The Genius Speaks

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 8 - Active Rain - My poor Active Rain they butchered you

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:34:36 -0600

Social media can have a dark side, what happened during the Active Rain seminar, was the Dark Side. I feel that I have a strong love for Active Rain as many of you here do as well. To see the site presented in such a bad light it can cause a tarnishing of the brand. I was not planning on attending the session except Jeremy with Active Rain and Jason Crouch were planning on attending. This came from the Real Estate Tomato chat room. I figured if they felt it could be of value to them, then I should show up.

I hesitate to write this, I know your not supposed to be negative or critical of other people or presentations. I'm certainly not going to point out there name, but it was the weakest presentation I have seen on a webinar. A few pointers going over this.

This was a Rebar camp. People are expecting a little bit more than a normal conversation. This is a fairly sophisticated audience. Maybe you haven't been to a Rebar camp before, I attended the one in Denver. I was blown away by the quality of the speakers and the information. I actually had a presentation last week on Social Media. I was copresenting with Josh Dorkin, of Bigger Pockets. I was going to let him do most of the talking. I'm ok with it, but not enough to call myself an expert ... yet. Josh had a family emergency and I had to step up to the plate. I had 13 people in my class and I did ok. You would of done ok with that presentation for the type of audience I had. This was a little basic for them

I'm a business partner of Constant Contact and I had an opportunity to present at the Virtual Rebar Camp. I make this point to say that I passed because I felt it was over my head. I use Constant Contact myself and I know it's a great product. (Full disclosure I am an authorized business partner.) I'm very confident in my speaking abilities, and I have taught over 10 public classes this year. I contacted my Constant Contact representative and wanted to see if they were available that day for the event. They weren't. I passed simply because my inexperience in being able to do an interesting webinar.

Know your audience. I will say that my experience with putting on webinars is zero. Listening to webinars I've heard a lot, but I'm not a junkie. You have got to realize that Active Rain is not always warmly welcomed or perceived by the Realtor community as the place to go. People perceive it's all just Realtors talking to Realtors. They ignore all the consumer success stories there are to many good and smart people here on Active Rain to say this site is not worth your time.

Why are you talking about the points. I know it was because it was on one of your screenshots, but talk about the right things. I've had two people refered to this site. I think I've invited four. Your story is you don't have anybody who has accepted, but you've sent out over 50 invitations. THIS IS NOT A GOOD STORY TO TELL.

You didn't talk about the extra google juice or credibility that Active Rain offers. I want some of that. I'm not sure if I've got it or how I'm going to get it, but I know the answer is in here. I even bet that I have that site bookmarked. I'm pretty sure this wasn't even addressed.

As far as the actual presentation, raise your voice. One of the great things I have going for me, which most good speakers do is that I can talk loud. I can present in front of a room of 50 people with no microphone and people don't have an issue hearing me. You were the quietest speaker of anyone that I heard that day.

Make it visually interesting. You can see in my other blogs that I wrote in this series I did a poor job with pictures. I think this one has the best chance of being read. Thus I added pictures. Your presentation was a PDF file with poorly scanned images of Active Rain screenshots. Again, this is why I wanted my business partner to be there to present. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that you could of got somebody from the Active Rain staff to present with you. Think how that gets you in their good graces.

The result of the call? The dark side of social media reared it's ugly head. I'm not sure how many people were on the call at the start. I'm going to potentially guess 300. It was conferencing software so it would make a beep whenever anyone would join or drop off. Let me tell you there were people dropping off every few seconds. It was torture to watch and listen too. I like love this site. If I was not familiar with this site, I certainly wouldn't be rushing over here.

This is the dark side of social media. You have a customer of your product, the presenter. They clearly love the product, they are featured in the area they work. They even seemed like a nice person. A social media expert? Someone you want representing your product to a group of several hundred targeted prospects? This is an interesting quandry. I used this time to listen and get caught up of some of my projects in the real world.

Interesting dilema to me, what do you think?

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Mike Henderson specializes in the following areas in real estate in the Denver, Colorado metro area; investors, first time homebuyers, luxury property, short sales, and light rail properties. Of course I can also provide financing or refinacing across the state of Colorado.

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 7 - Wordpress plugins - redesignedblogs.com

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:07:11 -0600

Popular Wordpress plugins for real estate bloggers. Finally some real meat on the heart of the matter of using Wordpress. The earlier section got my appetite watering to see what this is all about. I'm getting ready to take the plunge of becoming a hard core blogger. Clearly this looks like the best platform. All of these plugins only work with .org, which is why if I go with Wordpress this is something that I will definately be doing.

Google XML sitemaps - This looked like a must. If you want Google to index your site frequently and correctly this plug in looks at the structure of your site and creates a site map automatically. This was pretty cool and it looked like a must do. This plugin really made me want to develop a Wordpress site.

All in One SEO - Wow! An incredible tool. Makes it very easy to add meta tags. Also gave some good tips that the character length of the title should be between 60-75 characters. The description can be 160.

Share This - What a great way to make it easy for your readers to share the writings that you create and do. Pretty amazing stuff. The ease and popularity of these plugins made me want to switch blogging platforms.

Wibya - A great way to create a fan page.

Cforms2 -

Apture - Wow. This to me makes creating your blogs much easier and more professional looking. I can't even really describe it. The tool looks simply amazing.

This list is just a starting point for Wordpress plugins. I'm not using the platform ... yet. So I don't want to talk out of school. It looks pretty freaking amazing to me though.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 6 - How to write a blog - Kathy Gougehenour - Part 2

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:58:13 -0600

How to write a better blog.

5) Hook the reader with a good title

A good title -

accurately describes the content

communicates the benefits of reading the blog

6) Create a sense of intimacy

Write as if you are speaking directly to one person.

Use you more than I

Write less formally

Eliminate unknown acronyms or jargon

7) Make content scanable

(This appears to be the only part that I learned)

Make a list

Use bullet points

Use a numbered list (hint - don't mix them together)

Paragraphs should be 2-4 sentences long. 6 sentences are to long.

Add bolded subheadings

8) Write a call to action

This was great. To many times I see the call to action being left off. Many bloggers think that you shouldn't have a call to action. I disagree, you want them to do something. Figure out what you want them to do and then ask them.

Call you

Email you

Go to your website

Another great session.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 6 - How to write a blog - Kathy Gougehenour

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:28:57 -0600

How to write a blog post. Another great session. I love it when they all come from back to back sessions. She narrowed it down to eight narrow steps.

EIGHT EASY STEPS TO WRITING A BLOG

1) Find topics fast.

What she does is subscribe to Google alerts. This keeps her up to date with all types of ideas for blog posts. As an editorial comment I find this one of easiest parts for me. If you are busy doing things throughout the day I don't know what the problem is. I can think up multiple ideas per day. Maybe part of the reason I find it so easy is that I do read Active Rain almost daily and subscribe to several Google alerts.

2) Find good Google keywords.

She recommends varying the tags with your keywords. She recommends rotating phrases in your title.

(Blank city name) real estate

(Blank city) homes

(Blank county name) homes or real estate

(Blank city) real estate agents

(Blank city) homes for sale

3) The length of the blog

A blog should be about 350 words long. It was this session or another one where they said that your blogs can be even longer.

Keywords should be repeated a total of three times

Once in the title

Once in the first paragraph, preferably in the first sentence.

Once more anywhere in the blog post.

4) Add links for value

They expand on the information in your post.

They recommend other pages on your site.

They keep search engine spiders moving.

What sites do you link to?

Link to authoritative sites

Link to other posts in your blog

Link to your main web site

Link to your IDX

DON"T LINK TO YOUR COMPETITORS

Don't link to sites that link to your competitors

Include at least 1-3 links per blog

Have links open in a new window.

Part 2 - To Follow

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 5 - Scott Gray - Real Estate SEO optimization Part 2

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:23:04 -0600

This session has been awesome. I'm having a hard time keeping up, not because the material is how fast they are giving quality information. He then switches over to the things that you do outside the site.

He used the term link bait - LInk bait is stuff you put on your site to spread virally or have people want to come to your site. Examples of this include:

Tools

Quizzes

Contest

Writing articles is a great way to get your name out there.

Use submission sites

Use anchor tags

BLOGS CAN BE THE BEST TOOL

Key to blogs is to have quality content.

Convergence of Social Media and SEO.

Lots of statements vs. a conversation

Google Caffeine coming down the pike.

Real Time Searching

Increased SEO

attract links

media sharing

reviews

You need to know secondary sites to market with Squiddo, Active Rain, Real Town, Facebook

Social Bookmarking sites as well. Digg is an example.

Google loves multimedia

Website

You Tube

Flickr

Social Networking

My last comments about this session. It was awesome. The pace was great. The slides were awesome. I have never seen a better webinar in the amount of time that they had.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 5 - Scott Gray - Real Estate SEO optimization

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:06:45 -0600

Real Estate Search Engine Optimization. Now here was a topic I was ready to sink my teeth into. It was put on by www.realestateseopros.com They certainly have a great domain name for the topic, it really does add credibility.

One of the most interesting stats was that what drives traffic to a web site is that only 30% comes from Pay per click (ppc) vs 70% which is SEO. This was a startling stat for me. I guess I knew it, but I hadn't had it explained in such a clear manner.

The next tip is that you own your own traffic.

Scott then talked about what happens to drive traffic to your site. There is a difference between what happens onsite and offsite for your traffic. The breakdown given was 20-30% of the battle took place on your site.

Your site is determined by several factors

Content
Structural - Navigation
Keyword research (consistent marketing message - keywords and search term

Google has a keyword tool.

Keywords

Add to page titles
Put them in every meta
Content - repeat as often as possible

Keyword - Friendly URL's

XLM plus sitemap does it faster

Rich Content is a key

Blogging

Photoslideshows

Flash/Javascript

Get a relevant link

Part 2 : To Follow

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 4 - Mark Burrell - Getting started with Wordpress

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:17:39 -0600

Getting started with Wordpress. I was really looking forward to this call. As I'm getting started and becoming a more professional blogger I'm wrestling with this question. It was interested for me to learn the difference between wordpress.org and wordpress.com I kind of new the difference before, but this laid it out in black and white for me. I cleary recognized that if I did this I would want to go to the more professional version. Even with having to pay for the hosting the higher fee will be worth it for the plugins.

Multiple blogs under one account. I'm pretty sure that this was the professional version. This feature really appeals to me in order to get going with more team oriented blogs. He didn't explain how to do this, merely that it was possible.

He did show how it looks under multiple views from Edit - View with the tabs.

I had a phone call that I had to take in the middle of this and caused me to miss a lot of the session.

More to follow with a later session that went over the more advanced features, and what I plan on doing with it.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 3 - Mike Simenson - Market Data

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:39:12 -0600

This session covered the basics of using market data. It was put on by Altos research, so you know there is going to be a little bit of bias. I work for a company in Denver, Your Castle Real Estate. I joined this firm specifically because of the market data. We are actually the source of real estate information for the Denver Post. I just haven't done a good job of marketing the data and my expertise through the Internet.

How is the market? That is a great question. It is the question that consumers want to know. If I hadn't had a lot of role playing on this issue, it would of been this is awesome. Since I was it wasn't that revolutionary. He did mention one great point. Confused people don't buy. I thought this was awesome.

He gave examples of four websites that were good examples

I believe these are correct.

locomarketstats

ocexclusives.com

Theresa Boardman

rerockstar.c

Mike stressed there were three questions all consumers want answered.

What's for sale?
What's my home worth?
How's the market?

All in all a good presentation. I just had real high hopes.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 2 - Kendra Todd - Branding - Part 2

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:43:31 -0600

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 2 - Kendra Todd - Branding - Part 2

Choose your ideal client

Who is your ideal client
Determine your expertise (Your brand depends on you being an expert not saying that you are)
Determine Personal Behaviors
Choose Your Channels (Adversting, Seminars, trade shows, canvasing, network) Do you make them inclusive or exclusive
Develop your customer delight system. You can't do this unless this is in place!
Create Identity Materials - Create a tagline. This is the best part of marketing.
Create a website (s.m.,navigation, testimonials, expertise)
Establishing Social Neworking Presence
Create Printed Materials
Put Your Media in Place

Two Great Books to Read

The Brand Called You

22 Immutable Laws of Branding

Here is your Action Plan for Branding

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 2 - Kendra Todd - Branding

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:33:39 -0600

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 2 - Kendra Todd - Branding

The very first thing I ran across in my notes was - You are a brand. This instantly appealed to me. I've been an agent less than a year. My marketing was partially slowed down because I wasn't sure how to position myself. I absolutely believe her message and that's what I'm doing.

Your Brand consists of:

Who you are as a person.
What you are an expert in.

WHY NOT MY COMPANIES BRAND?

Because you want people loyal to you.

You already have a brand, it may be shaped by random events beyond your control.

Great Branding attracts your ideal clients and repulses people you don't want .

Build quality instead of quantity.

A clients make up 60% of your income

B clients make up 30% of your income

C clients make up 20% of your income

Brands grow organically.

Branding takes time.

Experts earn greater respect and greater income. This sounds really cool to me. I'm going to follow this path myself.

Once you create a brand your committed. Yep this is what scared me. Now I'm taking the plunge. Because my brand has a sense of humor sometimes my message gets lost.

8 steps to Building a Brand

1) Craft a personal brand based on the qualities that create value for your target market.

2) You continue this over a period of months.

3) I'm on a phone call with client - Not paying attention

4) I'm on a phone call with client - Not paying attention

5) Longtime clients

6) People have heard of you.

7) People coming to you.

8) Start charging more. Only work with those clients.

Part 2 To Continue

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 1 - You Tube - Doug Devitre

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:15:10 -0600

Virtual Rebar Camp - Event 1 - You Tube - Doug Devitre. I was very excited about this session. I keep telling my wife next year my goal will to be a video blogger. This was a great place to start.

My notes from the session are posted below.

He talked about using video testimonials. I think this is a great idea. I've already thought about how to shoot them.

He recommended theflip cam from Cisco. That is the only thing I'm not sure of yet.

Three great uses of video blogging

Neighborhood tours

Training videos - Again I'm not sure of theflip.com

Video tours

For editing software you can use

Windows Movie Maker

Adobe Visual Communicator

Upload

Title, Description and the tag. Put name and phone number in the ad if your Real Estate Commission requires it. This is a marketing piece.

How to market videos

With a playlist

You can use catagories of videos, and every video is its own site.

All in all very great stuff. This is on my marketing to do list for 2010.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Be Cautious About Giving Info to Census Workers

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:49:26 -0600

Really good information here. I was going to write this, but now I don't need to.

Via Larry Bettag - Cherry Creek Mortgage:

With the U.S. Census process beginning, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) advises people to be cautious. The major concern is that individuals don't become a victim of fraud or identity theft.

The first phase of the 2010 U.S. Census is under way as workers have begun verifying the addresses of households across the country. Eventually, more than 140,000 U.S. Census workers will count every person in the United States and will gather information about every person living at each address including name, age, gender, race, and other relevant data.

The big question is - how do you tell the difference between a U.S. Census worker and a con artist? BBB offers the following advice:

** If a U.S. Census worker knocks on your door, they will have a badge, a handheld device, a Census Bureau canvas bag, and a confidentiality notice. Ask to see their identification and their badge before answering their questions. However, you should never invite anyone you don't know into your home.

** Census workers are currently only knocking on doors to verify address information. Do not give your Social Security number, cre dit card or banking information to anyone, even if they claim they need it for the U.S. Census. While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, the Census Bureau will not ask for Social Security, bank account, or credit card numbers nor will employees solicit donations.

Eventually, Census workers may contact you by telephone, mail, or in person at home. However, the Census Bureau will not contact you by Email, so be on the lookout for Email scams impersonating the Census.

Never click on a link or open any attachments in an Email that are supposedly from the U.S. Census Bureau.

For more advice on avoiding identity theft and fraud, visit http://www.bbb.org/.
Larry Bettag - Regional Vice President, Midwest Region

Illinois FHA Specialist

630-417-7172

An Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Washington Park

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:02:32 -0600

These are my first attempts at posting neighborhood market reports in the Denver, CO market. I want to penetrate my the luxury home marketplace. This is certainly a challenging market in normal times, and in this times its like I'm the Don Quixote of agents.

A seperate blog is in order to determine my plan to crack this market segment. One important disclosure point is I'm really only interested in being a buyers agent in this marketplace. You might actually be better served by another agent for listing your home for sale.

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Belcaro

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:21 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Bonnie Brae

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:58:21 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Country Club

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:56:19 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Hilltop

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:52:43 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Cherry Creek

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:50:12 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Bow Mar

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:46:03 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Market Report - Denver, CO - metro area - luxury home neighborhoods - Preserve

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:39:56 -0600

What is important to focus on is

Count = Number of homes for sale

Avg Total DOM = 180 or less indicates sellers market. Higher favors the buyers

Avg list price = what the average list price is

Median = Where half the homes are more expensive and half the homes are less expensive

Volume list price = If you wanted to buy every home in that neighborhood how much it would cost. I find this figure very amusing.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Feedback from my free real estate class in Denver - Investing for newbies

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:23:51 -0600

I actually got a call before the class that made me want to cry. This person found me through our local real estate club in Colorado. They were given my name by somebody else that is always a good sign. Referrals are great especially since I am fairly new in the business. She knows that I specialize in working with investors. The biggest thing I do is try to prequal them find out there experience, drive, goals, and funding. I agree that we should talk and maybe work together. I had this class scheduled for the same day that she called me. I really encouraged her to attend. She said she couldn't they had to pick up mother from the Denver airport.

I got a call back fifteen minutes later saying that her or her husband will be there. That was encouraging. This is also the person who was the first person to speak up in class. Afterwards I saw her networking with the person I thought was the most serious person there. I've got a good feeling about her success. I even had one other person contact me since that class about getting in touch with her. One of the biggest services I offer to my clients is the ability to network with each other. I truly believe that real estate investing is a team sport.

She asked how much it cost to attend the class - it's free. I constantly debate whether to charge people or not. I think the only way or time that I will charge people is if they don't register. I just want to know how many people are going to show up.

Typically my feedback has been people congratulating me after a class and an occassional follow up email that I student would send me. I really did step up my game. I signed up for Constant Contact, the survey platform. This was eyeopening results and the power of this tool.

Where they came from - less than 50% came from my companys newsletter. That really means that my marketing efforts are starting to stand out.

Level of Satisfaction with event - 81.7% Were extremely satisfied or somewhat satisfied. Very encouraging.

Likely to attend an event like this again - 72.7% Seems like I'm doing something right.

What was incredibly helpful was the ability to list potential future classes I am thinking about teaching.

Constant Contact is a powerful tool to find out what your customers are truly thinking.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

My class - Real estate investing for newbies in Denver, CO

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:12:28 -0600

This is one of the most challenging classes that I have taught. It is partially because there is so much to learn. I been to dozens of REI club meetings across the Denver metro area. I've read a ton on Active Rain and Bigger Pockets. This is in addition to tons of webinars, newsletter, and most importantly working with investor clients and buying property.

How do you boil all of this knowledge down to teach information in a couple of hours? One of the things I tried to do is get the class more involved in the discussion. I had nineteen people show up. I really only knew a couple of them. Most of the people I have no idea of their background, experience, ability, or committment.

I had nineteen people show up. This is also the first time I have taught this particular class so you have no idea how long the time runs. One of the first areas that I went over was about Why are you doing this? This is a basic and fundemental question. If you can't answer this, you shouldn't be investing in real estate.

I tried to facilitate discussion by asking questions of the group. It can be a disaster when nobody pipes up. There is an even greater risk when nobody speaks up. This is a class of new people so nobody wants to speak up or say something stupid. I was so happy when Donna raised her hand. She is one of the few people that I had some good background on because she called me on the phone about potentially being her agent. I found out she was a new investor. Luckily I had this class already scheduled and it was a great way to introduce people to the market. It was a start of getting the class engaged.

My speaking was nontraditional compared to past classes as well. I used to do stand up comedy, was a champion debater in high school, and highly involved in the student senate in college. I'm pretty good. I have a loud voice, pretty good gestures, and can read a room. I didn't want to overpower things so I sat down in my chair to be on there level several different times throughout the class. I also had no powerpoint or handouts. I did everything I could to make it interactive.

What did I want to teach these prospective real estate investors? I do a lot of my networking at investor clubs so I know the pitches these people are used to and what the speakers are saying. I tried to tailor my presentation to the stuff that the speakers don't tell you.

Two problems with my approach:

1) The makeup of the class. There were more/as many real estate agents as there were investors. Some of these were no and wanting to learn. Some were experienced and wanted to learn more. Were some there to try to pick up newbie clients? I'm not sure. What was even worse is there were a couple of strong personalities.

2) The material. You can read about the description of the class on this previous blog. Everyone who came should of seen it. I think it was not what a lot of people expected. I talked about mentoring, gurus and there courses, basics of business cards, and the one free marketing tip you should do right now.

Of course I talked about fix and flips, wholesaling, and buy and hold, hard money, and financing options. I think that is what they expected for a two full hours. It was probably only about 45 minutes.

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

What is happening with Commercial Property loans

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:30:37 -0600

Commerical property is going to experience as bad or worse than the residential sector. Intresting notes from some sources that I have seen.

From April 09 until August 09 the amount of commercial loans placed into special servicing has doubled to $50 billion. What is special servicing? You don't want to know. You don't want your loans there, and you don't want to do business with people who have there loans there.

"The lodging sector experienced the largest jump from 6.72 percent last month to 8.67, over ten times the delinquency rate at the end of October last year." "Five states now have an overall CMBS delinquency rate of over 10 percent (NC, MT, MI, AZ and FL). Among the largest MSAs for delinquencies are: Tallahassee (27%), Fort Myers (23%), Tucson (18%), Las Vegas (16%), Detroit (12%) and Riverside (11%). Source: Trepp LLC

This is data that supports my viewpoint. It's a bad time to invest in commercial property. I think there will be tons of great deals in the future. Some deals I see now look like great deals, I put those definately under 10%. I believe the best move is to wait and accumulate capital.

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CONTACT ME I CAN HELP! IF I CAN'T, I KNOW WHO CAN

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Social Media and real estate - free training

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:41:09 -0600

November 11th – Bigger Pockets.com and Your Castle Real Estate present Social Media and Real Estate November 11th 6:00 – 8:00

Location: Jefferson County Association of Realtors training room. 950 Wadsworth Blvd Lakewood, CO 80214-4591

Wondering what all the buzz is about? Confused about web 2.0? Learn how this evolving new medium can be used to increase your real estate business. Whether you are an agent looking for clients or an investor looking for properties learn how these powerful tools can be used. An overview of blogging, twitter, Linked in, Facebook and other powerful tools will be used. This class is not focused on the basics of setting up accounts, but more of the why and how to communicate with this new medium. About the presenters - Josh Dorkin - Josh is CEO and founder of www.biggerpockets.com He is one of the leading experts of using social media, especially as to how it relates to real estate. He created one of the largest social media sites focused on real estate with over 40,000 members. Mike Henderson

I'm really looking forward to this Josh is doing most of the talking.

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CONTACT ME I CAN HELP! IF I CAN'T, I KNOW WHO CAN

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528

Real estate investing for newbies - free class - Denver, CO

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:31:10 -0600

Free real estate investing class in Denver, CO. Beginers are encouraged to attend.

November 10th – Real estate investing for newbies 6:00-8:00 This class is targeted to the person who has not acquired any property yet but is trying to do so. Whether you are going for "fix and flips," "wholesale," or "buy and hold," we will cover the basics. Additional topics include: Mentoring, do you need one? Gurus, is it worth investing in the material? The ABC's of business cards; The number one free marketing idea that you should do right now; How do I build my real estate team? Are you mentally, spiritually, and psychologically ready? This class should be extremely fun and entertaining. Who should attend? Newbies! You will even learn where the word came from.

Presenter – Mike Henderson

Location: Jefferson County Association of Realtors training room. 950 Wadsworth Blvd Lakewood, CO 80214-4591

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CONTACT ME I CAN HELP! IF I CAN'T, I KNOW WHO CAN

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Colorado Real Estate license FA100027713

Colorado Mortgage Broker license LMB100026528