There are several types of real estate agents in this business, and if you’re in a populated market like I am, you know that your competition is fierce.

The question you should ask is: what defines successful agents and determines who has millions of dollars in listings a year versus those who struggle to get by?

Some real estate agents treat this job as a hobby. They make a few calls a week, pass out their business cards at parties and generally only keep up with their continuing education enough to stay active.

They hope that they’ll get a referral here and there and that all of their friends and family members will use them for their real estate transactions. Most of them have other jobs or live on an entirely different income.

To be a full-time real estate agent, you need to be 100 percent committed to this business. Having a customer relationship management (CRM) to work for you is the first step to show that you’re serious about being a producer, and it will allow your past clients and potential clients to see that as well.

Most importantly, it will help you to keep organized and not let potential connections fall through the cracks.

Here are five things I can do with my CRM that give me an edge:

Put your CRM on autopilot

My business got to a point where it was getting difficult to remember to give someone a call or reach out to them. I would get anxiety knowing that there was someone I was supposed to reach out to but couldn’t remember when and why.

Having a bunch of connections is great, but it does me no good if I’m not connecting with them. It became imperative to make my CRM work for me.

One of the tools that I really appreciate is being able to put my contacts on autopilot. I place all leads, clients, past clients, referral partners and even vendors on an email and text drip campaign.

This makes sure no one is left untapped. My drip campaigns last can anywhere from a week to seven years depending on the contact type.

Take really good notes

Most CRMs will allow you to type in notes about each person and log your last conversation. Some will even record your last conversation if you’re using an auto-dialer.

This can eliminate mistakes such as asking how a deceased spouse is or mentioning children that do not exist. It will allow you to provide that personal touch that really gets your business and lets your contact know that you actually listen.

Become a paperless agent

How many of you have a binder filled with leads? Or maybe you have a filing cabinet with some pages that are yellow, some that are pink, and some that are white? Do you often have filing nightmares?

I have eliminated the need for paper by keeping everything electronic.

As a bonus, I can access my contacts from your computer or phone, at the touch of a button.

Everyone I meet goes in my database. Your network equals your net worth, so it’s important to me that I actually consistently build my network.

Don’t spend time filling out forms

Some CRMs are extremely comprehensive, like Top Producer, and allow you to do your lead generation, customer information logging, email follow-up and even manage your website all in the same space.

This eliminates the need to retype information from database to database, which can easily cause a loss of time and a potential for errors.

While most agents are going from place to place for resources, I have them all in one place.

During a real estate transaction, there are so many details that pertain to a contract. Why spend even two minutes shuffling through paperwork to find the answer?

I have every transaction from contract to close in my CRM, and I would estimate my time saved each week is between four and 20 hours.

Market your business like no other agent

The biggest thing we look for as real estate agents is tools to help market our businesses. Well, I have it all.

Every day, I do some type of marketing, and I do it all from my CRM. If I need to do a postcard mail-out, labels are easily accessible.

If it’s time to send CMAs to past clients, I can do it with the click of a button.

When it’s time to send a mass email to say Happy Holidays, I can do it effortlessly with two clicks. If I’m running social media ads, I can send leads straight to a squeeze page that I created in my CRM.

Marketing is very important, and I make myself stand out. These tools alone give me the biggest edge over my competition.

Finally, every little bit counts, so anything you can do in our industry to get a leg up is worth some research and potentially a little investment.

Courtesy of Inman News and credit to Chastin Miles

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Picking individual stocks can be intimidating to new investors. Investing in mutual funds, however, eases some of the pressure of building a stock portfolio.

“Mutual funds are good choices for first-time investors,” says Jeremy Torgerson, CEO of Denver-based nVest Advisors. “You’re diversified across dozens or even hundreds of investments from your very first dollar in a fund that’s been professionally selected to fit the specific objectives of the fund’s investors.”

That, Torgerson says, takes much of the guesswork out of answering a question novice investors often have – does this stock give me what I want? Although mutual funds are an all-in-one investing package, newbies can still choose the wrong ones thanks to some common mistakes.

Chasing performance

In fairness, all investors, not just newbies, can fall into this trap. “It’s easy to pick on first-time mutual fund buyers, but the inconvenient truth is that most investors pay far too much attention to performance,” says Daniel Kern, chief investment officer of TFC Financial Management in Boston.

That can be more damaging when short-term returns skew the picture. Many of today’s top-performing funds end up being tomorrow’s bottom performers, particularly when measured over a one- or three-year period, Kern says.

While important, performance shouldn’t be the sole reason for choosing a fund. Katharine Perry, associate financial consultant at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, says investors should look at the company’s overall track record and management team. The fund manager’s credibility and management style should also factor in, as should the fund’s strategy.

“A fund may be doing well now because a sector is up, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to continue to do well if it has an unfavorable strategy in the long term,” she says.

Instead of being wowed by a fund’s recent performance, aim for sustainability. When you have decades to invest, a fund that generates steady, consistent returns over time may prove much more valuable than one with returns that are a series of peaks and valleys.

Making only surface comparisons

A mutual fund is a collection of stocks, bonds, and other investments, with no two funds exactly alike. To determine if a fund fits your risk tolerance and objectives, look at the underlying investments.

Subtle differences between funds can affect your investments significantly. Kern uses the Russell 2000 index, which includes many unprofitable companies, as an example. “In certain environments, the Russell 2000 will outperform the Standard & Poor’s 600 index, which has a more selective approach.” Both indexes follow small-cap companies.

Exposure to a specific market isn’t the same thing as a fund’s investment strategy, Torgerson says. For instance, if you’re an aggressive risk taker who panics when your account value drops 20 percent, look for a balanced strategy of stocks and bonds, Torgerson says. Broad exposure to the market could take more than one fund to accomplish unless you’re using an allocation fund, which invests in stocks, bonds, and cash.

Target-date funds are one option for first-time, set-it-and-forget-it mutual fund investors. The fund’s asset allocation and corresponding risk exposure adjust automatically over time as retirement nears. You still, however, need to review the underlying investments and the fund’s glide path – the trajectory at which the asset allocation adjusts – to make sure you’re not taking too much, or too little, risk.

When investing in multiple funds, checking for any overlapping holdings. “If funds have a big weighting in the same companies, you may be incurring more risk through overexposure,” Perry says. Also, you should understand that index funds are an unmanaged basket of both good and bad companies. You may get power stocks that drive index performance along with companies that aren’t doing as well.

Overlooking cost

Managing investment fees is something you want to get right from the start. The more you pay in fees, the more you may shrink your investment returns.

There are two basic fees to understand: the expense ratio, which covers transaction and management costs, and the sales load, which is a commission paid when you buy or sell shares. Lonny Powell, founder, and president of Alliance Retirement Solutions in Louisville, Kentucky, says to evaluate a fund’s fees in the context of its annual returns.

Assume you have two mutual funds, one with a 9 percent annual rate of return and an expense ratio of 1.7 percent, and another with an 8.5 percent annual return and an expense ratio of 0.5 percent. The actual return for the funds, less the expense ratio, would be 7.3 percent and 8 percent, respectively. “Although the second fund has a lower annual rate of return, the lower fees make it the higher return option,” Powell says.

Sales loads are determined by the class of shares you buy. As a new investor, avoid funds that charge a load and stick with low-cost options, such as exchange-traded funds or index funds, whenever possible. If you’re working with an advisor, “fees aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but know what you’re paying for in terms of performance and service,” Perry says.

A fund’s turnover ratio can help you understand how actively the manager trades securities within the fund, says Thomas Walsh, client service and portfolio manager with Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Atlanta. Funds with high turnover imply more frequent trading, which usually means higher trading costs.

Besides fees, you should also consider what a fund may cost you in taxes. A higher turnover rate, for example, may trigger more taxable events. Walsh recommends placing certain types of mutual funds in an investment account based on its tax status. High-income or high-growth funds may be better suited to tax-deferred accounts, like a 401(k) or individual retirement account. Funds that are more tax-efficient may be more appropriate in a taxable brokerage account. “Strategic placement of mutual funds in different account types is known as asset location, and it should be part of your overall investment strategy,” Walsh says.

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For most of us, our housing costs are the biggest monthly expenditure we face.

However, there are plenty of very simple measures we can all take which will reduce the actual cost of our mortgage.

1) Shop around

First off, it’s important to emphasize

5262’ the importance of shopping around for a mortgage, rather than always going to your bank.

The fact is that many of the very best deals come from lenders that you don’t find on the high street, so doing your research and comparing deals can lead to some seriously significant savings.

2) Use a broker

If you don’t want to handle it yourself, then it’s well worth speaking to a mortgage broker.

Not only are they more likely to know precisely which lenders are most likely to want to lend to someone in your position, they will often have access to lenders who don’t deal with borrowers directly.

3) Save a bigger deposit

The key factor in the interest rate on your mortgage is the loan-to-value – in other words, how big the loan is as a proportion of the overall value of the house. If you are borrowing 90% of the property’s value, it will come with a much higher interest rate than if you are borrowing 60%, for example.

So take the time to save a more significant deposit, and you’ll enjoy a smaller interest rate and therefore smaller repayments.

4) Do you really want to fix?

Mortgage rates come in two main forms: fixed and variable. With a fixed rate, you know exactly what your repayments will be for a set period. For example, with a five-year fixed rate, your monthly repayments won’t change for five years.

The trouble is, that certainty comes at a premium; a tracker rate, which goes up and down alongside the bank base rate, may work out cheaper. You just have to be happy to accept the rate may increase at any stage.

5) Short vs long-term

Even if you do decide to fix, there is a decision to be made on how long you want to fix your rate for. Going for a two-year fixed rate, for example, will result in smaller monthly repayments than a five-year deal, for example.

Just bear in mind that there will be additional costs further down the line if you choose to remortgage – you’ll have two lots of products fees to pay if you take out two consecutive two-year fixed rates rather than a four-year fixed deal.

6) Don’t add the fee to the mortgage balance

Most mortgages come with a product fee, just for taking out the loan. These fees aren’t cheap, often costing more than £1,000.

As a result, many borrowers opt to add the fee to the mortgage balance, so that they don’t have to pay it up front. However, this means that you will end up paying interest on the fee, meaning it actually costs you even more.

If you can afford to do so, pay the whole product fee in one at the outset.

7) Find a fee-free deal

Another alternative is to go for a mortgage that doesn’t charge a product fee at all.

You’ll need to do your sums though, as these will generally come with a higher interest rate so may not actually save you cash over the long term.

8) Adjust your mortgage term

Historically, most borrowers have opted for a 25-year mortgage term. However, you can change that term, to fit your circumstances.

By extending your mortgage term, you can cut the size of your monthly repayments, though it will mean you pay more overall as you’ll be paying interest on your outstanding debt for a longer period.

Alternatively, you can reduce your mortgage term. While this will increase the size of your monthly repayments, it does mean that your mortgage will be cheaper overall as you’ll pay it off quicker.

9) Overpay when you can

Along similar lines, it’s worth overpaying on your mortgage if you can afford to do so.

Most mortgages allow you to overpay by 10% each year without incurring additional fees, and doing so means that you will pay off the overall mortgage balance quicker, saving thousands in interest charges in the process.

10) Make use of your savings

An offset mortgage is a clever way to use your savings to cut the cost of your mortgage repayments. Essentially the idea is that your savings balance is offset against your outstanding mortgage balance, and you then only pay interest on the difference.

In other words, if I have a £150,000 mortgage and £50,000 in savings, and offset mortgage would mean that I only pay interest on £100,000 of that mortgage balance, which would mean a significant reduction to my mortgage bill.

The one downside is that with an offset deal, you give up the option of earning interest on your savings, though given the paltry rates on offer today that’s not as problematic as it once was.

Courtesy of Forbes and credited to John

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Niche marketing! That’s it. If you got it read no more. If you don’t then read on my friend.

Have you ever heard the saying “The Riches Are In The Niches”? Well, it’s true. The reality is that most real estate agents are trying to be all things to all people. They get into the Real Estate business and realize that it’s not as easy as they thought to generate commissions. They try postcard campaigns thinking they have the right message and spend a few hundred or a few thousand dollars on the postcard campaign and STRIKE OUT! Yikes. That hurt. I met a student in Whittier California a few years ago who sent out 7,000 cards – SEVEN THOUSAND! – And didn’t get a single phone call. Lord has mercy!

The fact is she wasn’t speaking to anybody. She was trying to speak to everybody. And everybody knew it. And they didn’t care one bit about what she had to say because they saw it as junk mail and they felt like just another number. Would you probably feel the same way, wouldn’t you? Of course.

You see, one of the secrets to marketing is that you have to “enter the conversation that already going on inside their head”. Well, what does that mean? What it means is that you have to put yourself in the shoes of the person you want to reach and think about what they are thinking about. This brings up a VERY IMPORTANT requirement. The requirement is that you have to know WHO it is you are reaching out to. In other words, you have to be able to define that person. And when you can define that person you can better understand them and their needs and wants. Are you with me so far?

Great! The next step is to narrow down the scope of your effort. What I mean is that if you try to address what I call a subgroup like first time home buyers that is still too broad of a group. It is not what we like to call a niche group. With a subgroup, you will still find yourself usually using mass marketing techniques which means you can’t address people by name for example. This may sound extreme but this is the point. Question: would you more likely respond to a postcard that started Dear Friend, or Dear Neighbor? Or you are more likely to respond to a personally signed letter that was sent to you in a plain vanilla envelope with your name and address handwritten on the outside?

1. I think we’re making progress here. The next thing to consider is that you can actually get real names and addresses and usually for free! However, do you want to and are you equipped to handle a large batch of letters where the name and address are handwritten and the letter is hand signed? Usually, the answer is no. However, can you send out a few dozen of these hand-signed gems? I hope the answer is yes (or maybe you’re in the wrong business!). There are two points here. The first being that more people are more inclined to open a letter that is hand signed in an envelope that is hand addressed than they are a postcard. The second being that if you are going to do this correctly you need to have a single purpose in mind and articulate a single message to someone who is predetermined to be interested in what you have to say. So far so good?

Good here is an example of what I am talking about. I am a Real Estate Investor as well as a Real Estate Broker. In fact, I got my Real Estate License because most agents were not properly trained to work with me as an investor. That’s another story for another time actually, look for a special report titled “Seven Reasons Why Real Estate Agents Should Work With Real Estate Investors”. It will be a real eye opener for you if catering To An Increasingly International Real Estate Investor Base- Rebranded https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2018/01/24/catering-to-an-increasingly-international-real-estate-investor-base/#5f7112c0407f 27-Jan-18 https://www.myinvestmentservices.com/catering-to-an-increasingly-international-real-estate-investor-base-rebranded/ur are a Real Estate Agent. Back to the subject though. As an investor, I prefer to acquire rental properties. In fact, I prefer large residential buildings. I buy them and I sell them. Just like the boat, every piece of real estate, especially investment properties, is for sale. As such, if someone were to write a letter to me, addressed to me personally on the envelope and upon opening the letter the salutation was to me personally and in my first name, this particular letter would get my attention. Furthermore, it would pique my interest if it mentioned one if my properties by address in the first sentence. Are you picking up what I’m laying down?

Awesome, because there is one more key point here. That is that you should write the letter as if you are speaking to one person directly because you are! This is another critical factor and one that most marketers are either unaware of or ignore or forget.

I sincerely hope this discussion helps you in your efforts. It certainly has been a huge factor in my success. If you would like to get a bigger picture of how I went from being just an investor to being an investor and a Real Estate Broker making a lot more money please feel free to order your free copy of a case study I did on the subject just visit: https://www.myinvestmentservices.com/gift/ and in just a few clicks you’ll get the case study.

Take care and God Bless!

Gary Wilson

My Investment Services

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