Day: February 5, 2014

Uncategorized

One Way To Make Money In Real Estate

The Ottawa market has a lot of ways to make money in Real Estate, and there ARE ways to get in on an entry level. A very good way any people have made sizeable chunks of cash have been to use their principle residence as the tool. Now some people have simply bought and held, some have built and held, some buy and reno and hold. Notice HOLD is always there? You can’t just buy and sell right away or CRA will ding you for their cut sooner than later.

The big idea I want to explore to is to find/build a nice home where you can live for a few years that has some potential to use some of the space as a rental suite or a “secondary dwelling” as the City defines it. Either you can have a nice good sized home that has a walk out basement and you use a significant chunk of the lower level as a suite – complete with 1 or 2 bedrooms, at least 1 bath, laundry and a kitchen and all. Keep a part of the basement for your own use- maybe a home theater or rec room for the kids. The walk out basement lends itself to nice big windows, a full and proper entrance. Now you can do this in a regular basement but be weary of the window size restrictions, and the entry can’t be on the front or in the home. The link to the City’s restrictions will be at the bottom.

The other good way would be to buy/build a nice big bungalow and use up to 40% of the gross floor area as a secondary dwelling unit. You could buy a big old 5 bed bungalow and do some remodeling which gives you 3 and quality in the basement with more room to use, and the other side could be a 2 bed with a great sized basement.

Now in our market we have 2 huge demographics. Baby boomers/empty nesters/snow birds and their kids – Gen X’ers (me…and maybe you too). Think about it….The former group needs a smaller space, likely wants to sell their principle residence for tax free money and live off it/invest it, pay a modest rental fee around home and spend some good time wearing white belts and golfing in Florida. Great tenants!

Many people my age are in relationships and still working very hard at their careers, not necessarily starting families yet. This group of young professionals need a place to live for a few years to keep immediate costs down where they can focus on building that foundation. Great tenants!

Both groups also want a quality space they can be proud of, and are willing to pay a fair market rent for it.

This rent pays down your mortgage faster, and you get to sell your home down the road and pocket tax free money, OR you could keep it and pull out some money to use as a down payment for another new home and KEEP this place and rent out BOTH sides.

Now you’re cooking with gas.

Where do you start? How do you go about financing a project like this? How do you develop a project like this?

Email me at mevans@evanselattar.com and I’ll tell you. I also have a FREE investment seminar coming up in a few weeks with featured lenders and developers.

For rules that will likely apply visit http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/laws-licenses-and-permits/laws/city-ottawa-zoning-law/zoning-law-2008-250-consolidation-60  and http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/ncm-tx/rtrn/cmpltng/rprtng-ncm/lns101-170/127/rsdnc/menu-eng.html

For ideas on how to make money buying pre-construction, developing other entry levels of real estate or even converting residences to multi unit buildings – keep an eye on the blog.

Real Estate - ANALYSIS, Real Estate Sales, Thought Process - THOUGHT PROVOKING, Uncategorized

Is More Really Better?

I haven’t posted a blog in over 2.5 years. I’ve been busy building my brand and my business and it’s been going pretty well.

One thing I was originally challenged with was – How do I compete with the BIG BOYS? After all – they advertise homes on radio, they have billboards all over town, etc. That’s A LOT of money that I simply don’t have.

I thought about it long and hard… and I asked myself this one very powerful question: Is having MORE marketing tools the answer? I mean.. what if there are a key 3-5 things that a Realtor does to effectively sell homes, and everything else was just show and bragging rights?

For example.. if I have a 5 point marketing plan, and the other guy has a 10 point marketing plan – what’s the difference if those extra 5 things don’t cause the home to sell? Wouldn’t that even mean that a Realtor’s resources are being diverted into marketing avenues that are distracting and robbing the focus of what really matters?

I believed it did.

So I looked into it.

I started meeting with some of the most respected Realtors in my neighbourhood, reading all about marketing strategies and tactics etc.. and I asked the TOUGH questions – “How often does X marketing tactic sell a house?” You know what I found? BY FAR.. all the extra marketing strategies were just ‘Listing Tools’. In other words – things that made you look good an impressed a seller so it helped you get the listing. That’s it!

This didn’t make sense.

So what did?

Well – there’s been another school of thought lately. It’s been one that says the Realtor that does the best job should get the job – not the one with the largest marketing plan. This school of thought is complemented (at least now in my business it is) by another that believes a large marketing plan is proof that a Realtor DOESN’T have buyers since they are investing so much into finding them.

So we’ve done a few things. First – we tracked out results and our numbers and compared that to the average agent in our marketplace. We’ve been able to compare our performance against the average Realtor and have relied on that information to prove our worth. After all – if you were to get some serious work done.. let’s say knee surgery, you would want to know how often the surgeon performs the operation and what the recover rate is, right? I would think that’s a good place to start.

The other thing we did is invest in marketing 2 ways. First – Targeted Marketing ( a real no-brainer for anyone with a marketing background). Marketing 101 is ‘Know your Target Market”, and everything flows from there. So for every listing we identify who the target market is, and we sell the home to that specific demographic. We put our marketing materials in places they go and where they will see it.

The next thing we did is market FOR BUYERS. In other words – marketing that offered what they wanted: Access to the best deals before others could get to them. You know what? THEY LOVE THIS. People thinking of buying homes just want that – homes. They don’t want a Realtor. Think of it this way: If you were going to buy a car, do you immediately ask yourself where you can find a car salesman and start evaluating which is the best? Of course not! You want CARS. So our mentality is the same with Real Estate. The vast majority of people- 99% of them, couldn’t care less who I am.. they want what I have – access to the best deals in Real Estate – so I provide it for FREE and with NO Obligation. IT’s only natural that through the course of interested buyers getting these homes that they learn that the best way to ACQUIRE these deals is also through me, and the vast majority then ask me to do that for them. What this does it allows my team to have a HUGE queue of buyers just waiting for good deals. Quite often they will sit and wait for months and months for the right house.

Think of that… we get to go to a Sellers home and tell them that we have hundreds of people in our database looking for homes, and IN THE EVENT that our targeted marketing can’t get that perfect buyer for you asap, there is a good chance we have someone looking to be in your neighbourhood in a home like yours.

Let’s see how quick we can put 2 and 2 together.

Oh – and here is what our results look like time and time again, with testimonials, references etc.

(sarcastic) Small side note: If we can’t sell it, we will buy it as well (see evanselattar.com for terms and conditions).

Makes sense right?

🙂