Trended Credit

Posted on September 21, 2016 by firsttitleandabstract

Trended credit is a new way to evaluate a borrower’s credit worthiness.

If you pay off your balance every month, you are considered a “transactor” and your credit score should go up.

If however you only pay the minimum balance you will be considered a “revolver” and your credit score may go down.

Trended Credit is considered one of the most important developments in credit scoring in over a generation.

The new methodology has been accepted by two out of the three major credit bureaus.

It takes effect on September 24, 2016.

Be sure to check with your financial advisor and mortgage professional for information about trended credit.

Whether you can qualify for mortgage financing for your real estate purchase may depend upon it!

Click on the link below for an in-depth article on trended credit, and learn about how this may affect your buyer’s credit score.

As the Naples title company in business the longest in the area, First Title & Abstract, Inc. is the company you can always trust to provide you with cutting edge information.

With offices on Marco Island and in Naples, we deliver unparalleled title service for all your real estate transactions.

Trended Credit

Creating Facebook Ads for Real Estate

Posted on September 9, 2016 by firsttitleandabstract

by TitleTap | 2016 |

Creating Facebook ads for real estate is one of the simplest and most effective methods of online marketing and advertising.

Having a Facebook profile is one thing, but actually using it effectively is another.

Did you know Facebook Ads can actually make your company visible to people with very specific interests and demographics?

A couple things to note:

Facebook now has more active users than China’s entire population.

Also, the average American spends 40 minutes on Facebook a Day – that’s 20-30 minutes longer than most any other website.

“Facebook now has more active users than China’s entire population.”

If you don’t yet have a Facebook profile for your business, please contact us at First Title & Abstract, Inc.

We can help you get started!

There are many types of ads you can run but the most common are as follows:

Sidebar
News Feed
Remarketing

“The average American spends 40 minutes on Facebook a Day – that’s 20-30 minutes longer than most any other website.”

News Feed Ads are the focus of this article because they are the most effective way to advertise on Facebook.

News Feed Ads

News Feed Facebook ads, as you might think, are the ads that show up right in your Facebook News Feed. In fact, News Feed Facebook ads are the only ads that show on Facebook mobile and over 60% of Facebook’s revenue comes from mobile devices.

Even though news feed ads are still very popular, as of 2016 the way you get clicks has evolved as people have grown more tech savvy.

You can no longer just post a picture of your office staff and say: “use us for your real estate purchasing, selling, or legal/closing needs.” You need to prove you can solve the customer’s problem first by providing value in the form of useful information.

Social Media Content Creates Buzz and Keeps You Front of Mind!

Here is what you want in your News Feed ads:

1) Graphics with text

These work well and you can test ad variations

2) Faces/emotion work well

The best graphics often have person’s face that conveys emotion. The eyes are a gateway to the soul for a reason.

3) Short text, unless emotional

Either really short and casual posts, or really long “rants” get read most often. People don’t like average or mediocre, they want emotion.

4) Position as “helpful resource”, not an “ad”

5) Focus on the result the viewer will get by clicking

A good example of this is the “Download” button above. Viewers know what to expect when they click.

6) Pose a question

“Pizza or Ravioli? What’s your favorite? Post below.”

Facebook’s algorithm can be summarized as this: The more activity a post gets the more it is shown.

7) Create a Poll

Similar to #6, create a quick Facebook poll to get that same interaction above, that gets your post shown more often and to more people organically.

Memes entertain and inform and are readily passed on … from the Greek “mimēma” ‘that which is imitated’

8) Memes or Quotes

Memes are simply quotes or captions on funny pictures. The easiest way to find them is on Google Images or Pinterest.

9) Video

Did you find a useful video that helps your customers or prospects? Share it!

The same is true for most non-advertisement posts on Social Media as well. Use these “shareable” posts and experiment what works well for you.

Who do I advertise to?

Building an audience: There are several ways to build an audience to display your ads to but here are my favorites for Realtors, Title Agents, Lawyers, and Mortgage brokers.

1) Job title (i.e. Realtor, Mortgage Broker)

2) Interests (i.e. People who have liked The National Association of Realtors)

3) Location radius (Select a city and radius)

4) Lookalike Audience (Have a database of customers? Upload the list of email addresses to find other Facebook users with similar interests to your customer list. This one is really cool and powerful.)

5) Facebook Groups (Advanced Strategy – See below)

6) Retargeting (Advanced Strategy – see next article)

One thing to keep in mind with Facebook Ads…more people doesn’t mean that the ad is better. In fact focusing on having “more people” can both hurt your conversion and cost you dollars; Facebook will charge you more per click for being general.

A far better approach is smaller targeted ad audiences like “Dog lovers” instead of “Pet lovers,” or in real estate, I might start by focusing on specific communities within a city and make the audience larger as I test.

As a general rule of thumb I like to start with an audience size of around 5,000 and no more than around a few hundred thousand.

Create a Group

If you are planning on doing lots of Facebook advertising and want to save a ton of money on cost per click I’d highly recommend creating a Facebook Group.

So I’ll first explain what to do and then why you’d want to do it in the first place.

Step 1: Create a Facebook Group

The first thing you want to do is create a group to benefit your target market. For example, if you are targeting first-time homebuyers in Austin, Texas, you may want to call your group “First-Time Home Buyers in Austin.”

Or if you really want to appeal to Realtors in Nevada, your group might be “Nevada Realtors Marketing Mastermind.”

Do not create a group that is “Fans of Title Co X” but instead think “Realtors in X City (local market)”

Get creative but find something useful where group members would be willing to share on (remember Facebook is social).

Step 2: Post to the Group

Next, visit your favorite industry publication sites like Title News and The Title Report then make a few posts in the group. The only purpose here is making sure the group is not empty.

Step 3: Invite friends and family to join and like the group

This makes it so that the group is not empty when you invite strangers to join. Assure your friends and family that they can always leave the group in a few weeks if they are not interested in the topic, you just need some warm bodies in there.

Step 4: Advertise the Group

Next, use the steps in this article to create an ad to join or like the group. This ad might show up in someone’s news feed as “Realtors in Austin Texas Group…Like this” and you’ll get many people to do so which will grow your group audience.

Note: make sure the group has nothing to do with your company but instead for the benefit of the members.

Why spend money to advertise a free group?

I’m glad you asked! Here is a cool trick that few know about:

Reason 1:

Facebook CPC (Cost Per Click) is typically cheaper when your Call-To-Action (CTA) is a page on Facebook itself and not on an external site. Score!

Reason 2:

Here is where the magic is. Not only do you save money to get someone to “Like” or join your group as opposed to going to your website, but once they have you can now run other direct promotion ads to the people of the group that you own – often times lowering the CPC to mere pennies!

For example, an ad to visit my website might cost $1.25 per click, and one to like my company Facebook page might cost $0.75 per click. Whereas an ad to my own group audience advertising my services where I am the owner of the group and the people in the group are highly targeted might only cost $0.05 per click.

This is why I recommend customers that are in Facebook for the long term perform these extra steps.

Budget

Lastly, always start your Facebook ads at a low cost per day budget that you bump up slowly as you start gaining traction. Not doing so will cause you to waste a lot of money. For example, I always start mine at $5 a day until I have one performing as I like with a 5-10% click through rating (CTR) and then bump it up to $10.

That’s it! Create your ads and let them run. If you found this useful please let me know in the comments so I can share more tips on Facebook ads.

Also if you think this was cool, read the next article in the series, it is 100% on remarketing, what it is exactly, how to do it quickly, easily and cheaply!

We Can Help!

First Title & Abstract, Inc. distinguishes itself from the competition by being a consultative value-added strategic partner.

We succeed when you succeed, and that’s what makes us different! We know what works, and can show you how to build your business and sell more properties!

Contact any of us at our Naples or Marco Island offices, and ask for the marketing department handling social media.

We’re eager to be partners in your success!

7 Warning Signs You May Not Be Ready to Buy

Posted on September 6, 2016 by firsttitleandabstract

7 Warning Signs You may Not be Ready to Buy

Following up on our popular post from last week, we help you decide if now is a good time to consider buying a home …

From Trulia.com

By Laura Agadoni | August 22, 2016

Owning a home can be a smart financial move, but is it right for you, right now?

It’s happening all across America right now: Hordes of renters, innocently perusing their social media accounts, are noticing a theme. It’s not that everyone is getting married or obsessing over spiralized vegetables — they’re posting pictures of newly purchased homes.

But like your mother always said, just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean you should — or should you? There are certainly pros and cons of becoming a homeowner, and stumbling across just one dreamy listing of a home for sale in Anaheim, CA, with the perfect open-concept kitchen and fenced-in backyard can leave you thinking about little else. But then you realize you’d rather save your money for a travel adventure, and said dreamy house doesn’t come with the amenities you love at your apartment, like an on-site gym, pool, and doggie day care.

Don’t jump the gun and assume you need to buy a house. Here’s some truth talk: You might not be ready to buy. Pay attention to these seven signs that reveal that even if you think you’re ready to buy a house, you might not be.

1. You don’t make enough money
You might think you make enough money to buy a home, but crunch the numbers first and see what your costs would actually be — a mortgage calculator can come in handy here. You need both upfront and ongoing money, says Roger Ma, a New York, NY agent. “Upfront money includes having enough for the down payment and closing costs and enough left over for an emergency fund,” says Ma. “On an ongoing basis, a buyer’s salary will need to be enough to pay for mortgage interest and principal, HOA fees, homeowners insurance, and taxes.” These costs, according to many financial planners, should be less than 28% of your gross income.

2. You have too much debt
Let’s say you do make enough money to afford to buy a house and make your monthly mortgage payments. You also need to factor in any debt you might have. Hint: If all your credit cards are maxed out, you may want to get those bills under control before entering homeownership. Lenders typically want your total debt load (which includes your potential mortgage payment) to be less than 36% of your gross income. “Take a hard look at your spending habits and change them to improve your chances of being able to support a mortgage,” says Casey Fleming, author of The Loan Guide: How to Get the Best Possible Mortgage.

3. You don’t have enough savings
If you’ve saved enough for the down payment, you’ve made it over one big hurdle. But you need more than just that. What if your home needs an emergency repair? Would you have the money to pay for it, or would a surprise expense put you in debt? “Expect the unexpected,” says Josh Moffitt, president of Silverton Mortgage Specialists in Atlanta, GA. “Your air conditioner may die on a sweltering holiday weekend, or a sewage pipe could burst in the basement.”

And then there are those costs that aren’t necessarily unexpected but that you might not have considered. “Not only does a prospective buyer need money for closing costs and the first few months’ mortgage payments, they also need money for moving costs,” says Brian Davis, a real estate investor and director of education at Spark Rental. “They need money for furnishings and decorating the new house. They need money to pay the property taxes upfront at settlement.” As you can see, you don’t want to drain your savings on just the down payment.

4. You haven’t been on the job long enough
Most mortgage lenders like to see that you’ve been working the same job for at least two years. In fact, they calculate your average income based on your job history for the last 24 months. Being on the job that long shows a certain stability, and changing jobs or having an income gap signals insecurity. “A major job change, such as moving from salary to commission-based pay, may cause your income to fluctuate and can add to uncertainty about your readiness to buy a home,” says Moffitt. “Even if you qualify based on expected income, what if you don’t make that money in your new position?”

5. You have poor (or no) credit
A bad credit score indicates some sort of financial problem, such as skipping out on paying a bill or two, filing for bankruptcy, or carrying too much debt. “Take a close look at your credit report before making a decision to buy,” says Moffitt. “A mortgage lender may have questions about payments, loans, or other debts and may make suggestions that could require time to resolve. If it takes six months to fix, you might not be ready to buy just yet.”

Having little or no credit history can also be problematic. David Hosterman, branch manager with Castle & Cooke Mortgage in Colorado, offers a tip: “We take into account ‘alternative credit trade lines.’ These types of credit are anything from rental history, car insurance, utilities, monthly subscription services, and cellphones. We are looking for a pattern of good credit with those companies for 12 months or longer.”

6. You’re not sure what type of home you want
You might have thought only about buying a single-family home, but you have more options than you might think. For example, you could buy a duplex and earn some rent money by living on one side and renting out the other. Perhaps a condo or townhouse might better suit your needs — and be an easier transition from apartment living. “Each has unique considerations for upkeep and responsibility. It’s hard to say, ‘I’m ready to buy’ without knowing what each type of home has to offer,” says Moffitt.

7. You’re not ready to stick around
Unless you’re pretty sure that you’ll want to stay in the area for the next three to five years, you’re not ready to buy. “If you buy a house and have to sell the next year, you’re likely to lose money because appreciation won’t catch up to the closing costs and postpurchase expenses during that short time,” says Moffitt. If your job is in limbo, or you’re considering moving a few hours away to be closer to family in the near future, it’s wise to hold off on buying a home.

– See more at: http://www.trulia.com/blog/should-i-buy-a-house-7-signs/#sthash.kqB9UVsX.dpuf

Provided to you by your friends at the most established title company in Naples and Marco Island— First Title & Abstract, Inc.