commercial real estate

I have a client that posts his commercial properties twice a day to craiglist to ensure they remain that the top of the list.

This is against the terms of service (TOS).

That said, I believe it is ok to cancel and repost listings every 48 hours.

I find with craigslist that being at the top of the list makes a huge difference. Calls definitely trail off after about 24 hours. Do what you can within the craigslist TOS to maintain a high position.

In the spirit of the “Four Hour Work Week” philosophy, once you’re up and running, pay someone else to maintain your posts. It is low yield kind of work.

I list my warehouse for sale in craigslist. I get my share of wackos, but also some great leads. Consider using it.

I’ve started to teach myself search engine optimization, which I’ve quickly learned is clearly the clearly the key to generating commercial real estate leads from the web. I imagine not many brokers think about this so while I’m a neophyte, I hope I can get a little better doing this than anyone else in my niche field.

It seems random, but I’m working to get an site called http://iceclothing.net to the top of the ranks for the search phrase “ice clothing.” Don’t ask…

1. Don’t return calls within 24 hours. People love knowing you’re a low priority.

2. Don’t ask for business. People are going to go out of their way and offer it to you, aren’t they? You’re nice!

3. Golf a lot. Rationalize it by convincing yourself you’re cementing a client relationship.

4. Check your email and blackberry constantly and reply to emails at all hours. It’s a great way to lose focus…it’s amazing how the days slide away and you realize you haven’t actually done any selling!

5. Convince yourself that you’re not a salesperson but a some sort of glorified consultant. Inflate your ego accordingly.

6. Take your clients for granted and don’t thank them for the business.

7. Don’t service listings. Put up a sign, put the building on the internet services like costar and loopnet, and forget about it. Hope the phone will ring. Don’t be proactive about marketing.

8. List everything in sight at whatever crazy sale price or asking rental rate your client wants. Running on the hampster wheel is fun!

9. Try to do residential and commercial real estate at the same time. Hanging onto that residential security blanket sure feels good.

10. Spend most of your time working with investor-buyers. Generate lots and lots of offers without any control over product.

My overseas telemarketer is averaging 1 to 2 leads a day. These are decent leads - out of 6 total there were two prospects that indicated an immediate need to lease about 10,000 sf of warehouse space each.

A commission on a 10,000 square foot warehouse lease might conservatively be $10,000. Generate 12 of these leads — I’m imagining some will be bigger and some will be smaller) and the gross result is $120,000 less my split with the house. I’ll give 1/2 the commission away to another broker and let them do the bulk of the work and make $60,000 gross. Split with the house (figure I make 65%) and that’s $39,000. The cost of the campaign (which the company may pay all or 1/2 of) for a year is $10,000 for the dialing and $7300 for the lists. So a profit of about $22,000 for little to no work. I can only hope things work this well. If so I could see myself hiring a whole room of telemarketers and expanding the operation.

my indian telemarketers have generated 4 leads over two days of calling. One deal could pay for an entire year of their efforts! Go go go!

As a result of extensively marketing a car wash in Maryland, two other car wash owners have tracked me down and asked me to market their own car wash…leaving me the possibility of handling six car washes for three different owners…an unusual prospect for me, primarily a warehouse broker. Running these takes some effort, so it is often a change in life circumstances, eg a move, health issues, etc that leads to a sale.

doing a test run with an indian telemarketing firm to identify users of search for space to lease or buy.

I wrote the script and provided the list (from dun and bradstreet, or rather d&b). The price?

1000 names and numbers from d&b at 14 cents each: $140

40 hours of telemarketing time at $4.95 per hour (firm projects they will be able to call and speak to or voice mail all prospects in this time frame) $198

For a grand total of $338.

they are appointment setting calls (i.e. ‘would you like to hear from an agent about space opportunities…)

should be interesting…even one lead — one that i could refer to another agent for a 25% referral fee — would pay for the effort (or rather lack of effort) many times over….

I’ll keep you posted.

The popular wisdom is that social networking sites are going to be great business generators for brokers in the future. I’d like to hear if anyone is actually finding any business this way.

Linkedin is a popular one with the older crowd.

I acknowledge I’m a cynic, but it strikes me that these sites are like high school all over again. How many friends are in your clique?

Tell me about your experiences positive or otherwise on these sites.

Are you old? Are you out of depreciation? do you feel like you’re stuck on the real estate roller coaster but can’t get off because of the tax consequences? Talk to your financial advisor about a charitable remainder trust. I don’t give this kind of advice, but here’s how it works:

-Put your building in a trust

-Trust sells the building, gets the cash

-You get a tax deduction

-Trust pays you income as long as you live…you can set the income within limits

-You die, charity gets the cash in the trust

Kids worried about disinheriting the kids? Buy them a life insurance policy!