Some Tips On Cheap Website Design

Cheap Website Design For Real Estate Websites

Let me start buy saying that when I say ‘cheap’ website design I don’t mean shabby, shoddy, or anything along those lines.

By cheap website design I mean inexpensive, cost effective, affordable.

The inexpensive website design service I wanted to share with you today is called Weebly.

I’ve been using this for quite some time on many of my websites.

=> Click here to learn more about Weebly website design

How To Use Cheap Website Design From Weebly

There are three things that I personally use cheap website design from Weebly for.

Short-Term Listing

Often times you’ll have a single property or listing that becomes available every now and then.

It may not be worth the time and effort to purchase a specific domain name, hosting service, and design a destination website for that listing.

Examples of this are be single-family homes, apartments that are rarely vacant, or single-tenant properties that are only vacant every now and then.

You can design a cheap website using Weebly without having to purchase a domain name or a dedicated website hosting service.

Weebly allows for cheap website design by letting you create a subdomain within your Weebly account.

An example of a subdomain is ‘HouseForRent.Weebly.com.

Concept Or Product Testing

Maybe you’ve got a new property that you want to try some test marketing on or a new marketing idea that you want to try out, but you’re not ready to spend the time and effort designing a full-blow WordPress website until you know the idea is going to work.


Weebly makes this type of cheap website design very easy.

You can use a domain name that you’ve purchased, or use the subdomain technique.

Weebly has A LOT of pre-made website templates to choose from, all with drag-and-drop design, targeted toward specific businesses and industries plus many for generic use as well.

You can design several cheap websites, each with a variation of your idea, do some market testing, and decide whether or not it’s worth the effort to go full scale.

Landing Or Sales Page

You may have an ebook that you’re selling, or want a landing page for your visitors to register for a program, sign up for a seminar, and more.

Cheap website design from Weebly is great here as well.

Within a few minutes you can have your landing page up and running, customized to your product plan, and simply direct visitors to this site from your online or off line advertising or your main website.

What Cheap Website Design From Weebly Offers

Weely is a great cheap website design resource for a lot of different uses.

Here are some of the things that you can do with Weebly:

• Free website hosting
• Drag-and-drop website design
• Use your own photos or graphics
• Import your own HTML
• Incorporate AWeber email marketing
• Integrate Google Analytics
• Have multiple pages and drop-down menus
• Utilize a contact form
• Embed videos
• Create a blog
• Free and paid versions

I’m probably leaving a few things out, but you get the gist of what Weebly offers from this list.

By the way, don’t let the ‘paid version’ of Weebly scare you off.

I personally use this version and it’s still way less expensive than hosting your own website, especially for the uses we covered.

=> Click here to learn more about Internet marketing

Drawbacks To Using Cheap Website Design From Weebly

Using Weebly for cheap website design is great for product testing, simple one-page sites and landing pages, and for the occasional listing.

Weebly does not offer the diverse array of plugins that WordPress does or allow as much customization of the theme.

It’s also more difficult to optimize your SEO using a cheap website design with Weebly.

Search engine optimization with WordPress is much easier, provided you do several things right.

The takeaway is – unless all you have are one-time listings - once you’ve done your product testing or need a full-blow website for your real estate business that you can fully optimize, WordPress is going to be the better option.

As with all of my other articles, I hope you've found this post on cheap website design useful for your business!

Jeffrey Roark
Basic Property Management Blog

Is Multi Family Investing A Smart Thing To Do?

Investing In Multi Family And Apartments

Multi family and apartments have always been attractive real estate investments.

One way that you can tell this is that multi family and apartments have always had very low CAP rates, relative to office and retail real estate investments, for example.

Multi family and apartments are also a ‘step up’ for the beginning residential investor who might start with one or two single family homes, is successful with those, and is ready to move up to a larger residential income producing investment.

Why Invest In Multi Family And Apartments

As the saying goes . . .

People always need a place to live

. . . and that’s what makes investing in any residential income investment financially attractive.

Other reasons to invest in multi family and apartments include:

Ease of Management

The individual units of multi family and apartment properties are not geographically spread out as are single family homes.

Also, if the number of multi family or apartment units you have is large enough you may be able to justify the expense of an on site manager.

Economies of Scale

If you’re replacing the roof on a house, you’ve replaced it for just that one house. When you’re doing a roof repair on multi family or apartments you’re taking care of multiple units.

Easier to Sell

You’ve got multiple selling exit strategies when investing in multi family and apartments.

You can sell to a beginning single family home investor ready to move up.

You can sell to another investor who already owns multi family and apartments.

Or you can ‘go condo’ and sell the individual units to owner-occupants or beginning single family investors.

The Risk Of Investing In Multi Family And Apartments

This graph caught my eye the other day.

Shadow housing inventory is property that COULD come on the market for sale and eventual rental. The reason this product is not on the market is that the banks are sitting on it, for now.

So far the banks have been able to manage the gradual flow of short sale and foreclosure property coming to market.

When this REO-type of property comes to the market, for the most part it’s real estate investors that snapping the product up, rehabbing of needed, and turning the investment into residential rental property.

As an investor in multi family or apartments you’ve got to consider the very real risk that at some point the lenders will increase the flow of foreclosures – or maybe lost control of the flow altogether.

At which point there will be a lot of single family home property that was formerly owner-occupied now coming onto the market as rental property.

Many smart real estate investors don’t think this will happen.

But then, very few real estate investors envisioned the crash of the real estate market that we’re now muddling through.

Think Outside The Box

When analyzing what type of investment real estate is right for you it’s important to think outside of the box and consider the competitive threats to your real estate investment from as many angles as possible.

In The Basic Property Management eBook there’s a lot of time spent on teaching you the proven, real world techniques that the professionals use to minimize the risk and maximize the return of your real estate investment.

Click here to learn more about The Basic Property Management eBook

More About Multi Family And Apartments

As always, I hope you've found this investment property management training article on multi family and apartment investing useful!

Jeffrey Roark
Basic Property Management Blog

Some Rental Tips For Tenants

A Few Rental Tips For New Tenants

You’ve probably noticed that rental tips for tenants are tough to find.

That’s because most property management training articles are focused on landlords and property managers, not on giving rental tips to tenants.

Today we’re going to turn the tables a little bit and review a few rental tips for tenants that will give you an idea of how a landlord thinks when he or she is trying to rent their house.

These rental tips are based on my personal experience renting houses, condos, and apartments to a lot of different tenants. They’re based on fact, not fiction.

Know Why You Are Calling

Rental tip #1 is be prepared and keep a list.

One thing that landlords look for is if the prospective tenants knows what they’re calling about. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten calls from a tenant who saw my ad on the internet, but because they called so many different places, they had no idea where my rental house was.

See, if the landlord has to play guessing games, you’re not coming across as somebody who is serious about renting a house – even if you are.

Be Up Front

Your second rental tip is to be up front about any credit issues you might have.

The fact is that in today’s market very few people have perfect credit. There have been a ton of foreclosures, short sales, job losses, credit card debt increases, and much more.

Often times it’s not your fault that there’s a credit issue.

Rental tips that we give landlords are to first, see if a tenant has the provable income to meet your rental requirements. Then, consider any credit issues after that.

As long as the rent gets paid on time and the house is taken care of, most landlords will be pretty flexible.

It’s best if you’re up front with a landlord about any credit issues you might have. Doing this goes a long way to showing that you’re serious about renting and also saves both you and the landlord a lot of time if in fact they’re not willing to work with you.

Let’s face it, there is a lot of rental property out there, and if one landlord is unreasonable about something, you’ll very likely find another one that is willing to work with you.

Submit A Complete Application Package

Having a simple website set up for the house for rent is one of the top rental tips that we give landlords, owners and property managers.

Doing this makes it easy for you as a tenant to download the rental application, see what documents and information are required from you, and then put everything together in one neat package.

You might be surprised at how many prospective tenants DO NOT do this, even when the instructions are right there on the page.

This is always a big mistake.

See, in the eyes of the landlord, this is the first time they’re dealing with you. It’s kind of like a ‘first date’.

If somebody who wants to rent my house is sloppy in the application information they give me, or keep forgetting things, it makes me very nervous about how often they’ll pay the rent on time and how well they’ll take care of my house for rent.

More Rental Tips

As a tenant it’s a good idea if you can think like a landlord or owner – to get inside their head.

It puts you on more even ground when you’re trying to rent a house, and it’s always good to know how the other side thinks.

Our best selling 5 Step House Rental eBook is written for landlords and owners trying to rent a house.

Click here to learn more about The 5 Step House Rental eBook

We’ve discovered that more and more serious tenants are investing in the eBook also. They find that by understanding what a landlord is looking for, it helps them rent the house that they really want.

As always, I hope you've found this article on rental tips for tenants useful!

Jeffrey Roark
How To Rent My House

Real Estate Wealth Fast and The American Dream

How To Build Real Estate Wealth Fast To Achieve The American Dream

The stock market is no place to build any kind of real estate wealth fast. Look at the Wall Street super firms struggling for survival.

A lot of firms on Wall Street were founded on building real estate wealth fast. But no more, it’s all just smoke and mirrors today.

In Detroit, the automotive industry is on life support and hoping for mouth - to - mouth resuscitation from everybody’s favorite Uncle or Big Brother – depending on their perspective.

Elsewhere, from Main Street to some of the lesser - known boardrooms across this great land, Americans from all backgrounds and political persuasions have one thing in common: they’re all circling their collective wagons, convinced that life as we know it has either come to an end – or soon will. 

How To Build Your Real Estate Wealth Fast

So where do you fit in?

Are you going to join the crowd and act like a lemming?

Or are you willing to harness a once - in - a - lifetime opportunity and hitch your wagon to building your real estate wealth fast and grab your piece of the American Dream?

It’s really no secret that people everywhere are fearful for the future and have lost sight of building wealth through real estate.

They’ve watched their life’s savings evaporate in a few months time, seen some of the biggest financial giants in the world topple like dominoes, and in some cases have learned first?hand what it’s like to be handed a pink slip.

With all this bad news, one of the soundest pieces of advice known to man – building your real estate wealth fast - has been relegated to junk bond status by almost everyone.

As a result, most people have little hope for the future.

You have a chance to be different by choosing to build your real estate wealth fast.

Now is a very special opportunity for you to secure a future free from financial worry by investing in your real estate wealth building system. 

Learn The System To Build Real Estate Wealth Fast

When everyone else is cashing in their chips and going home, savvy investors are taking some initiative and buying all the real estate they can get their hands on while prices are low.

It’s the best way to build real estate wealth fast that you can think of.

It’s true that real estate prices have hit distressing lows and billions of dollars of equity has disappeared from the real estate market.

That’s all the more reason to buy real estate now – and to start building your real estate wealth fast today - before prices shoot back up.

Economics 101 tells us that the Law of Supply and Demand dictates that the best time to start building your real estate wealth fast is when nobody else wants it.

The fact is, right now nobody wants real estate.

That means demand is low.

Which means that prices are even better.

Nobody ever got rich overnight by buying an asset that is expensive and in demand.

The best time to start building your real estate wealth fast is now, while prices are low. There’s almost no competition and many of these wealth building real estate properties can be purchased for as little as 40 or 50 cents on the dollar. 

Why To Start Building Your Real Estate Wealth Fast Now

I know that the average person would rather shoot themselves in the foot than buy something that may or may not go up in value.

Before you take aim on your big toe, think about this:

Real estate generates cash flow and that’s the key to starting to build your real estate wealth fast.

During the Great Depression, millionaires were created when people with a little bit of money or credit bought as many low?priced investments as they could reasonably get their hands on, with the firm belief that times would eventually get much better.

They knew way back then that the time was ripe to start building their real estate wealth fast.

When that happened, they would become overnight millionaires or multimillionaires.

Conventional wisdom says that you run from danger whenever possible. 

Cash Flow Properties Build Real Estate Wealth Fast

But these aren’t conventional times.

Now is the time to scoop up as many bargain properties as you can.

You can guarantee a winning transaction by making sure you’ll have positive cash flow – the key ingredient in building your real estate wealth fast.

You’ll have the added bonus of monthly, on?going cash flow.

Ultimately, property values will skyrocket. When they do, your net worth will grow with meteoric speed and your real estate wealth will be built fast than you can believe. 

The Key To Building Your Real Estate Wealth Fast

You’ll become an almost overnight success story.

All because you had the nerve to defy the flawed logic of the rest of the crowd and start building your real estate wealth fast today.

Now is the time for you to harness your future. The wealthiest people in the world can’t all be wrong.

They’re buying as much real estate as they can.

That’s the key to building your real estate wealth fast.

Using Social Media In Property Management

Investment Property Management And Social Media

Since the humongous Facebook IPO is on its way I wanted to share a few tips on how to use social media for your investment property management.

Believe it or not there’s such a thing now as a ‘Social Media Manager’, who for a few thousand dollars A MONTH will teach you how to use social media.

=> Learn How To Market Property

Knowing how to use social media for your real estate and investment property management business is not that difficult.  You just have to keep a few things in mind.

Why Use Social Media For Real Estate

First, let’s step back and take a quick look at why you should use social media in the first place.

After all, if you’re part of the baby boom generation you probably didn’t grow up with Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and the internet, so sometimes it’s a bit of an intellectual struggle as to why use this social media stuff in the first place.

Several years ago, maybe a bit longer, it was very common to run newspaper display advertising or print classified advertising when you had space for rent.

Using the yellow pages was another must-do, and it was easy to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for a rather small display ad in your local yellow page directory.

Media Dinosaurs

It’s no secret that now days a lot of people do not read the paper, let alone watch the evening news.  There are a lot of reasons for this but we’ll save that discussion for another day.

The yellow page directory today, at best, is used for a door stop. 

I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell you the last time I actually used the yellow pages.  There is one in our office, somewhere in the lobby or maybe the copy room, I’m not exactly sure.

Today it’s all on the internet and that’s where people go to for information and a whole lot more.

That’s also reason numero uno why you should be on the internet too.

Using On Line Social Media

When we think about how to use social media for your real estate and investment property management business what we’re really talking about is having a PRO ACTIVE PRESENCE on the internet, some ‘face time’ if you will.

At a minimum you should have accounts with these social media outlets:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Digg
4. On Line Article Directories like Blogger, Gather and Ezine*

* I used to use Ezine, but these guys have gotten to be such a pain in the you know what that they’re really not worth the hassle any more.

With these above social media outlet suggestions I assume you’ve already got a website set up.

=> Learn How To Use Social Media On Your Website

Details On How To Use Social Media

With Facebook you can quickly and easily set up a profile for your self and your businesses.

Facebook is pretty much do-it-yourself, but if it seems like too much trouble then hire somebody to do it for you – You can probably find a friend’s kid or younger employee of yours who’ll do it for free.

A Twitter account is simple to set up also.  You can even have your Facebook account send ‘tweets’ to your Twitter account.

Unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands you don’t necessarily have to send any messages out on your Twitter account.  Simply let Facebook do it for you.

Digg, Blogger and Gather are great websites for posting short, original content articles that contain ‘backlinks’ to your main Website and your Facebook account.

In short, what Backlinks do is demonstrate to the search engines, like Google and Bing, that your on line presence has some credibility.

More On How To Use Social Media

You could go on, and on, and on about how to use social media for your real estate and investment property management business, Facebook Twitter, Google, Bing, search engines, backlinks and much more.

With this article on how to use social media I hope you’ve gotten an idea of some of the quick and easy things you can do to start building and expanding your on line presence.

As always, I hope you’ve found this article on how to use social media in your real estate business useful!
Jeffrey Roark
Basic Property Management Blog 

How To Rent A House In One Day

Here’s How To Rent A House In One Day Or Less

I figured out a way to rent my house in one day and I didn’t even use a real estate agent, the multiple listing services, or any of that other time wasting stuff.

My house for rent was priced at a market rent and I found good tenants to rent my house.

You probably know that a lot of time and money is wasted trying to rent a house.

Last week I was able to rent my house in only one day – actually less than 24 hours – by following a few simple steps and using free or inexpensive marketing techniques.

=> Get More Tips On How To Rent A House Using Social Media

Simple Steps To Rent Your House

Here are the items you’ll need to rent your house fast:

1. Sign
2. On Line Advertising
3. Website
4. Phone number for prospects to call

Total cost for the above, assuming you already have a phone number - $25.

Think about it.

If your house rents for $900 a month, that’s $30 per day in rental income.

Each day that your house is vacant, off of the market, not rented, you’re losing $30 each and every day.

So last week when I rented my house in less than one day, I spent less money - $25 – than a single day’s worth of rental income.

I didn’t have to run expensive newspaper ads, I didn’t have to pay a real estate agent to put up a sign and pay them a juicy commission just to have them sit around and wait for the phone to ring.

I didn’t have to listen to their excuses about why my house wasn’t getting rented.

I did it my self and saved a ton of money, and so can you.

Learn How To Rent A House Fast

Here’s the rundown on the steps I used to rent my house in less than one day:

Sign

This was the most expensive part of getting my house rented. The nice thing is that I can use the sign again, next time I have to rent my house.

There are plenty of inexpensive, on line websites where you can design your sign and have it printed and shipped to you ASAP.

You don’t have to be a graphic artist or designer because these sign design websites have easy-to-use templates.

As long as you can spell, you can design your sign in less than a few minutes.

When you design your sign, be sure to put your phone number on the sign (I know what you’re thinking but you’d be surprised at how many people forget this step) and make sure to put your website address on the sign.

On Line Advertising

There is one free – or depending on what market you’re in, inexpensive – on line advertising source that will work for you each and every time.

It’s simple to post an on line ad.

Don’t try to write a novel about your house for rent with your on line advertising.

Simply include some basic information about your house for rent, what the rent is, one picture of the house, where it’s located, and a link to the free website that you’ve set up for your rental home.

Also, be sure to include your name and phone number.

DO NOT include an email address. You want prospects to call you, not write you.

Website

Set up a simple, free website.

On your house rental website include a little more detail about your house for rent, but again, do not write a novel. You want prospective renters to call you for more information.

Include a few more photos, an on line flyer if you have one and a rental application if you have one.

=> Learn More About Using Internet Marketing To Rent Your House

Make sure your website has your phone number that prospective renters can call to schedule an appointment to see your house.

More Tips On How To Rent A House

That’s it. You can actually do all of the above – design and order your sign, write a short on line ad, and design a simple real estate website for your rental house in less than one hour.

Sure, it might take a bit longer the first time around, but think of all the money you’ll be saving by not having a real estate agent wasting your time and by getting your house rented fast.

In the 5 Step House Rental eBook we give you the details on where to go for easy on line sign design, free and inexpensive on line advertising, and teach you quick and easy ways to set up a website.

Click here to learn more about the 5 Step House Rental eBook

I hope you've enjoyed this article about how to rent a house in less than one day without using a real estate agent!

Jeffrey Roark
How To Rent My House Real Estate Training

Tips On How To Market Property

A Few Tips On How To Market Property

Good ideas on how to market property are becoming more and more important as the competition for good tenants increases.

In the good old days you could put up a sign and wait for the phone calls to come in so tips on how to market property weren’t all the important.

You’ve probably noticed that the ‘good old days’ are just that.

I read the other day that compared to a couple of months ago, both retail and office vacancies are on the increase, apartment vacancies are on a slight decrease, and that more and more people in their 20s and 30s and moving back in with their parents.

This has enormous implications on how to market property and is a leading indicator of how much competition there is – and will be – for good quality, paying tenants. 

How To Market Property – The Basic Steps

There are only a few basic items that you need to effectively market your property:

1. Sign
2. On Line Advertising
3. Website

Total cost for the above, excluding a phone number to call, is about $30. That’s the cost of the sign.

These property marketing items are the same whether you have one unit or space available for rent or sale, or multiple units.

It doesn’t matter. Think of these items as the building blocks of your property marketing campaign. 

Learn How To Market Property

Here’s a quick breakdown of each item, what to do, and what to include and - just as importantly – what Not to include.

Sign

At about $30 before shipping this is the most expensive part of the three how to market property steps.

Buying a sign is something of a one-time investment because the odds are you’ll be able to use it over and over again.

There are plenty of inexpensive, on line websites where you can design your sign and have it printed and shipped to you ASAP.

You don’t have to be a graphic artist or designer because these sign design websites have easy-to-use templates so you can design your sign in just a few minutes.

Think of your sign as an outdoor billboard. The simpler the better, and the more eye catching the better.

Remember that people seeing your sign are probably not standing still so keep your message short and sweet.

When you design your sign, be sure to put your phone number on the sign (I know what you’re thinking but you’d be surprised at how many people forget this step) and make sure to put your website address on the sign.

On Line Advertising

There are a few free – or depending on what market you’re in, inexpensive – on line advertising sources that will work for you each and every time.

It’s simple to post an on line ad.

Don’t try to write a novel about your property with your on line advertising.

Simply include some basic information about your space for lease or sale, what the price is, one picture of the property, where it’s located, and a link to the free website that you’ve set up.

Also, be sure to include your name and phone number.

DO NOT include an email address. You want prospects to call you, not write you.

Website

Step #3 of how to market property is to set up a simple, free website.

On your real estate website include a little more detail about your property, but again, do not write a novel. You want prospects to call you for more information.

Include a few more photos, an on line flyer if you have one and a rental application if you have one.

Make sure your website has your phone number that prospects can call to schedule an appointment for a showing or tour. 

More Tips On How To Market Property

That’s it. Pretty simple, yet I’m still surprised at how many owners, landlords, agents and property managers don’t take the time to do these few simple things.

You can actually do all of the above – design and order your sign, write a short on line ad, and design a simple real estate website for your property in less than one hour.

Even if you’ve never designed a sign or built a website before.

I hope you've enjoyed this article about how to market property.

Jeffrey Roark
Basic Property Management Blog