests.)

When we talked last week, he wanted my permission to share some results from some of my recent campaigns.  I approved all of them.

Most of you are going to be shocked by the results a few campaigns where the total ad budget was just a hair under $10.

That’s not a typo – you will see ad campaigns with a budget of less than $10.

Don’t forget – At our meeting, I want you to bring in your Smartphones, fire up Twitter, Facebook, and make sure you have a LinkedIn account.

When you leave Monday night, you will have all the information you need to completely duplicate my business – and stamp your own personality on it.  It may surprise you, but it doesn’t make me the slightest bit nervous.  In fact – I want you to take the information and get started making improvements to your business on Tuesday!

If you are willing to hustle, work hard – and learn how to help a LOT of people in the next 2  years – join me on Sept. 17th at WREIA.

John Peterson

***

It’s late on Thursday night, but I thought I would share this article before I head off into an incredibly busy weekend.

Would you sell your home this year if it meant you would save $440,000 in taxes?

Some wealthy people would.

Last April, at our Washington REIA meeting we told you about the top end of the market, and especially with second homes, the mortgage holders were strategically defaulting at a rate more than twice the average across the country.

Wealthy people are still choosing to walk away from homes that are underwater.  This spring we introduced you to the attorneys that are helping them through the process.  (Banks have a habit of negotiating better deals for the homeowner when attorneys are involved.)

Well, what if that same group of wealthy people hold a property without a mortgage?  If they face a capital gain when they sell their property, some members have decided that now is the time to sell.  This article does a great job of explaining why.

You can also find the article at  http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/08/07/an-end-to-bush-era-tax-cuts-could-push-high-end-properties-onto/
Saving $400,000 is a pretty good incentive to sell this year, vs. next year.  You see, in 2013 capital gains will jump from 15% to 23.8% once you include the new 3.8% healthcare tax.

Please remember – I am just delivering you the news here.

I see it every year – people make crazy decisions.  Especially when it comes to taxes. For some reason, the word just seems to make some people irrational.

Take advantage of that.

If you don’t know how to connect with this crowd of high end motivated sellers – or any group of motivated sellers, you need to join us on Sept. 17th at our next WREIA meeting.

I am going to share a guest speaker that Monday night.  He just gave me a list of the topics we are going to cover at our meeting.  It includes updates on :

• Email Marketing
• Direct Mail Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Reputation Management

He will also be sharing some insight into topics I don’t completely understand, but he loves to work with every day including:

• Search Engine Optimization,
• Search Engine Marketing,
• Mobile Ads,
• Test Results

When we talked today, he wanted my permission to share some results from some of our recent campaigns.  I approved all of them.

I know most of you are going to be shocked by the results of a few campaigns where the total ad budget was just a hair under $10.

 That’s not a typo – you will see ad campaigns with a budget of less than $10.   

 Don’t forget – At our meeting, I want you to bring in your Smartphones, fire up Twitter, Facebook, and make sure you have a LinkedIn account.

You may not believe in these sites. You may not believe that as a professional they can help bring you more leads than you know what do with.  That’s fine.  I used to think the same thing.   

If you are willing to hustle, work hard – and learn how to help a LOT of people in the next 2  years – join me on Sept. 17th at WREIA.

John Peterson

***

Will you take 90 seconds and complete the survey we originally posted on our Facebook Channel at http://www.facebook.com/ProfitableProperty ?

It is only 10 questions, completely anonymous and doesn’t require logging in or signing up for anything.  We real estate entrepreneurs think a little differently about our marketing, and it will help us understand your opinion on how we use social media.

We will be sharing the results of this survey and a few other real world marketing campaigns at the next WREIA meeting on Sept. 17th.

Click here to take the survey.

Enjoy the last few days of summer and we will see you soon!