Login | Join Our FREE VIP Investor Group

REALTY411Guide.com

Serving the Real Estate Industry Since 2007

real estate investing

3 Tips for Finding Balance Between Building Marketing Momentum and Minimizing Expenses Amidst a Recession

By

By Valeh Nazemoff

Lead economists predict a recession and therefore slower economic activity.

While this idea can bring flashbacks of 2008 and mounting worry for business owners, the best course of action is preparation.

Marketing in a downturn is something that many struggle with as they navigate expenses while still trying to drive revenue. The truth is that many small businesses neglect marketing momentum in an attempt to save money, but this is not the best business decision in the long run.

In reality, you must strike the balance between marketing momentum and budget during the financial downturn. Here are a few tips to implement.

ADVERTISEMENT

1.   Evaluate Your Resources

Both time and money are finite resources, and a recession can put a greater strain on them. Before you can master your time and budget effectively, you must nail down exactly what you have available.

We all live with an opportunity cap. There are limited hours per day, and the more time we spend on certain activities, the less we have for others. One resource you must assess is your time. Consider how much time you have for business activities, and the balance you need to strike between various activities.

Another consideration is the financial resources you have available. When the economy is strong and your revenue is predictable, you may be able to afford the same dollars for all marketing activities. Understandably, the economy can impact this. Based on how the recession will impact your industry and business, you may need to reduce the overall budget for marketing. Yet, what many don’t realize is that when you outsource marketing services, it can be 100% tax deductible for U.S. small businesses.

Additionally, some entrepreneurs and small business owners attempt to make up for this difference in budget with their time. They think that instead of paying someone to do the tasks, they can simply handle them alone. But remember time is also limited, and you must ensure it’s spent on high-level tasks that drive your business. Furthermore, you don’t want to sacrifice your lifestyle goals and end up struggling with burnout and chronic disease due to stress.

2.   Take Moment for Self-Discovery

Ultimately, automating, delegating and outsourcing can help you implement marketing momentum during a recession. But before you dive into splitting up responsibilities, take time for self-discovery.

Which activities are you good at? Which do you enjoy? On the other hand, what are some that you do not like or enjoy? This is what self-discovery is all about. The key is to examine all of the various parts of your business, including marketing, to lay out which activities you should do and which you should outsource either internally or externally.

We advise our clients to work through the self-discovery activity to help them understand the best strategy for owning vs automating vs delegating. Ultimately, you’ll break down tasks into the following categories:

  • I’m good at it and I like it.
  • I’m good at it, but I don’t like it.
  • I’m not good at it, but I like it.
  • I’m not good at it, and I don’t like it.

This breakdown will help you then determine how to best complete all of the different tasks for your marketing momentum. As you may imagine, the ones you love and are good at are best to own, while the others should be automated and/or delegated as necessary.

ADVERTISEMENT

3.   Own vs Automate vs Delegate

Automating and delegating are two powerful ways to reduce costs during a recession, especially in light of layoffs. After breaking down where the common marketing momentum activities fall in the self-discovery activity, it’s time to determine which to own, which to automate, and which to delegate. Evaluate each task and determine how you’ll best handle it.

If it does not impede your ability to handle other critical business tasks, then it makes sense to “own” the tasks that you are good at and enjoy. However, if taking those tasks will cause you to lose time on other important ones, or eat into your lifestyle goals, then you still may need to implement automation or delegation.

Next, consider internal delegation. Does your internal team already have the resources for you to delegate the activity? Again, consider the skillset of your existing team, but also the time cap that they all have. If they can reasonably take the task without overworking or sacrificing time on something else important, then it makes sense to delegate internally.

But if your team does not have the skillset or time to handle the tasks, consider external delegation. Hiring additional team members or retaining employees is far more expensive than working with a complete digital marketing team. When delegating externally, you won’t need to worry about the cost of benefits packages. Furthermore, an experienced external team can help you implement key automation (like online booking appointments, chatbots, automated email campaigns, funnels, etc.) to further streamline your marketing momentum.

Keep Your Marketing Momentum Going During a Recession

The looming recession should not signal a backtrack from marketing momentum. Skipping out on marketing will only hurt your revenue and stifle business growth in the long run. On the contrary, you need to implement cost-effective marketing momentum to drive revenue during challenging times. Automating and outsourcing can help you balance marketing momentum and budget, but it all begins with taking a closer look at your skillset, interests, and internal resources.

Valeh Nazemoff

Valeh Nazemoff is an accomplished speaker, bestselling author, coach, and the founder of Engage 2 Engage, a digital marketing services company. She is passionate about improving people’s lives through strategic planning, collaborative teamwork, automation, and delegation. She removes the frustration, overwhelm, burnout, and stress that entrepreneurs and small businesses face in figuring out the various marketing elements so the focus remains on growing and scaling. Her books, Energize Your Marketing Momentum (2023), Supercharge Workforce Communication (2019), The Dance of the Business Mind (2017), and The Four Intelligences of the Business Mind (2014) aim to help businesses create order from chaos. She has also been featured in many publications such as Inc., Entrepreneur, SUCCESS, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and more.

Learn live and in real-time with Realty411. Be sure to register for our next virtual and in-person events. For all the details, please visit Realty411Expo.com or our Eventbrite landing page, CLICK HERE.

Realty411’s VIRTUAL Investing Summit + NEW Property Portal

By

Attention Meetup Members, it’s time for another educational and exciting Realty411 Virtual Investing Summit. Our new Realty411 Virtual Investing Summit is uniting investors for an amazing day of information and motivation. We also have exciting news to share about the launch of our exclusive Property Portal for Realty411 and REI Wealth readers.

This exclusive technology will provide readers with off-market real estate properties from around the nation. Many of these houses are exclusive wholesale deals.

Find out more about our Property Portal on our Realty411 Virtual Investing Summit this Saturday, March 11th. In addition to launching this new technology, we will discuss important information on this INTERACTIVE online event.

Some of the topics that we will dive into include: Multifamily Investing, Scaling a Real Estate Business, Tips for Rehabbing, Financing Options, Off-Market Properties, plus more!

Register for our **NEW Virtual Investing Summit ** on SATURDAY, March 11th, 2023, from 9 AM to 3 PM PT (East coast: 12 PM to 6 PM ET).

Join us LIVE to chat directly with our educators and get all your questions answered on the spot. Every online event we produce is unique, be sure to reserve this day for REI learning at its best.

Realty411 will virtually unite some of the most successful, knowledgeable and savvy investors in the REI (Real Estate Investing) industry to help our readers make educated and informed decisions.

Or, visit the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MHudxzhHSXKSAq702UqxOA

Intelligent Package Rooms Close The Door On Traditional Locker Systems

By

By Ned Hill, Position Imaging

The historical volume of packages gets all the multi-family press. But volume isn’t the actual property owners’ problem. Instead, their big problem is figuring out how to manage a shift in package management preference; e.g., residents and managers find that existing locker systems are inadequate for package delivery and distribution. And for a good reason. People now request a staggering range of goods be delivered to their homes, from car parts and carpets to dining room tables and the dinner served on them. The shipping industry excels at accommodating in many areas, but it serves single-family, porch drop-offs better than multi-family deliveries.

How is a Locker System to Cope?

The problem is that lockers, by design, are too inefficient to keep up with today’s delivery needs, and—multi-family residents are unhappy about it. Lockers can neither expand to accept oversized deliveries nor shrink to more efficient space utilization. Instead, they force “spill-over” into insecure, unmanaged areas. Unpleasant heaps of bags, boxes, and stray styrofoam package peanuts overtake beautiful lobbies and common areas.

The new residential delivery state of affairs requires a dynamic, intelligent infrastructure. The type of package management system required to meet renters’ needs consistently favors intelligent package rooms that optimize the process. For example, unlike the lockers with fixed-sized storage compartments, intelligent package rooms provide shelving to accommodate packages of any size or shape, staging areas for substantial items such as furniture, and even cold storage areas for perishable food.

All packages—regardless of size or location—are tracked and monitored in an intelligent package room via advanced Computer Vision technology. This cutting-edge technology has the intelligence to associate every item with its specific owner. In addition, it will notify residents if they accidentally retrieve the wrong package and try to leave the area.

ADVERTISEMENT

Intelligent package rooms are designed to fit within existing or former locker spaces but with more functionality. Cameras and sensors monitor the placement and movement of every package to ensure security and chain of custody. Lights and laser pointers guide residents to their packages so they can quickly and accurately locate their items. As a result, any package can be placed in areas designed to accommodate them safely and efficiently.

With intelligent package rooms, food and dry cleaning deliveries can be accepted, virtually without oversight, via new “smart clip” technology. These smart clips are small devices attached to any loosely packaged object. When residents enter the intelligent package room to retrieve their items, they simply scan a QR code from their notification text or email. The smart clipped item flashes in the staging area for instant identification. The clips are embedded with an accelerometer that detects motion; if the item’s movement is not associated with the item’s owner (the proper QR code) or the clip is removed, a notification alarm will alert the person they have retrieved the wrong thing. In addition, smart clips also monitor the temperature to ensure perishable items stay fresh.

Adaptive Package Management

Package room technology will adapt to buyers’ preferences and property owners’ needs. This flexibility is possible because of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the technology supporting advanced Computer Vision. These technologies present massive processing efficiencies behind the scenes to optimize the package management process to benefit all multi-family stakeholders, such as property owners, managers, and tenants.

Masking the operational difficulty saves property management money while improving the property. Intelligent package rooms require little to no training, and the engagement is intuitive. Couriers delivering packages scan each item in the intelligent package room, just like they would at a single-family unit. Residents receive an instant text notification with a QR code to enter the room.

In addition, intelligent package rooms enable residents to retrieve belongings on their desired schedule. The room’s security features remove the need for any building personnel to be on call to assist residents. It’s a 24/7 convenience that keeps food cold and watches over packages until the owner retrieves them. However, if the wrong item is taken and the alert alarm is ignored, there is a digital breadcrumb trail of everything in the room. In the event of a missing item, building management can check the log files to ascertain precisely when the package was removed and by whom because all activity in the room is digitally recorded.

Intelligent Package Room Designs Replace Lockers and Add Revenue Opportunity

Unused storage areas or oversized closets make great candidates for intelligent package rooms. Many locations have converted existing space, especially in space-confined buildings in New York City. In NYC, real estate owners are retrofitting current areas into intelligent package rooms and generating additional revenue via increased rents for added convenience. In addition, architects are now including intelligent package rooms in their building designs. Building owners and managers now realize that providing their residents with an intelligent package management solution is an amenity they certainly can turn into a revenue source.

ADVERTISEMENT

Conclusion

Legacy locker-based systems can’t process today’s package volume coming into multi-family units. The plausible solution is AI and Computer Vision technologies; once at work only in high-end computing, now delivering a modern-day convenience for intelligent package management. When deployed as an intelligent package room, property owners provide a best-in-class experience with the following:

  •  Intelligent in-room tracking and notification with little, if any, supervision.
  • Smart clips that watch over perishable food items ensuring their freshness.

In addition, intelligent package rooms can be installed in only weeks, often within what used to be the locker system area. Today, many architects include intelligent package room designs into new multi-family building specifications as a competitive and convenient enhancement.

Ned Hill is the founder and CEO of Position Imaging (PI), a pioneer in the field of advanced tracking technologies. Under Ned’s strategic vision and guidance, PI has developed an industry-leading tracking solution, utilized computer vision and laser guidance to simplify item delivery, and created unique AI-based technologies. These combine to improve logistics efficiency and continuous visibility of items at any stage in the process. Ned has raised close to 20 million in funding, driven product development, and created a partner ecosystem of industry leaders in hardware (Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Intel), software (Microsoft, Salesforce), solutions (Zebra, Lozier), and service (Bell and Howell). Ned is the inventor or co-inventor of over 50 patents/patent applications and a speaker at industry conferences, including CES, Live Free, and Start, and at MIT.

Learn live and in real-time with Realty411. Be sure to register for our next virtual and in-person events. For all the details, please visit Realty411Expo.com or our Eventbrite landing page, CLICK HERE.

Advisors Mortgage Poised to Help Clients Benefit from Recent Federal Housing Authority (FHA) Announcement

By

Over 33% Reduction in FHA Annual Mortgage Insurance Premium Will Open the Door to Home Ownership for More Americans

Advisors Mortgage Group, based in Ocean Township, New Jersey, today comments on the recent announcement from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), that starting on March 20, 2023, it is reducing annual mortgage insurance premiums by 30 basis points on FHA-insured mortgages. The reduction will benefit approximately 850,000 borrowers over the next year, which will save these families an average of $800 annually.

ADVERTISEMENT

How does this translate into savings for a buyer looking to get an FHA-insured mortgage*? If an individual were to buy a home at a sales price of $400,000 and put 3.5% down, the mortgage would be $386,000. The current mortgage insurance premium (MIP) would be $271.89 per month. Once the 30 basis point reduction takes place, the MIP will be $175.93 per month. That is a savings of $1,151.52 per year. This change applies to new loans only starting on March 20, 2023.

This change comes on the heels of a few other recent updates by HUD to make home ownership a reality for more Americans. The FHA’s underwriting policies were changed to allow lenders to use positive rental history in evaluating applicants’ creditworthiness for an FHA-insured mortgage. This will make it easier for first-time home buyers to qualify for a mortgage. HUD also changed the way in which student loan debt is evaluated in FHA mortgage underwriting, which will enable more borrowers who are making payments on student loans to qualify for an FHA mortgage.

ADVERTISEMENT

Erika Whalen, Advisors’ underwriting manager, states, “These steps by HUD and the FHA are going to help many more people achieve the dream of owning a home. We at Advisors are excited to see these changes take place and that we now get to be a part of the American dream of home ownership for even more first-time home buyers.”

*The FHA’s annual MIP is a percentage of the outstanding loan balance. Advisors Mortgage Group is an FHA-approved lender and is not acting on behalf of or at the discretion of HUD/FHA or the federal government.

Learn live and in real-time with Realty411. Be sure to register for our next virtual and in-person events. For all the details, please visit Realty411Expo.com or our Eventbrite landing page, CLICK HERE.

San Francisco Home Prices Are Dropping — Could This Happen in L.A.?

By

By Stephanie Mojica

Homes are selling for less than the asking price in San Francisco, and some experts speculate that the same thing could happen in Southern California, per the Los Angeles Times.

The report stopped short of calling the San Francisco Bay Area a buyer’s market, but labeled it a buyer-friendly market.

Before the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, massive tech industry layoffs, and high mortgage interest rates, homes in the Bay Area sold for 113% of the asking price.

ADVERTISEMENT

As of December 2022, the sale-to-list ratio was 99.8% — the lowest it had been in nearly six years.

The usual figure is 105% in Los Angeles, but that has dipped to 98.5% for the first time in over four years.

Experts interviewed by the Los Angeles Times believe that this trend will continue in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The stock benefits that tech employees often use for down payments have significantly less value now. Also, the increased trend of remote work is leading people in multiple industries to seek cheaper housing options in cities such as San Diego, Sacramento, and Phoenix.

ADVERTISEMENT

Learn live and in real-time with Realty411. Be sure to register for our next virtual and in-person events. For all the details, please visit Realty411Expo.com or our Eventbrite landing page, CLICK HERE.

Self-Storage Investment Guru and CEO AJ Osborne Discusses Real Estate Development Portfolios and Geographic Strategy

By

For many investors, the real estate development field is a fascinating and terrifying one. While those eager to make money may have studied the stock market for years and feel comfortable parking their wealth there for the long haul, real estate investments may feel like more of a risk.

But, they can feel confident with the right research, education, and a team with an uber-successful track record forging the path.

AJ Osborne, CEO of Cedar Creek Capital, sees one real estate development market segment that has steadily grown and remains stable despite recessions and a global pandemic: self-storage.

ADVERTISEMENT

And he should know, he’s been making a killing in the niche — which he calls truly hands-off and high cash flow — for 20 years.

“We’ve never lost a deal, but that does not mean there aren’t risks to look into and be aware of. We always make sure to look at things that we can’t control so we can do our best to mitigate risk on every deal,” said the investment expert, whose Boise-based company holds $300 million in assets in its real estate portfolio.

Low Risk, High Returns

Osborne keeps his standards for investing strict to protect investors and provide the clearest path for success possible. The Cedar Creek Capital CEO believes each investor is meaningful and a trusted partner in the deal, whether the contribution is $50,000 or reaching into the millions.

“We want our investors to know that the money they invest with us is being utilized to the maximum degree,” he said. “This is why our non-negotiable due diligence process is exhaustive. We want to be able to present the good, the bad, and the challenging to our investors upfront with a plan for how we will grow their wealth through these acquisitions.”

Having the wisdom to walk away and say ‘no’ and mitigating risk is just as important as finding the real cash cows, for Osborne.

“We’ve had to walk away from some potential investments that up front came across as a great deal, but after a deeper dive into our research process, we found that the deal either had too much risk or wasn’t going to provide the kind of returns we’re looking for,” he stated.

For Osborne, quality deals come down to much more than cap rates and tenant occupancy.

His due diligence includes studying long-term forecasts for the self-storage market, heavy research into any geographic location he’s considering investing in, and much more. He believes the long hours he puts into a deal before its signed has made his investments so low-risk.

Those looking to learn more about Osborne, the self-storage investment landscape, and opportunities with Cedar Creek Capital, can subscribe to his popular YouTube channel, presented in cooperation with the most listened-to industry-specific podcast, Self Storage Income. The entrepreneur’s book, Growing Wealth in Storage, is also Amazon’s bestseller among investors interested in the self-storage investing market.

ADVERTISEMENT

No Guesswork Geography

Location is one of the most important aspects of any deal to Osborne. In the past, he has avoided investing in towns that rely heavily on one industry or a single large employer. He knows that if that industry suffers, his deal will suffer too.

“If there’s only a few employers in town, you don’t want to own the self-storage facility there. For example, If I’m looking at self-storage in a logging town, and the mill is on of the only employers there, I already know that I don’t want to own that because when the market changes or the mill goes out of business, my asset is gone too since the locals will leave or not be able to afford storage. There’s too much risk,” he shared.

Across the Street from Amazon

More recently, he’s expanded his research and philosophy on geography to include researching where the nation’s big companies are opening new factories or other operations and putting more focus on those areas. He knows that these larger companies will have researched the area well and will hire a large influx of people that will relocate to the area, many needed storage spaces as they resettle into new lives and jobs.

But, in some ways, Osborne already seems attuned to the market. This worked out particularly well when he purchased a property a few years ago along a quiet stretch of Arizona highway, with plans to develop it in the future.

Cedar Creek Capital will begin breaking ground in early 2023 on the exciting new project, ahead of The Wall Street Journal’s recently released video discussing the upcoming boom in the area, calling it a “logistics hub” and revealing that one of the world’s biggest semiconductor and microchip manufacturers is moving there — as well as Amazon, Puma, and UPS.

“The development in Arizona is a great example of how our due diligence process pays off massively,” explained Osborne. “In that process, we came to the same conclusion about this area as those companies. We’ve already made a significant profit on that deal without even renting a single unit. After that video came out, land prices along that highway grew exponentially.”

Along with building wealth for himself, his company, and his investors, Osborne is also set on keeping his investors for the long term.

“We don’t roll out investors when we are buying an asset, we look at them as investors for life,” said Osborne. “This helps us ensure long-term equity and passive income for investors while returning their principal and profits in just three to six years.”

Please visit its website to learn more about Cedar Creek Capital’s many self-storage investment opportunities.

About AJ Osborne

AJ Osborne is the CEO of Cedar Creek Capital and has an impressive 20 years of experience as a Self Storage owner, operator, and developer. He is the founder and board member of the largest Self Storage Co-op, Storelocal, as well as Tenant Inc – a saas company supporting self storage facility management. AJ has also written the No. 1 bestselling book on Self Storage Investing and hosts the top rated and listened to self-storage podcast, Self Storage Income. Accredited investors can find more information here: https://www.cedarcreekwealth.com/

Learn live and in real-time with Realty411. Be sure to register for our next virtual and in-person events. For all the details, please visit Realty411Expo.com or our Eventbrite landing page, CLICK HERE.

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins