The decision to use an automated pricing and underwriting software for its lending platform has paid off in spades for a national wholesale and retail mortgage banker[1]. Stearns Lending, Inc., is the 15^th largest lender in the country, and it credits more than half of the past year’s growth to a decision to go automatic.

The software in use enables brokers to upload information, pull credit and get an instant underwriting decision – all automatically. Once in the system, the loan can be managed by authorized entities in the broker system and enables brokers and customers to develop highly customized profiles that meet the customer’s precise needs. As a result, according to Stearns, the company’s levels of customer service and “broker-to-lender trust” have been dramatically improved.

The lender goes on to praise the automated system as one that meets individual borrower’s needs rather than being “one-size-fits-all.” This renders the automated decisions more reasonable and provides better rationale for an acceptance or a rejection.

Do you think that software can be trusted to make lending decisions, or is this type of program simply asking for trouble? What do you as a real estate investor – and potentially frequent borrower – prefer?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

If you are like many real estate investors, then networking plays a major role in the success of your business. These days, you simply cannot network without some online presence on websites like Facebook, Orkut or Twitter. However, many real estate investors and even internet marketers are still at a loss when it comes to determining how to actually monetize their social media presence. One way to do this may be to use your web personality to brand your product.

When you are establishing yourself online, you need to not only establish your personality, but your brand. This is one reason why many real estate agents can point directly to profits that they generated via Facebook, for example, while internet-based investors may have more trouble pinpointing monies generated from this type of media. The real estate agents are marketing homes, usually in a specific area and economic demographic, which creates a brand that people who work with them can identify. You can use this same tactic to brand your own investing opportunities and start to create something that your “friends” identify with and look to you for when they are in need.

One example of this might be something trendy and easily recognizable like being a “green investor.” One investing group with a major online presence currently is using this campaign to promote their homes, arguing that green homes provide a sense of satisfaction to their owners in addition to protecting the planet. The company claims to be known for quality of green construction and meeting deadlines.

While this option might not be the right one for you, giving yourself a notable, branding characteristic like this company has could make the difference when it comes to the success of your social media marketing. What do you feel that your real estate business should be known for?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

As more real estate investors, real estate agents and participants in the housing market move their marketing and other activities online, social media and networking sites are responding to a new and eager market. Recently Yahoo! combined forces with Zillow to enhance and improve their housing listings reach, and now LinkedIn, a professional networking site where users can post resumes, connect with old acquaintances and solicit employers and employees is bulking up on software that will feature a number of characteristics similar to Facebook, including a new “recommendation” format and news feed. Users will also be able to use their profile on LinkedIn, which is essentially a virtual – and extremely comprehensive – business card, to not only promote current real estate listings, but also track past real estate transactions and chart successes.

Not all of these applications are native to LinkedIn, however. Some apps can be downloaded separately for your user profile or require additional permissions. Do you currently use LinkedIn or other social media to enhance your real estate investing success?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

According to the Capgemini 2010 U.S. Metro Wealth Index, there are more extremely wealthy individuals in U.S. metropolitan areas today than 3 years ago before the financial meltdown had officially hit the media and the country[1]. In fact, New York City has a full 18.7 percent more “high net worth individuals” than it had in 2008, and Houston reported the strongest “growth rate” of millionaires in the country.

Overall there are 17.5 percent more high net worth individuals living in metropolitan areas today than there were last year. The Metro Wealth report is used largely by advisors who are looking for new clients and new growth opportunities, but it is also useful to investors to see where people with money are congregating and potentially investing. Do you think that this significant shift upward in metropolitan wealth is a result of more wealthy people moving to cities, or are technology and the current economy combining to create more millionaires?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

If you are using a blog to help boost your search engine rankings for other websites, or whether you maintain a real estate blog for personal and professional purposes, there are certain things that you can do to make your blog attractive to both search engines and readers. Ultimately, your success in this endeavor can do a great deal to promote you and your services and can help you build a solid reputation and credibility online.

Here are 3 tips for posting on your real estate investing blog:

1. Keep articles an “attractive” length
   This means keep them relatively short and to the point so that your readers can quickly glean important and useful information, but make them long enough that a search engine will give you “points” for posting new information that is long enough to be deemed useful and educational. Generally, blog posts should be between 250 and 400 words.
2. Post regularly
   Some people worry that they will bore their audience if they post every day. However, as long as you are posting quality content, you will find that this is not an issue. However, if you do not post something every day, try to post on a regular basis so that people know when to check your website for new information and content.
3. Keep your keywords in mind
   Remember that you want your blog and your website to appear when certain words are typed into a search engine. For example, if you specialize in short sales in Miami, then you might want to use the keyword “short sales Miami.” While you do not need to flood an article with this keyword, including it in the title and several times strategically throughout can help boost your results for this term.

Do you maintain a virtual real estate investing blog? If not, are you considering doing so?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

One resource for apartment searches is adding Facebook profiles to its list of references and resources that can be used to help locate an apartment[1]. When you search for an apartment using Apartment Guide, you can now have the software factor in your stated Facebook profile preferences and criteria in your results.

The president of Apartment Guide notes that most of the service’s users are between the ages of 18 and 35, “aligning nicely with Facebook’s demographics.” The tool is designed not only to make the search process easier and more personal, but also so that a user can keep friends and family up to date with the apartment search process. In fact, users can share their favorite potential rentals and “like” properties that match their criteria or appeal to them for some other reason.

Would you use this tool in your apartment search? Do you think this is putting too much personal information out there online? Do you think that your rental properties could benefit from this type of listing?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

While not all real estate investors use or even need blogs, virtual real estate investors can always benefit from having a blog either as their official website or linked to it in some form or fashion. A blog comes with numerous benefits, including:

• SEO boost for your website
• A public forum for you to demonstrate your expertise
• Advertising space that you own
• And arena for you to interact with clients and potential clients
• A source of leads for your real estate business
• A source of leads for your virtual real estate business

These are just a few of the benefits that come with owning and running a blog.

There are several different ways to set up a real estate blog to help your business. You might opt to simply join a blogging community. These are blogs that are set up around a central unit and are based at one “hub.” If you set up a blog in this type of community, while you will own the blog content and likely be able to control advertising to some degree, you will likely not have complete control over where your content is shown and your display options may be limited. On the other hand, these blogs are usually free and are easy to set up.

At the cost of only a little more time and a very small amount of money, however, you can set up your own blog on your own website. You will have to register the website, of course, which could cost between 5 and 30 dollars, and you may have to buy blogging software, although there are several excellent, free alternatives. Once you have installed the blogging software on your website, however, you will have total control over every aspect of your new blog.

Once you have set up your blog, you will need to decide what and how to post. Some virtual real estate investors post examples of the work they are doing, while others create educational content. Some use their blogs to keep in touch with current clients and run promotional campaigns, while others mainly use them to prove and maintain credibility. Your goals for your blog will directly influence what and how you post on it. In the future, we will discuss different uses for your virtual real estate investing blog that can accomplish different goals that you may have for your business.

Do you already have a blog that you use for professional or personal reasons?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

A few days ago, we talked about ways that you can generate money by being a virtual real estate investor without actually investing in real estate. Whether you ultimately want to be a real estate investor or whether you want to utilize the real estate market and real estate investors in some form or fashion to generate wealth in a related manner, you need to have a clear idea of to whom you are marketing in order to be successful. As a virtual real estate investor, you have the advantage of being able to reach many, many people that a real estate investor that limits him- or herself geographically may not be able to. However, if you simply try to reach all of them rather than identifying the sub-group that you want to target, your real estate investing efficacy will be diluted.

When you are identifying your target market, think about your goals in virtual real estate. Are you hoping to find leads to pass on to other investors? If so, then your website, your advertising and your SEO should all focus on attracting those leads – and those leads only – to your webpage. Unless you also need to attract investors, for example, then you should not be targeting investors with your promotional content.

When you are thinking about your target market, take a few moments to try and put yourself in their shoes. What might they be thinking about when they use the internet? How might they use the internet to further their own business goals? How can you make your goals mesh with theirs so that they will want to work with you? By thinking hard about exactly who your target market is, you will be better able to reach them via your internet promotional activities.

Who is your target market?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

Just this past week, a man claiming to be a real estate broker has been accused of stealing thousands of dollars in security deposits and down payments on properties that he did not own. Surprise, surprise: he used the internet to con eager buyers looking for great deals into forking over their hard turned money. Now, he’s on the run, but if he’s not caught then those buyers may be out of money and out of luck.

This type of news story is all too common, and it gives those who are actually using the internet to grow their real estate investing businesses and promote their properties a terrible reputation. While it is patently unfair, you may as well get used to the idea that a lot of people that you are working with may have a lurking suspicion in the back of their minds that you, as a virtual real estate investor, are getting ready to cash their checks and run.

So how to get around this problem? The answer is surprisingly simple: You need to be tangible. One of the things that makes people nervous about the internet is that so much of what goes on there, even in the business world, cannot be held in the hand. As a result, if you are easily visible and accessible, you will assuage many buyers’ fears about you even if you do most of your real estate investing online and may never meet your leads or your buyers face to face. One thing that will help a great deal is a real phone number that is linked to a real property. Having an office rather than an electronic answering service will help your clients feel like they are working with a real person.

You might also want to think about providing real references on your website. If you have done a great deal that worked out really well for the buyer, seller or, depending on your business model, both, then ask if you can refer potential clients to the parties involved in the deal. Speaking with someone who has already worked with you can help establish your credibility and honesty for concerned parties. Finally, provide plenty of information about yourself, and control that information. People are going to “google” you and your business, so make sure that you have a solid webpage with good contact information on it as well as a professional image on your publically-visible Facebook or other networking profiles. Establishing an image of yourself as a reliable real estate investor who is easy to reach and has a track record of responsible, successful investing will help uneasy buyers decide to work with you.

How do you get around the stigma that many buyers and sellers associate with internet-based real estate business? Do you think that this issue is becoming a thing of the past?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

When most people think of virtual real estate investing, they think of ways that they can use the internet to leverage their real-world real estate investing business, whether they buy and sell properties, teach and mentor would-be investors or track down and sell leads on deals. However, a new kind of virtual real estate investor is entering the arena and converting their virtual money created in a pretend world into cold, hard, U.S. dollars[1]. Second Life, a virtual reality game that allows players to create avatars that navigate a literally boundless world and live any type of life in any type of avatar they choose, actually has a U.S. currency conversion rate (270 Linden dollars (SL currency) to 1 U.S. dollar) and is creating a small but significant population of virtual land barons and real estate moguls operating their real estate investing businesses entirely within a virtual world.

These virtual real estate investors have paid real money to obtain plots of land that they have parceled into smaller pieces for homes or developed to represent virtual paradises, complete with waterfalls, beautiful natural and developed scenery and, in some cases, mythical creatures or real-life mirrors of places like Dublin or London. Once you own a piece of land in Second Life, you can develop it, sell it or live on it just as you can in the real world. However, unlike in the real world, you will always pay a monthly fee on that land. You will never pay off your mortgage, and you will never not be “renting” in a sense since you have to continue to pay the monthly fee once you have paid the up-front purchase price. This means that if a virtual real estate investor succeeds in creating an attractive area in which to live that is in high demand, they can recoup their original investment and then continue to indefinitely generate profits that can be converted to real, U.S. dollars.

It should be noted that this summary makes the process sound a lot easier than it may actually be. There is a huge customer service requirement since Second Life players want to live in beautiful areas with entertainment, new scenes and often themed areas of development. Fail to keep them interested, and your rents go out the window as they move elsewhere. Additionally, there are currently only about 58 of Second Life’s 7 million users are generating more than $5,000 a month in any area of virtual business, indicating that the process simply is not as easy as it appears. On the other hand, many people view this low number as an indicator that there is a lot of opportunity still out there, and a number of “real” real estate businesses agree, with businesses like Coldwell Banker opening a brokerage in Second Life that has nearly 500 homes on the market right now. Coldwell Banker representatives indicate that the company is viewing its virtual office more as an advertising and promotional activity than a wealth generation tactic, but its presence could potentially impact Second Life land prices.

What do you think that games like Second Life mean for virtual real estate investors? Would you invest in real estate in a virtual world?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

[1] http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13107800