Violent crime is a sad reality in America. If you watch the news, you know it happens daily at work, nightclubs, homes and church.
Regardless of the cause, guns, mental health, drugs, domestic or other, it can happen anytime, anywhere. Denial of this will not prevent if from happening, but rather make you a potential victim.
Real Estate investors nature is to look for an opportunity to make money. They may consider rough properties in crime ridden neighborhoods and may not realize the potential danger to violent crime they or their representatives might encounter.
James Holman with 540 Tactical works with property owners and professionals to provide training on what they can do to keep themself and their tenants safe.
Violent crime prevention is key to making your property an unattractive option to crime. The following are some basic proven steps that will encourage criminals to look elsewhere when plotting a crime:
Awareness is the best tool available to avoid violent crime, and you can take with you everywhere. In a survey of over 1000 criminals, the number one thing they look for is an unaware person. If a criminal thinks you are aware of what is going on, they will move on to another potential victim.
Be intentionally aware of your surroundings. Put down your phone, take out your earphones and be aware of your surroundings. 540 Tactical gets it name from 540 degrees of awareness: in front, to the sides, behind and above you is what James recommends. This simple habit can keep you from being a victim of a crime.
Don’t wait until something happens to you, have a conversation and train your staff to keep everyone safe.
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Social Media is where prospects go to find you and learn more about you and your offer. In fact they are more likely to form an opinion about you based on your Social Media presence or lack of than your first face to face interaction.
Mark Leidlen and Rob Wellman work with real estate investors and professionals to establish a social media presence. This marketing strategy helps create credibility and builds trust through regular informative posts to keep your network informed.
It took radio 38 yrs, television 13 years, internet 4 years to reach 50 million users. Social media behemoth Facebook took only 9 months to get 100 million users. People go online to shop and share with their friends what they are doing. And with each click, they leave a digital breadcrumb clue for advertisers and others to recognize their likes and interest. These breadcrumbs allow people like you to put a very focused message in front of your ideal client for pennies.
Whether you are a Broker, Leder, Property Manager or Investor, your prospective clients are interacting on social media and looking online for who to call when they need help. So where are you?
There is a plethora of options to choose from when choosing a social media platform to engage. The most important for commercial real estate professionals are:
And don’t forget to create and maintain a blog and an active email campaign.
The good news is that you can repurpose your material across the different platforms. However, you still have to create new material to remain relevant. Unless you are a gifted writer and have lots of free time to accomplish this, your options are don’t create a presence, or hire help.
Social Cuda has professional writers that work with its clients to tailor a content strategy to reach your intended audience. They can create post with written text, pictures, video, or drone footage content that can help grow your presence and capture email along the way to build your email list. The cost to create and maintain your professional presence is minimal when you consider the alternatives.
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Text: Cuda5 to 88588 to receive Mark’s business card.
Financial Freedom is a common goal of real estate investors. Most start with a single family property, thinking that over time, they will grow their portfolio to provide enough income to give them freedom from working for others.
Michael Blank is an engineer turned real estate investor. His experience from single flips and analysis on what it would take to reach his goal led him to the advantages of multifamily investing.
Most new investors feel they are unable to pursue multifamily as a real estate investment strategy due to their lack of experience and lack of money.
You need money to acquire a large real estate investment. The good news is there are lots of people with money to invest who are looking for opportunities to invest. High networth individuals are not finding a consistent return on their money and they are paying too much taxes.
Real estate can help these investors looking for opportunities. For this reason, it is important that you are not shy about what you are doing. Let others know that you are doing multifamily investing. Depending on how well you know them, ask if they might be interested in learning more about your opportunity.
If you don’t have the network, but have a deal, there are those who are experienced at raising capital, ie mentors and other experienced investors and can help you. This is an excellent opportunity to be an active participant in a large deal and get experience that you will need to find your next deal.
Financial freedom is available is available to you through Multifamily investing. Michael’s experience shows that from the time an investor makes the decision to become an investor, the “law of the first deal” takes hold. The first deal leads to multiple other deals, literally making the investor financially free as little as 3 - 5 years.
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Real Estate Investing is a continuum. The market goes up and down. In order to stay profitable, your real estate investment strategy must adjust to reflect the market.
Mark Ferguson is an experienced real estate investor. He has gone from flipping to buying single rentals to flipping to most recently acquiring commercial real estate properties. His success is directly related to his ability to make changes as the market changes.
He started as a realtor focused on working with short sales and foreclosures that provided multiple flipping opportunities.
Mark’s original real estate investing plan was to buy 100 single family rentals. As the market improved, retail sale prices outpaced market rents. When he realized that rentals could no longer cash flow, he changed back to single family flips.
At the time of our interview, he had 22 flips underway. In order to manage this many projects, Mark has systems and a trusted team that helps him find, acquire and renovate each project. Mark’s Investfourmore.com blog, podcast and Facebook group provide the details each of his deals.
Recently, he acquired four commercial properties. The first is one that he found on the Multiple Listing Service. It had IRS tax liens and took eleven months to close. The property is a single tenant, 3,000 square feet building he purchased for $110,000. The seller will remain as a tenant for 6 months paying $1,500 / month rent.
The second is a small warehouse a friend wanted to sell. Mark needed a place to store the materials for his multiple flips and his growing car collection.
The third is a 7,500 sq foot office building that was previously a medical office. It was listed on the MLS for $500,000 with several price reductions. He purchased it for $292,000. This is currently vacant.
The 4th is a 1600 sq foot single story cinder block building he found on Facebook marketplace for $101,000. This is currently vacant with expected rents $1300 - $1500 per month.
Keeping with his “as they come” strategy, he has a $2.1M, 70,000 square foot retail strip mall with a grocery store anchor under contract due to close in January 2018. The numbers reflect a 9 cap with 8000 sq ft of vacant space!
The two markets, residential and commercial are very different. One thing that Mark has recognized that is different between residential and commercial is the amount of effort spent to make a property appealing to a buyer or potential tenant.
Most residential properties need to be spruced up to attract potential buyers or tenants. However, most commercial properties are left just as the last tenant left it; water stains on the ceiling from past roof leaks, stained carpet, etc. He has taken his residential experience to the commercial and done minor things that can take away the negatives and leave the space clean and inviting.
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