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How 'free' can a 'free' market appraisal be?

Ok, for today's post, I would like to give you another example of a structured article. You post this in both your blog, your newspaper (be it advertorial or the new technique of persuading newspaper editors to put it in as pure editorial), newsletter and  social media streams.

Remember, you need to write the article in the four sections I have mentioned in other previous posts. If you don't have that four section structure, they wont have the impact and thus wont get the landlords walking through your door.

Here, in this article below, use of the Census is vital for the numbers. Also, the capital growth over the last 14 to 15 years gives real impact when comparing it against yields. Its all about the balance in the article to both answer the landlords questions, but also ask more questions that the potential landlord might not have thought of before they read the article. 

If you just said property values had gone up by 5% and left it at that, that wouldnt work. By comparing 4 bed price rises and then the same price rises on 3 bed semis, gives good ying and yang in the piece. Confirming 4 beds aren't a good investment is something most people (or landlords) would know, but how those 4 beds compared to say 3 bed semis and the overall towns average increase is again, something most landlords (let alone agents) wouldnt even consider.

If you follow those four stages, you cant go wrong. Step away from them and it will either backfire (like it did in West Sussex last year ... my oh my did it) .. or you spend time doing it without any reward. (ie landlords walking through your door)

By writing this stuff, you WILL become the property guru of your town.. but the question is, how do you get these articles/stories out to all the landlords in your town? Thankfully, that's easy .. you have your blog. But how do you get people/landlords to your blog ... well for those of you that didn't see the video I posted on Monday .. let these fellow letting agents tell you what they thought to the course I ran last week. I was teaching them how to write this stuff, then how to get it out in newsletter + newspaper format. Finally, how to get the hundreds and thousands of email and contact details of most landlords in your town ... http://youtu.be/13XtLxo-XsQ 

.... and does it work? ... remember the post I did on Friday about the guy from Scotland .. he sent out 860 ish cold emails last week using the techniques, of which over 430 opened the email, all of them (yes all of them) downloaded the newsletter and even better, over 100 of them replied back to say 'Thank You' ... but that's not hard cash Chris. True, but these things do take a couple of months to kick in and those who wonder what this stuff has done in the past for other agents ... read the numbers..

• Putting articles like these in the newspaper tripled rental market appraisals in a number of offices, but more importantly increasing turnover from £13k a month to £20k a month within 15 months and another from £36k to month to £43k in 10 months!
• Putting articles like these in blogs increased turnover of another letting agent by £200kpa within two and half years
• 
Putting articles like these in newsletters, and emailing them to all the landlords in his town (how he got that list .. see above for the course and how to get those email addresses) gained another agent 23 rental instructions in one month.

But of course, you could carry on with the same old rubbish you chuck out Mr(s) letting agent .. the fact you are more professional than any other letting agent in your town or the fact you are more ARLA registered than anyone else or your free market appraisals are the most FREE'iest 'free' market appraisals in town .. or you could become your town's property guru .. choice is yours!

So, its Wednesday morning .. its wet. Joey is sitting on the sofa waiting for his walk. Its raining so Jo will have to put on his new rain coat when they go for their morning constitutional .. he looks very smart in it! 

Anyway, here is another example article .... follow this style and you will just fine
Do detached properties on the Barrowby Gate area make good investments for Buy to Let?
I was talking to someone who lives in one of those modern 4 bed detached houses on the Barrowby Gate development, on the Eastern edge of Grantham, just South of the A52 and A6190 roundabout. The whole area was primarily developed in the 1970’s and 1980’s and offers mostly larger executive detached houses and also a few modern semis and town houses. Interestingly though, of the 632 properties on the development over 449 of them are detached (or 71%), compared to 36% average in South Kesteven area. Something that wouldn’t happen today with the price of land (there would be more semis and town houses)! Anyway, with that in mind, as he had come into money, he wanted to buy a property in the immediate area to let out. It would be his first Buy to Let property and had noticed our previous articles, so was interested in getting to know the industry a little bit more. As he has lived in the Barrowby Gate area for over 8 years he felt comfortable investing around there as he knew it well, we started to discuss the property market in this area.I found out there were only 22 rented houses on his development of 632 properties, making the one of the lowest percentage areas for private renting I have ever seen (3.5% compared to the South Kesteven average of 10.7%, which is still below the national average of 15.3%). Whilst he lived himself in a nice four bed executive house, the investment potential of those larger four beds wasn’t good, as the highest yield (return) they could expect was only around 3.4% per year. However, the larger four beds though on the Barrowby Gate estate have certainly increased in value at a faster rate than others in Grantham (values of  four bed detached houses on the Barrowby Gate estate have risen by 123.5% since 2001, compared to the Grantham average of 106%). Investing in property is a balance between decent capital growth and decent yield. I was able to tell him that the 3 bed semi detached houses on the same development, can be bought for around £130,000 and they rent for around £550 per month, a reasonable yield of 5% per year, and those have increased by on average 116% since the Millennium. A good balance I think you would agree between capital growth and yield? It all comes down to personal choice. Each landlord has different priorities for their buy to let investments.  I  look at the whole of the market and if you want to pick my brains on what would make the best buy to let investment for you, feel free to contact me by emailing me on xxxxx@xxxxxxx dot com