While purchasing a home is an exciting milestone, it’s also a major investment requiring relevant, accurate and comprehensive information. REALTOR.com, the nation’s most comprehensive real estate network, today announces it has begun updating property listings every 15 minutes, more often than any other real estate search website.
By increasing MLS listing updates from once-a-day to every 15 minutes in participating metro areas, REALTOR.com now offers house hunters up-to-the minute comprehensive data on new listings, price changes and important property details to help them make better decisions on prospective homes.
“Nothing’s more frustrating than going online to research properties and finding you’re basing a decision on old or out-of-date information,” says REALTOR.com President Errol Samuelson. “With 15-minute MLS updates, consumers now have access to comprehensive information on listings in as close to real time as possible. This means a seller’s home will be visible to potential buyers faster and buyers will be able to find new homes or price reductions faster.”
Realtor.com is the official website of the National Association of Realtors.
Florida based eNeighborhoods announced free monthly newsletter for real estate professionals. According to the press release, the newsletter will feature how-to articles, best practices and success stories from top real estate industry professionals and will help agents to:
Take control of prospecting and lead generation to develop an effective slaes pipeline
Learn best practices for effective prospecting and lead conversion
Organize lead generation into a system to prioritize and handle high volumes of leads
Recognize prospects with greater potential
Identify effective business strategies for local markets
BOCA RATON, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Continental Real Estate Group Inc., Hackensack, New Jersey, is the latest real estate company to post its real estate for sale listings on ByOwnerMLS.com, which features an online search engine loaded with virtually every “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) property.
Continental Real Estate is a licensed real estate brokerage in 11 northeastern states and operates several websites, including MultipleListingSystem.com. According to Derek Eisenberg, e-PRO, Continental will leverage this new outlet to extend its reach in the marketplace.
“Pursuing every possible avenue for connecting our clients with eligible homebuyers is just part of our service,” said Eisenberg. “We are always seeking new opportunities to promote the properties we list. Our clients are selling high quality homes and there are buyers out there looking for properties like these.”
Continental’s listings are already on a number of Internet websites. Unlike many real estate brokers across the country, Eisenberg does not fear the FSBO movement. Rather, he plans to capitalize on it, leveraging sites like ByOwnerMLS.com to get his listings in front of buyers nationwide.
Kushner Companies has agreed to sell part of its multi-family residential portfolio comprising over 17,500 apartments in five states. The announcement comes just eight weeks after the Florham Park-based real estate firm put its portfolio of residential units on the market in the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New York.
About The Company:
Kushner Companies is a diversified private real estate organization involved in the ownership, development, redevelopment and management of prime single and multifamily housing, commercial, retail, industrial and hotel properties throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, with executive offices in Manhattan, the company manages and grows its residential and commercial portfolios through its corporate offices and operating divisions. These include Westminster Management LLC, the residential management arm; Westminster Communities LLC, the construction division; Kushner Properties, the commercial leasing and management division; Westminster Hospitality, the hotel division; Westminster Capital Corp., which coordinates financing for the firm; and various acquisition and land development teams. The Company delivers in-house site selection, planning, development and acquisition, construction, financing, leasing, sales, marketing and property management.
If you are a Real Estate agent you know that a ringing phone in your office is a welcomed sign. You also know that “crushing” your competition is a day to day business. Even if you do not view it this way, the fact is that in real estate place #2 brings you a whooping 0% commissions.
Phones will ring if you know how to market your business, your listings and even yourself well. You may also learn how to deal with your competition. Unfortunately these things are no being taught in the school preparing you for the real estate examination.
Here is where the Real Estate Growth comes in! The website is dedicated to teach real estate agents about real estate marketing by offering a free course called “The Real Estate Insider”- a $197 value absolutely for free. The website also maintains a real estate marketing blog where you can find extra tips on real estate marketing.
It is getting easier to invest in Australian shopping malls and Norwegian office towers.
Financial-services firms are rolling out scores of foreign real-estate funds. In the past few weeks alone, Charles Schwab Corp. launched a global real-estate fund that is betting in part on strong rental growth in London office properties. WisdomTree Investments Inc. listed a new exchange-traded fund that tracks an index heavily weighted to Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.
Just this year, real-estate investment trusts were introduced in the U.K.
Several new closed-end funds, aimed at more-conservative investors, also have been launched, including Alpine Global Premier Properties Fund that began trading in April after raising $2 billion.
Investors have poured about $6 billion into foreign real-estate funds this year, substantially more than was invested in domestic property funds, according to Morningstar Inc. Those big inflows follow strong past returns for foreign real-estate-investment trusts, the main holdings of these funds, which rose nearly 31% a year in the three years ended April 30, according to Fidelity Investments. By comparison, U.S. REITs rose 22% in that period, while the S&P 500 was up 8.5%.
Choosing the location for your business may be crucial for your business success and growth. CNNMoney has great suggestions for business owners on choosing the right location:
1. Stay on the beaten path. The old cliché about “location, location, location” is one that you can’t afford to ignore. Rather than assume that you know your customers’ preferences, ask them where they would like to do business with you. When Jacqueline Williams noticed sales slowing at Sterling Realtors, her firm in Middletown, Conn., she surveyed her clients to find out how she could serve them better. It turned out that many considered her office inconvenient. She had set up shop near the Wesleyan University campus, where she had started out finding homes for professors. In her research off-campus clients said it would be easier to drop by her office if it was in the downtown business district. She ended up moving to a building in that area.
The result: Revenue picked up, not only because many potential clients noticed her shingle while driving by, but also thanks to an increase in client referrals. Recently, Williams renovated the space after buying out her partner’s share of both the 17-year-old company and the building. She re-opened her offices with a ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by the mayor.
2. Consider rush hour. If you do business in a densely populated area, choosing a location right off a major highway or near public transportation may have a big effect on your team’s productivity, says Matthew Adler, executive vice president of the Adler Group, a Miami-based commercial real estate firm. It is tough to schedule morning meetings if key employees are continually getting stuck in traffic. “You need to be in a place that your workforce can get to easily,” says Adler.
How best to figure out whether the location you’re considering fits the bill? Jason Weissman, principal in Boston Realty Advisors in Boston, suggests you pinpoint your office location on a map, then draw a circle around the spot to see just what communities in the area would be no more than an hour’s commute. Or, try MapQuest (mapquest.com), to see how long the estimated commute time is for a few likely nearby towns.
3. Follow the talent. Will your company need to hire employees with specialized skills or a high level of education? If so, setting up shop near an existing talent pool will make your job easier, says Weissman. For instance, if you anticipate that you will need to hire IT workers, picking an office near a university with a strong tech program will put you at an advantage in winning top employees. To locate metropolitan areas with large concentrations of whatever skills you need, try the Bureau of Labor Statistics site (www.bls.gov).
4. Keep your competitors close. Doing business down the street - or hallway - from your rivals may seem like a roadmap to bankruptcy, but it can be a smart choice. In New York City’s fashion industry, for instance, many accessories makers run showrooms in the same building, because it is more convenient for buyers from other cities to visit. “When customers come in from out of town, this makes it easy for them,” says David Levy, principal of Adams & Co. Real Estate in New York City. “They just spend the day going from office to office.” If you have a slightly different niche from other firms in your area, you will probably be able to pick up clients from each other. “Companies need to be close to their competitors,” says Chad Bemingham, a vice president with CBIZ-Gibraltar Real Estate Services in Chicago. Commercial realtors can tell you if there are such buildings in your area. Or, try trade publications for your industry or local business journals; they sometimes include real estate listings.
5. Know when to spring for pricey digs. Not every company needs to invest in Class A space. In some fields, starting up in the garage is a badge of honor. But if you work with big-name corporate clients who will visit you frequently - or you are selling your expertise in creating the right image - you can’t afford to scrimp on your office for long.
Just ask Peter Madden, president of AgileCat, who just moved his seven-year old Philadelphia branding and corporate identity-consulting firm to high-rent Center City. He left behind a smaller place in a less-desirable neighborhood. Although he is now paying six times more to do business from his new headquarters, he expects to be able to attract enough high-profile clients to make his investment pay off. “In this region, if you’re not in this part of town, you’re not looked at as a major player,” he says.
The key of course, is making sure you generate enough sales to pay the tab. Rule of thumb: Manufacturing companies should generally pay no more than 20 percent of gross sales for rent, according to Levy. Service businesses, which have lower overhead, can go up to 30 percent.
6. Push for flexibility. If the real estate market in your area is soft, your landlord may be willing to negotiate. Ask for both the right to cancel your lease with a specified amount of notice and the freedom to sub-lease the space.
July 31, 2007
Posted in Real Estate News 
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