10 Ways To Increase Your Real Estate Knowledge For 2015
When you stop learning, your real estate business will suffer. Regardless of how much you may think you know, there is always something to be gleaned that can improve your position. Consequently, those real estate agents, investors and CEOs that throw themselves into learning have the biggest advantage. So what savvy real estate knowledge building moves should every professional be considering as the year draws to an end? 1. Attending Real Estate Events Attending seminars, trade shows, expos, and conferences can be incredibly powerful for networking and learning from others. However, the learning doesn’t stop there. You can also find out what the competition is up to, and decipher whether it is working for them or not. 2. Mortgages While mortgages are fundamental to all real estate transactions, they are continuously one of the chief causes of deals falling apart. All real estate workers, executives, leaders, and independent professionals could benefit from learning more about them. This might mean taking the mortgage loan officers’ course, getting on the inside with a short gig in the mortgage business, or at least meeting with professionals. 3. Self-Directed IRAs The cost of setting up self-directed IRAs has become minimal. As they soar in popularity, more real estate pros will get requests from those planning to use them to buy and invest in property. If you don’t know how they work or where to refer prospects, you’ll be losing a serious amount of business from some very serious clients. Understanding how to direct an IRA may be all you need to gain an extra deal or two a year. 4. Real Estate Wholesaling Everyone in the industry could do with learning more about real estate wholesaling. Sadly, many Realtors, title companies, and other types of real estate investors lose out on a ton deals due to misconceptions about how it works. Wholesaling is also a great way to ride out th efluctuations of the market. It works anywhere, anytime. If you never want to be without income again, then get the real deal on wholesaling. 5. City Planning For those serious about investing in real estate, it pays to get to know a bit more about the planning process. Specific plans and budgets for development and putting bigger plans into action can all impact your business. Knowing what the city intends to do can give you an advantage over your competition. Perhaps a new school is going in near one of your properties. Values can shift based on the city plans. 6. Read YouTube is great, but there is still no substitute for reading. Reading is incredible for broadening the mind, deepening cultural experiences and expanding knowledge. Find some real books to read and plan to get through as many as you can over the next year. 7. Appraisals Much of what was said about mortgages applies to appraisals. It is bewildering just how few people working in the real estate industry really get what plays into the appraised value of a home and what doesn’t. Seriously; there are veteran ‘experts’ that appear to have no clue how to price a home, or what improvements are a complete waste of money. It’s dangerous. Get to know how appraisals work and you’ll find doing business far easier and more profitable. 8. Commit to Learning Something New Everyday Learn something new every day. As long as you are expanding your mind, it doesn’t even matter what you are learning. Subscribe to a blog, sign up for marketing news updates, or join an email course. Just make a conscious effort to learn about something you aren’t familiar with. 9. Get to Know Your NPS Score Your ‘Net Promoter’ Score essentially ranks how likely your past customers are to recommend you to others. This can be benchmarked against others, but is really used to evaluate how good of a job you are doing, specifically in relation to creating fans that will actively refer you. 10. What Your Social Media Fans Want Ask social media connections what they want more of, and not. Take their advice and listen to it. Be proactive and give your audience what it wants. Finally, recognize that you can’t afford just to find spare time for these real estate education activities throughout the year. Schedule your learning plan and begin putting it into action now.