Family Evicted After Mother Killed by Gunman

Family Evicted After Mother Killed by Gunman

STEVEN K. PAULSON August 20, 2013 from Yahoo News


DENVER (AP) — Federal housing officials are condemning a decision by the Denver Housing Authority to evict the relatives of a mother killed by a rampaging gunman three days after her slaying, saying there is room for compassion in federal law.

Housing and Urban Development spokesman Jerry Brown said Tuesday his agency hopes Denver will reconsider after the victim's mother and autistic son were locked out of their subsidized housing. The personal property of 47-year-old Sandra Roskilly was also seized and turned over to a public administrator.

Brown said federal lease agreements for subsidized housing with communities limit the ability of residents to turn over property to other people, but the rules aren't carved in stone.

"Our rules and guidelines are just that, and we would hope people would use compassion. They have discretion, which is why the city has a board to administer it. There was no notification on our end of an eviction, and we didn't have a say in it," he said. Brown said his agency is reviewing the case to see what steps can be taken to help the family, including finding them another place to live.

The Denver Housing Authority said it was forced to evict 70-year-old Doris Kessler under federal law because Roskilly was the head of the household.

Police said 31-year-old Daniel Abeyta killed Roskilly and shot a second woman in her leg on Friday. Abeyta is hospitalized and facing a first-degree murder charge.

The Denver Housing Authority was apologetic about Monday's eviction and issued a statement to KMGH-TV saying they had no choice.

"Under federal policies and regulations, once the head of household is no longer with us, a live-in aide no longer has rights to that unit. We understand the family is under duress, but we will be locking the unit because they have no legal rights. We know this is a very tragic situation and offer our condolences," the agency said.

The Denver Housing Authority owns and manages subsidized public housing under an agreement with the federal government. Denver agency spokeswoman Stella Madrid said the property was turned over Monday to the public administrator, a private organization that determines disposition of assets when there is no will.

"We secured all property in the unit yesterday and we secured the unit," Madrid said Tuesday. She refused further comment.

Kessler is now sleeping on a couch at the home of one of her children. Roskilly's autistic 18-year-old son is being kept in a facility in Pueblo but friends say he often visited his mother.

Roskilly's brother, Dennis Campbell, says his mother and nephew were given the boot by the city after 20 years. Kessler had moved in a decade ago.

"She's been living here 10 years and now they're telling her she's just a visitor and she has no rights whatsoever," Campbell said.

Daniel Markin has been friends with Roskilly for 30 years. He said he still has a lot of questions, including how his friend wound up in a gunman's sights.

Markin said Abeyta was upset his neighbor's rose bushes were growing onto his property.


Resources for Section 8 Housing Rentals

Resources for Section 8 Housing Rentals

Elizabeth Whited, August 21, 2013 [email protected], 1-855-733-2289


Have you recently decided to rent to Section 8 applicants, or do you already have experience in government assisted housing programs? There are a few things to keep in mind when renting to Section 8 tenants, and great online resources to help make things easier.

GoSection8.com is a site dedicated to helping individual landlords find qualified Section 8 renters. With over 6 million page views monthly, this is the most popular resource for Section 8 landlords and tenants throughout the country. You can download their landlord guide, and compare prices of other rental properties in your area. There are also portions of the site dedicated to the applicants, and housing authorities.

Other websites are available that can help after or during a resident’s stay in your Section 8 rental property. These sites allow you to report damages, unauthorized guests, evictions, lease violations, and on-property crime. The key to renting to Section 8 Tenants is to perform due diligence, as the Housing Authority will not screen the applicants for landlords, only to see if they qualify for the program. It is good practice to run both credit and criminal checks on all applicants, in case you are concerned about renting to anyone with a criminal history (be sure to comply with all Fair Housing Laws and note Disparate Impact).

Another important resource in which to find checklists, paperwork, laws, and contact information to the housing authorities is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website - HUD.gov who manages all Section 8 Voucher Programs.

Staying up to date on all of the laws in your state and county will help in understanding discrimination laws. A new Oregon law which is set to take effect July 1, 2014 proposed by House Speaker Tina Kotek, will make it illegal to discriminate against renters who use any of the federal Section 8 voucher programs. This does not mean that landlords cannot turn down Section 8 applicants, but that the reason must reflect their financial/criminal past, and that no blanketed “No Section 8” policies will be tolerated (Oregon Live).

States like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Illinois have already made a renter’s source of income a protected class. However if a Section 8 tenant needs to be evicted, there is no protection from the H.U.D. to change the eviction process. Tenants must inform their local Housing Authority if for any reason they are unable to pay their part of the rent. Industry leaders note that:

“Section 8 is a little different than typical landlord/tenant relationships as the government approves tenants for the program, and the property must be inspected to ensure it qualifies to rent to a Section 8 tenant. The landlord makes {their} own lease agreement with the tenant so it should include a damages clause. If the tenant damages the unit in any way they should be put into a rental history database to share information to other landlords.”

If an eviction is executed, in almost every case, the Housing Authority will revoke the voucher from the tenant. Since the waiting list to get Housing Assistance vouchers can take years to get, it would be hard for the renters to hop to another government assisted apartment or house. Tenants do have the option to file for a grievance hearing if they have been evicted for any reason other than a criminal offense (tenantsunion.org).

These websites can help to give a clear picture of a potential tenant, whether or not they are utilizing Section 8 vouchers. They can offer additional resources that are there to help landlords rent to Section 8 applicants, while helping to protect their investment and follow all Fair Housing and Fair Credit  laws.

Photo Credit: Flickr


8 Reasons to Invest in Multifamily Apartments

8 Reasons to Invest in Multifamily Apartments

August 15, 2013 by  for Realty Biz News


If you’re like many individuals, financial freedom is high in your list of lifetime achievements. Owning an apartment building is a highly proven way to swiftly achieve this goal. The good news is that current economic conditions support making an apartment building investment your road to riches.

This article explains eight top reasons you want to make an apartment building your real estate investment of choice.

A Passive Investment

1. Typically, you buy multifamily apartment buildings with what is known as a “non-recourse loan”. This means the loan is only secured by the real estate investment and fully depends on the property income to repay the loan. Your personal credit is not at risk.

2. Apartment buildings are best managed by property management professionals. You collect the profits while others perform the day-to-day work.

3. Cash flow is the name of the game with any commercial real estate. Having 40 or 50 paying tenants under a single roof generates 40 or 50 times the cash flow compared to single-family houses. Apartments are specifically intended to be income-producing properties.

4. No need to panic when a single tenant moves out of your building. Unlike a single-family house, when you have multiple income streams from a single property, the loss of one tenant doesn’t mean you have to personally make the monthly mortgage payment.

5. Better use of your time or the time of your property management professional. It’s easy to see how much more efficient time management is when you maintain a single property for 40 or 50 families as compared to running around town maintaining 40 or 50 single-family houses.

A Real Estate Investment With Less Competition

6. Only a few investors know how to do it right. When it comes to a real estate investment, most people are afraid of owning multifamily properties. They lack both the required mindset and easy to acquire specialized knowledge. That fear means less competition.

7. The value of commercial real estate is based on the income it produces (not comparable values as with single-family homes). The opportunity here is buying a poorly managed property at a bargain price and turning it around to become a top income producing asset worth much more than the original purchase price.

8. Maximize your selling price by converting to condominiums. This is a highly profitable strategy used by few when it comes time to sell an apartment building. You earn more by asking top price from 50 condominium buyers than from a single apartment building buyer. Buying a multifamily apartment building is your ticket to wealth through low risk multiple income streams producing a great return for your investment. You will be hard pressed finding a better income generating real estate investment.

Photo credit: striatic via photopin cc


Setting Up Your Real Estate Investment Business Online

Setting Up Your Real Estate Investment Business Online

August 18, 2013 by  for Realty Biz News


A few of the many things your website should be doing for you include:

· Promoting your business to create credibility.

· Automate your ability to gather quality leads.

· Use an opt-in form to increase your contacts.

· Market your own properties.

· Attract more money partners to finance your deals.

· Advertise for renters and buyers.

Here are a few compelling facts to back up my strong words. When buyers begin looking for a home, 87% begin their search online. In comparison, only 47% look at newspaper real estate ads.

As a result of online searches, 77% drive by a home to look at it and 63% walk through a home after first viewing it online. If you’re not online, the vast majority of the traffic is passing you by.

Everyone is Online

With every investor and realtor online, the real question you should be asking yourself is how are you going to pull in highly targeted traffic? There are two important things you need to do to improve your results.

First, you need to search engine optimize (SEO) your site down to the locality that you serve. If you invest both locally and nationally, you should have two distinct websites attracting two different targeted groups of visitors.

For your locally targeted visitors, think about the search keywords that people are likely to be using. Are they searching by town names, counties, near by towns that you serve, even by specific neighborhoods? The majority are using search term like “home sellers in Reno NV” or “homes for sale in Reno NV”. What you need to do is make a list of the terms potential clients are searching by and either optimize your website for them or have a webmaster skilled in SEO do it. Localizing your SEO will dramatically improve your position in search engine results.

Now, do the same thing to attract national visitors but for a different website.

Getting Your Website Viewed

Next, you need to hand submit your domain URL to three major directories. You can submit it to Google at: http://www.google.com/addurl/. The other search engine you want to submit to is Bing at: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx. Once you submit to the search engines, they will come to your website regularly looking for new content to keep your site up to date in the search engines.

Another place to submit your URL is http://www.dmoz.org/docs/en/add.html or Open Directory project. This is a little more difficult. Most, if not all, of the major search engines use DMOZ to populate their own directories. Being listed at DMOZ essentially gets you listed in every other directory.

Here’s how to be listed locally on DMOZ.

Go to: http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/.

There you’ll find a list of the states, simply follow the link to yours. Next, you’ll find links to the counties, localities, metro areas, and regions in your state. I suggest you begin with counties but be sure to follow each one down to the category of “Real Estate”. Once you find the exact location, you want to be listed for, look for a link at the top of the page that says “Suggest URL”. You should post your investment business right along side the realtors because that is where most people look. However, each state has slightly different categories. Take a close look at all the categories under “Real Estate”. You may find other categories that are appropriate for you to post your link. If you want to attract qualified renters for instance, several states have a category for “Rentals”. Many also have the category “For Sale By Owner”.

For your national website presence, all you need to do is follow the original link provided above and stay at the United States level. On the page that lists all of the states, instead of selecting a state, simply scroll down to find the “Real Estate” category at the national level.

Congratulations, taking these actions will significantly improve your online real estate business.

Photo credit: SEOPlanter via photopin cc


As Many as 150 Rent Payments Stolen from Newport News Property Management Company

As Many as 150 Rent Payments Stolen from Newport News Property Management Company

BRyan Murphy August 13, 2013. View the original article from the Daily Press


As many as 150 rent checks were stolen from a drop slot at a Newport News property management company.

Allison Treadwell, an office manager with Franklin Management Company, said that early in the morning on June 5th and 6th, two people pulled rent checks and money orders out of a ground-level door slot.

“It was two individuals that came up to the door with a wire or some kind of flexible rod-type instrument. They angled it through the drop slot with some kind of sticky material on it and stuck it to the envelopes,” Treadwell said. They spent ten minutes crouched in front of the door on June 5th and 15 minutes on the 6th, resulting in as many as 150 stolen payments, according to Treadwell.

Franklin Management has verified that 70 of the payments were taken.

While processing monthly rent payments on the morning of the 6th, Franklin Management employees found that only about 50 percent of tenants had made payments for June, according to Treadwell. Payment rates are usually around 90 percent for the company, she said.

Realizing something was wrong, they immediately notified police and began reviewing security tapes, which revealed the two thieves pulling checks through the slot.

Treadwell says that in the five years she's worked in the office, she's never seen anything like the June thefts. Following the thefts, the company relocated the slot to higher on the door and narrowed the slot, to make it more difficult to pull checks out.

Newport News police are investigating similar thefts that occurred at five other apartment complexes in the city between May and June, said Holly McPherson, a police spokeswoman, in an email to the Daily Press.

Franklin Management Company handles 20 mobile home parks around the state, most in Hampton Roads -- including in Newport News, Hampton, Williamsburg, Gloucester, Suffolk , Chesapeake, Surry and Portsmouth.


2013 State Ratings on Human Trafficking Laws

Polaris Project's 2013 State Ratings on Human Trafficking Laws

View at polarisproject.org

Polaris Project has rated all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on 10 categories of laws that are critical to a basic legal framework that combats human trafficking, punishes traffickers and supports survivors.

  • 39 states passed new laws to fight human trafficking in the past year
  • As of July 31, 2013, 32 states are now rated in Tier 1 (7+ points), up from 21 states in 2012
  • New Jersey and Washington have perfect scores, meaning they have laws fulfilling all 10 categories
  • 4 states were most improved this year: Arkansas, Wyoming, Mississippi and New Jersey


Increase Your Income Property Bottom Line With RUBS

Increase Your Income Property Bottom Line With RUBS

Posted by MW Real Estate Group on Tuesday, August 06, 2013 in MultiFamily Insiders


From Los Angeles to New York, and Anchorage to Key West, properly allocated utility responsibility and cost is a very important subject in the apartment rental business. As utilities are supplied to a rental property, they are typically split-up, or “branch off” to connect to individual units from the main supply. Ideally, these splits could then accommodate individual meters and shutoff controls. Ideally, each user of the utility being provided would then pay their fair portion of use.

In most newer construction properties that is indeed the case. In older properties, however, master metering for the entire property is something owners must often contend with. When properties are master metered this results in higher expense ratios due to utility costs and hence lower net operating income. Sometimes it is possible to split up the electrical and gas meters, but often this proves impossible. As for water and sewer costs, separate metering is virtually unheard of and these costs are almost never charged to tenants.

For many years, this all-too-common predicament has left a major issue for the rental owner to sort out. The choices have been to either find a way to run new lines, meters, and equipment in the case of gas and electric metering, or take on the financial obligation of these as well as water and sewer costs in any event. In the case of commercial properties costs can be administered via lease language and CAM charges, but that is not available to multifamily properties. And even if this route is taken, a truly accurate gauge of use among multiple users and units is nearly impossible. This is how water service and responsibility allocation has been for many years – until RUBS.

RUBS, or Ratio Utility Billing Service, is a new and simple, yet fantastically reliable method of water metering and responsibility allocation. With RUBS, the property owner no longer has to deal with guess-work or financially catastrophic, repiping projects. In addition, each party along the line will receive the correct financial obligations and usage ownership.

How does it work? RUBS is actually nothing more than a highly intuitive mathematical process. In considering factors such as household size, number of people in each unit, bathroom count, fixture count, and other important factors, the formula is able to accurately identify and allocate usage statistics for each and every individual unit of the property.

RUBS is certainly a very welcome addition to the tools of the rental trade. It is also much appreciated by many renters, offering them the assurance that they are only responsible for their portion – and not by relying on an arbitrary number named by lease, or billing by some other means. Essentially, RUBS comes in and does what meters and repiping projects do – it accurately gauges use, and does so by employing zero, actual, physical components.

An example of RUBS at work could be as follows. The best company in property management Los Angeles has to offer is struggling with water billing for a client. The client just purchased a new, 100-unit property at premium and has to reduce operational costs to make ends meet. Despite there being only one water meter for the entire complex, the management company needs to have a setup in which each unit is billed separately and appropriately for their water consumption.

In times past, either a monumental project would need to be funded, or individual, accurate metering just wasn’t going to be an option. With RUBS, a simple phone call is all it takes for the company to get started. RUBS uses the infallibility of math in place of physical equipment and remodel projects.

From small rental properties to the biggest multifamily players, RUBS is an immeasurably helpful tool of the industry. If you are in the rental business and have experienced such a dilemma in utility allocation, check into RUBS or have your property management company check into it. For many, it has been an absolute game-changer.

Photo credit: Trulia


See You in a Month: Why Americans Need to Get Serious About Vacations

See You in a Month: Why Americans Need to Get Serious About Vacations

on Aug 12, 2013 - view the original article from TLNT


“See you in a month!”

I was told that by one of our executives as he stopped by HR to complete paperwork for his impending 30-day vacation. My thought was: what would it be like to take an entire month at one time for vacation?

I told him jokingly that I would not know what to do with myself if I had a WHOLE month off. He admonished me and told me that vacation is for rest and relaxation.

Another culture difference

His comment to me was that Americans have the wrong concept of vacation. “You guys take a week here, a few days there, a long weekend.” As he said this, I knew that he was telling the truth. As a matter of fact, he was talking about me.

I have never in my working life taken more than a week at one time. My wife and I would always joke, back when we would go to Europe every year, that we would always promise ourselves that next year we would stay for two weeks. The reason was that as soon as we were beginning to relax, it was time to prepare to go back home.

I have noticed that here in Saudi Arabia, every vacation request is basically for one month. However, the Americans that work here are still the same — they take just one week.

I did it myself when I took a week recently and went back to the States. I had one day travel home, five days of R&R, and another travel day returning (18 hours of flight). I felt like I needed another vacation after I arrived back in Saudi Arabia at midnight and drove home.

The end of day is end of day

When the workday ends, everybody leaves on time with the exception of us (the Americans). We tend to be the last to leave. When I arrive at my desk at 7 am (start time is 8:30), again, our cars are the only ones in the parking lot. My team members (about 20 people) basically come in very close to 8:30, and they leave on time (for the most part) at the end of the day.

Does productivity suffer? There is no discernible difference in productivity. Everybody works extremely hard but they are on top of their business. When lunch times rolls around, they all get up and go out to lunch. I have never seen anyone sit at their desk and eat lunch.

According to Expedia’s Vacation Deprivation Index, some cultures treat the concept of vacations totally different.

They do vacations differently outside the U.S.

Although I am stationed in the Middle East, I feel that the culture here looks at vacation through the eyes of the European. According to this study, Europeans treat vacation as a duty rather than a perk.

Most European workers have between 25 and 30 days of vacation time available to them each year, in addition to state and religious holidays. Workers in France and Spain report taking the full 30 vacation days off, as do their peers in Brazil. Germans take 28 of a possible 30 days off, while British, Norwegian and Swedish workers take all 25 days they’re given.

I asked one of our workers who had just come back from his home country (Turkey) what he did with all this time. His answers was simple: He spent it all with his family. Did you every check your email or call back to office while you were out? Never, he replied — I was on vacation. “I left my No. 2 in charge and he knew what to do. Outside of a huge disaster, he knew that he was not to call.”

I recalled a time when I was in Paris and the apartment that we rented did not have a strong Internet signal. So I woke early one morning, walked over to the Internet cafe, and logged into work to check and respond to email. When I arrived back home, my wife inquired where I was and I told her what I did. The look on her face told me that I was not supposed to do that again.

Would you feel comfortable being away?

There is really no such thing as rollover vacation days into the next year. Yes, it is on the books here that you can carry over five (5), but I checked and the only people that used that option were — you guessed it — the Americans.

Are we afraid of time or is it our jobs we are afraid of? Are our bosses that demanding that they make you feel that you have to stay in touch?

I have even heard it said that some people find vacations stressful. Yes, someone did tell me that. They felt that it was too much stress at work that caused them to toss and turn throughout that week that they were “off.” They could never relax.

Are we afraid of vacations, or time off?

When we do decide to take vacation time and go home, we’re excited and looking forward to relaxing and getting refreshed. On the other hand, we know that vacation could throw us off kilter because our routine has been disrupted.

In a lot of cases, we simply have not learned how to relax and just let go. We begin the worrying while going to the airport or driving to our destination. It seems our mind goes into warp speed conjuring up every possible stress or scenario. The stress levels for many start on the day we walk out of work and into the bliss of a “relaxed vacation.”

Then there are the technology tentacles, whether it is a smartphone, a tablet, text messaging or email, which makes it extremely hard to disengage completely. All this makes it hard to reach for the on-off switch, because it’s actually more like a dimmer.

“We have it covered”

One of the other differences that I have noticed in Saudi Arabia is that people aren’t tied to mobile technology. The company does not offer devices, and you know what? Everyone collaborates just fine.

During my recent week back in the States, I called back into work and spoke to my assistant. “How are things going, was there anything that I should know?

His answer said it all: “Ron, you are on vacation. Why are you calling here? Go back to vacation; we have it covered.”

As I hung up, I thought, yeah, I like this.

Photo credit: TLNT.com


Amber Alerts: How Successful Have they Been in Saving Abducted Kids?

Amber Alerts: How Successful Have they Been in Saving Abducted Kids?

Amber Alerts, which played a key role in the rescue of Hannah Anderson from her alleged abductor James Lee DiMaggio, have helped save more than 600 kidnapped children. New technology and social media have expanded this successful program.

By , Staff writer / August 11, 2013. View the original article here.


Drivers in San Diego pass a display showing an Amber Alert, asking motorists to be on the lookout for James Lee DiMaggio's vehicle. The alert helped authorities track and find DiMaggio and teenager Hannah Anderson. Gregory Bull/AP


When teenager Hannah Anderson went missing a week ago – thought to have been abducted by a family friend, an older man named James Lee DiMaggio – the first way many people in southern California knew about it was through an insistent, blaring text message on their cell phone.

To some, especially if they were driving at the time, it was an annoying interruption they scrambled to silence. But many others switched on their TVs to learn more details of the case, in fact becoming part of the search as they began keeping an eye out for Mr. DiMaggio’s blue Nissan Versa automobile, California license number 6WCU986.

Over the next several days, dozens of callers phoning in to the Amber Alert tip line – the system that had broadcast the message via television and flashing roadside signs as well as to thousands of smart phone owners – helped police focus the search on what looked to be a route up a rural two-lane highway through northern California and then Oregon into Idaho.

Amber Alert played one last key role in the drama Saturday evening when an FBI tactical team found DiMaggio and the girl camped in a rugged, heavily-forested wilderness area about 70 miles northeast of Boise, rescuing the girl and shooting and killing her alleged abductor in what law enforcement officials described as a “confrontation.”

Two days earlier, a man on horseback had seen the girl and the man with camping gear, chatting briefly with them but unaware of who they might be. When he got home and saw TV reports about what was being described as an abduction, he called the Amber Alert tip line, then provided officials with the location where the pair was found.

In the end, it was one of many such Amber Alert stories resulting in the successful recovery children who may have been traumatized by their abduction but at least were returned to their families.

The Amber Alert program was set up in 1996 following the abduction and murder of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas. “Amber” is also an acronym: “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.” (For this reason, it’s also written as “AMBER.”)

The program is described by the nonprofit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as “a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry, to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases.”

The program, which is coordinated by the US Department of Justice, is now active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Over the years, according to the Nation Center, Amber Alerts have resulted in 656 successful recoveries of children.

With advances in computer and communications technology, as well as in social media, new ways of disseminating Amber Alerts have evolved.

“ Radio and TV, lottery and highway signs, airports and truck stops, Yahoo, Facebook and AOL, are all part of the AMBER Alert system of getting information about a missing child to people in the very locality in which she was abducted or last seen,” according to the Justice Department.

Most recently, that has included Google.

“This innovative and exciting new partnership will provide real-time AMBER Alert updates to users of Google Map and Google Search features,” Justice Department official Mary Lou Leary said in announcing this step last November. “Because we know a child’s chances for a safe recovery are greater when resources are mobilized quickly, Google Public Alerts will help to ensure a rapid response in the first critical hours after a child goes missing.”

This year, Amber Alerts were added to the nationwide Wireless Emergency Alert program – which is why “Government Alerts” (including “AMBER Alerts” and “Government Alerts”) now appear in the “settings>notifications” of new Apple iPhones and other smart phones, where they can be manually switched on or off.

If the system knows where you are based on the GPS capability of your phone, it sends you Amber Alert messages for the area in which you’re located.

“This has already been successful,” writes National Center for Missing & Exploited Children CEO John Ryan on the organization’s website. “In February, an 8-month-old baby was abducted during a home invasion in Minneapolis. She was safely recovered when a young woman received the AMBER Alert on her phone, saw the car parked across the street and called police.”

On Sunday, an Amber Alert was issued in Rhode Island for a 2-year-old boy state police say was taken by the suspect in a double homicide.

An Amber Alert has been issued for Isaih Perez, who was discovered missing from a Johnston, R.I., home at 5:20 a.m. Sunday, according to the Associated Press. Authorities say they believe 22-year-old Malcolm Crowell of Providence has the boy. They say he should be considered armed and dangerous.


Pinterest: a Gold Mine for Finding Bachelorette Buyers?

Pinterest: a Gold Mine for Finding Bachelorette Buyers?


Teke Wiggin Staff Writer, July 31, 2013. Click here to see the original article from Inman News

Photo credit: The Rock

A recent study revealed that single women represent a much more fruitful source of leads than single men. They are buying homes at nearly twice the rate as single men, according to the 2012 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

The obvious takeaway is that agents are well-advised to seek out bachelorettes. But how?

Try surfacing your brand on Pinterest, argues AdWerx.

The real estate marketing consultancy won Inman News’ latest #madREskillz contest by tweeting a link to a blog post that it penned about how to leverage Pinterest to reach women.

Women are nearly four times as likely as men to use Pinterest, and those women tend to skew affluent, according to a 2012 study conducted by the Pew Research Center cited by AdWerx.

What’s more, the consultancy said, a study produced by Simply Measured revealed that Pinterest drives more traffic to websites than Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus or YouTube.

“As fast as images go viral on Pinterest, you could get images of  new listings out there in front of a LOT of women (buyers and sellers),” reads the AdWerx blog post. “You can create pin boards showcasing your listings and community, as well as pinboards boasting about your listing’s gourmet kitchen and incredible landscaping. Showcase your expertise in real estate with fun infographics and videos. Anything that shows you’re an expert in your field and understand your clients.”

Courtesy of AdWerx, here are three examples of templates that brokers and agents may use to hit the ground running. (A tip of the hat to Homes.com, which produced a Pinterest tutorial that AdWerx borrowed from for its recommendations.)

Listings

Pinterest pins with prices get 36 percent more likes than pins without them, according to a Shopify analysis.

Add the dollar sign and a number to automatically generate a price tag on a Pinterest image, and make it easier to find by infusing search-friendly metadata the image and adding both general and geotargeted hashtags, AdWerx said.

Team roster

Look no further than Lakeshore Realty’s “Meet Our Team” board to learn how to create a compelling roster page. AdWerx notes that the board’s pins prudently include keyword-heavy text and link back to the broker’s website.

Lifestyle content

“The number one category on Pinterest is ‘Home’ and the #1 most popular board name is ‘For The Home.’ That means there are plenty of opportunities for you to gain engagement by pinning fun lifestyle photos related to homes,” AdWerx writes. “Examples: Dream Homes, Home Decor (as you get savvy, you can create a board for each individual space in the house like kitchen, bathroom, kid’s bedroom and garden), Seasonal Boards (i.e., home staging for summer, fall, winter and spring).”

AdWerx pointed to Susan Parker, who has gained 3,500 followers on Pinterest by pinning lifestyle-related content, as one agent who has successfully executed on this approach.


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