There’s little doubt that the U.S. real estate market is undergoing a profound transformation. After several years of freewheeling lending practices and unsurpassed increases in home valuations, the real estate market is undergoing a major correction. Home values are dropping in many areas around the country, and some homeowners are facing an impending uptick in their adjustable rate mortgage payments, placing them in an untenable position.

In short, it’s a volatile market. Lenders are tightening the criteria for mortgages, and subprime lending is gone. Most homeowners who are holding subprime mortgages are facing foreclosures, while others are trying to sell their homes before they find themselves in a negative equity situation. As a result, real estate professionals, investors, and home sellers are scrambling to gain an edge in a competitive marketplace.

Real Estate Marketing

Long gone are the days when traditional methods of real estate marketing are sufficient to move properties. A sign on the lawn, a Multiple Listing Service listing, and an open house still have their place, but they comprise only one facet of an effective real estate marketing campaign.

Just as in most other areas of business, the Internet is playing a crucial role in real estate. Online listings of homes for rent, homes for sale, and foreclosures draw an increasing number of buyers and investors. Photographs and video are increasingly being used to whet the appetites of potential buyers. Still, online listings and multimedia presentations are relatively passive forms of marketing in this competitive era. Those who are on the cutting edge are utilizing the Internet to their best advantage, and taking strategies from the playbooks of those in other fields.

Email Marketing as a “Push” Strategy

If drawing potential real estate buyers to an online listing is a “pull” strategy, then real estate email marketing is a “push” strategy – one that makes sense in today’s marketplace. After all, retailers and e-tailers use email marketing to their best advantage. Email inboxes are stuffed with large and small business emails alike. It makes sense that real estate email marketing can also be effective, in that it delivers information about agents, developers, sellers, and their respective properties directly into the hands of interested potential buyers.

Email Marketing is Easier than it Seems

At first blush, real estate email marketing may seem out of reach for many people. After all, their expertise is in real estate and they may not be very tech savvy. On the contrary, there are online real estate services that make email marketing a cakewalk for virtually anyone.

When looking for an online email marketing service, choose one that can help you create emails, manage your contact lists, and obtain tracking reports. Essentially, you should be able to send your first email marketing piece in less than an hour. The best services have “wizards” that allow you to, for example, put together email newsletters using a Web interface and on a single screen. Templates and click-and-drag functionality allow you to easily arrange text, upload photos, and instantly see what your recipients will see when they receive your email.

Once you’ve sent your emails or newsletters, the service should enable you to track the results, telling you how many emails you sent, how many bounced back, how many people opened the email, how many clicked on the links, and how many forwarded it on to others.

There’s little doubt that real estate email marketing is a cutting edge tool that helps push your message into the inboxes of potential buyers. And in today’s competitive environment, it’s an advantage you can’t afford to be without.

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People work tirelessly to generate interest in a home they are trying to sell. Once they get an offer, however, they often are not sure how to evaluate it.

Evaluating the Offer for Your Home

You have read every book under the sun. You have read more internet articles than you can imagine. You have cleaned up your home, made repairs and put out your marketing. At this point, you feel like you are an expert in the process. Suddenly, you get an offer on the property. Now what?

The first thing to do is relax. Do not make the mistake of rushing to evaluate it. An offer is just that – an offer. It has contingencies and all kinds of little quarks in it. Although you have lived in the home for a lengthy period of time, you need to realize you are now in a business transaction. Once you have caught your breath, it is time to consider the offer.

The first issue is always the offered purchase price. The price will never be what you are asking for in the listing. It will be below the number, perhaps shockingly lower. At this point, you may feel the urge to pick up the phone and give the buyer a piece of your mind. Don’t! This is a business transaction. The buyer is merely throwing out a bit of bait to see if you are going to bite. If you do, they get a great deal. If you do not, they will evaluate any counter offer you make. If you do not counter, they can always submit a higher offer. Remember, this is a business transaction, not an affront to your pride!

A second issue concerns items in the home the buyer may want included in the sell. I have seen brawls break out over a lamp that would make a biker blush. Maybe that lamp is an heirloom that you can’t part with, but it probably is not. Only you can decide how valuable it is and whether it is worth losing the sale, but try to be objective and coherent when making the decision. Yes, it has been a loyal lamp, but really now…

After this, you need to evaluate any additional costs associated with the offer. The buyer may want allowances for painting and so on. It is usually fairly easy to bypass your emotions on this one, but you need to make some basic financial calculations. Take the offered price and subtract all costs for the transactions. One you have the net revenue figure, compare it to the bottom line number you decided on when you first decided to sell. This will tell you if it is an offer you should accept.

Homeowners often get so focused on the selling process, that they are caught off guard when an offer actually rolls in. Stick to your guns on your bottom line and you should be fine.

The impact of recession can be very damaging not only to households but to businesses as well. Learn about these effects of recession and prevent your business from succumbing into its deadly claws.

1. Customer scarcity

When you have too few customers, consequently, your income suffers as well. The rising prices make customers too picky or less interested in giving you business. Existing customers may also be re-assessing their spending, which results in fewer orders for you. So what do you do? How about changing your customer acquisition techniques? Have you tried online marketing? This may not be suitable to all businesses but there’s no harm in considering it. Online marketing has many forms and doing your assignment will prove to be helpful in determining which technique will benefit most your business.

2. Ridiculously high credit card debt

Inflation is likely to happen during inflation, which means your expenses can be higher than normal. If you have been relying on your credit card for payments, you now need to monitor your spending really closely. This is because losing track of your expenses can surprise you one day when you no longer have enough funds to pay off all your debt. You do not want to have problem with your credit card because a bad rating will not be of great help when you are trying to obtain approval for loans.

3. Increase in cost of utilities

The rising price of food, electricity and gas can put a big dent to your business. This can be especially true if you run your business form a physical location. Increase in monthly bills means lower income. So how do you resolve this? There are so many ways to save money on utilities. One is to cut back on non-essentials. It the weather does not need for a full blast AC unit turned on, turn it off. If you can turn off the lights more often without making the business operations suffer, then do so. If you can use less expensive packaging methods or materials, please do take advantage of cheaper alternatives. Re-assess all the nooks of your business. Take a harder look to your books to get deductions. Lessen expenses in every way possible. Make the most out of technology. If you can automate parts of your business, do so. You can also hire contract workers such as virtual assistants to help you be more productive and to allow time for you to brainstorm on how to improve your business.

4. Funds gone kapoot

If you started your business using a loan, you might find yourself out of savings to fall back on if you need funds to survive the recession. To control this, have a suitable savings plan, wherein you can put in some of your income. This allows you to have a backup plan whenever the current downturn happens.

5. Low staff morale.

Slow periods mean sadder employees. Why not add incentives and create contests to boost the morale of your sales team? This is the best time to get your creative juices flowing to help motivate your employees. Having motivated employees means increased sales. So, don’t be too stingy with incentives and praises.

Have you felt any of these yet? If so, what are you waiting for? Try out the suggestions on how to control the effects of recession.

Investing in Real Estate  or business for that matter is all about Marketing…

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