I am dedicating my radio show today to Jacksonville, FL as the best example of a real estate market going through short term pain, but poised for awesome long term gain. Here are some of the support material I will be using for the show. I post them here so listeners can do their own research and see for themselves why I am making this recommendation.

Here is a great article about the expansion of the Panama Canal, and how the port in Jacksonville is poised to become one of the largest in the US.

Here is an article on their successes attracting new business.

Here is a chart that shows the prices of single family homes in Jacksonville over the last ten years.

We have a new sponsor for the show called Jacksonville Wealth Builders. They contacted me after hearing me recommend Jacksonville a few months ago on the radio show and my segment on Fox Business. Gregg Cohen, the founder, is a great guy and an inspiring entrepreneur. We will interview him next month on the radio. After meeting him and getting to know his company and business model, I invested my IRA in property in Jacksonville through his company. They have a very tight system for finding properties, rehabbing them, renting them out and managing them for investors. It’s the most turnkey approach I have seen and a fantastic option for investors who want to choose the right market, even it it means being a thousand miles away.
Here is the link to Jacksonville Wealth Builders website.

Our industry needs to rethink our core mission. Homeownership and owner-occupancy are two different things and it’s time to make that distinction. Here are a few facts that need to sink in to the collective mindset of our industry’s leaders:

• If 27% of all the home sales in 2011 were investor purchases, then 27% of all the commission checks earned by NAR members were made possible by non-owner-occupant home buyers (investors).

• We show concern and feel empathy for people who have endured the hardship of foreclosure, or had to sell short. But what is our message to them nowadays? The same as always. “You need to buy a home” No, they don’t. They should rent. We should help them and appreciate the non-owner-occupant who owns that home and rents it out.

• Consumer confidence in our product is strongest with non-owner-occupant home buyer these days. Investor purchases surged by 65% in 2011, while owner-occupant sales dropped by 16%. Are we doing enough to encourage them? Most of our effort seems to consider them competition to our core constituency. That makes no sense.

As we sit here today, the federal government is inventing new ways of tampering with the housing market by selling foreclosures to cronies on Wall Street who will convert them to rentals. The sweetheart deals being offered to those cronies have strings attached. Namely, to turn some of them into rent-controlled units. Instead of individual investors owning these homes, we will be dealing with Wall Street financiers and their puppet masters in Washington. Does any of this sound like a recurring nightmare?

If there is one thing we can all learn from the debacle of the last decade, it’s that an unholy alliance of Washington and Wall Street can only do bad things for the housing market. Our industry association has proven it has influence over Washington. What power are we bringing to bear to stop this dangerous government intervention? What are we doing to protect individual investors from unfair treatment by government? Sadly, not much.

It’s time to take on our rightful role as champions of housing, and not just homeownership, lest we leave the door wide open for others to control our destiny.

To sign a petition to encourage our leaders to fight for individual investors, please fill out the form below.

If you are looking for a purpose for your social media strategy, a way to help the housing recovery along by just using your voice and passion, I want to deputize you today.

Robert Shiller, the founder of the Case Shiller Index, and a man who has spent a decade fomenting fear and negativity in the housing market, has reached a new low. In an interview with Reuters headlined US housing rebound could take an entire generation: Shiller, he stated that as a result of high gas prices and unemployment, “we might not see a really major turnaround in our lifetimes”.

What? This is an outrageous statement that requires a response from knowledgeable people in our industry. Your neighbors and friends will hear about this, as the acolytes in the media will certainly run with this headline as a new high-water mark of doomsaying. I responded on radio, and will continue to do so in through other channels like ActiveRain. Take a listen and consider following my lead…

Here is a chart that may help. It shows with unmistakable clarity that the bubble was an anomaly, and the “meltdown” was really a correction.

The market trend is easy to see, and very predictive of stabilization in the future. As long as people want to live is the USA, and they want to live indoors, our market trends upward. Only when there is some kind of outside stimulus, like the mad lending practices of the 2000′s, does our market deviate from the trendline. An then as sure as the sun sets tomorrow, the market corrects. Through war, recession, boom and bust, the market marches on because population grows.

Please consider sharing this content. People want to be optimistic, and they believe in a housing market (and national) recovery. Be the voice of reason in the face of such outrageous negativity. Defend what you love. Your friends and followers will appreciate you for it.

To learn more about how we equip our members with tools and confidence to represent houses as investments, visit www.OwnAmerica.com

Go to a real estate conference these days and you will notice something – the agenda is dominated by one topic – Social Media. It so crowds-out all other topics that you would think there is an abundance of best practices and success stories. Like agents all over the country are cranking out transactions as a result of their blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter followings. Sadly, that is not the case. In truth, many of us suffer from a new kind of social pressure – social media pressure.

As in, “Oh crap! It’s Tuesday! Blog Day! What the heck am I going to say??”

Everyone seems to hit the same brick wall in social media. It’s time to communicate again. “What do I say? I took a picture of my dog with a St. Patrick’s Day hat on last month. That was good. People liked it. Last week I shot a great sunset. Now what???”

Social media is certainly not a passing fad. It is a breakthrough in the distribution of content that does something very powerful – it takes the gatekeepers out of the mix. In traditional media (TV, radio, publishing, etc.) there are gatekeepers. Producers, program directors, editors and publishers who are paid to know what the public wants to watch, listen-to and read, and they get to decide what makes the cut. Millions of people have no voice in traditional media because they don’t have the contacts or the formula to please the gatekeepers. Social media breaks their grip on distribution of content, but as Gary Vaynurchuk (social media success story and author of Crush It) says, the gatekeepers can’t hold you back anymore, but “if you suck, you still suck.”

In other words, distribution is not a problem anymore, but quality of content still is. Most people I speak to in our industry suffer from an acute pressure to do something good in social media, but struggle to find their voice. Let me give you an example from my personal life. My wife and I have decided to move from New York to Charlotte, NC. My business is national. I can live anywhere. Why not move from the highest taxed county in America to a place where I can have a boat slip in my backyard. Why not indeed!

So she (the wife) is all over the forums on City Data where she is asking for guidance on the kinds of neighborhoods that surround Charlotte. She has lots of questions, and gets lots of answers. As a rule, the “civilians” give her great input as to the flavor of the neighborhoods, where the kids are, where the snobs aren’t, etc. Also as a rule, the real estate agents are completely unhelpful. A typical exchange with a real estate agent on City Data is as follows:

Q: (from the wife) Is this the kind of neighborhood where kids are out in the street playing kickball like in the old days? Or is everyone super busy, scheduled to the hilt with sports, lessons, play dates, etc?

A: (from real estate agent) What is your price range? How soon do you want to move? I have been selling real estate in this area for 15 years and can serve all your real estate needs. Please call me at 555-555-1212 for all your real estate needs. Your real estate agent for life….John Smith

This is not social media. It is social prospecting, and I am sure that agent took his cue from some breakout session speaker somewhere.

I finally had my breakthrough in social media when I gained a true understanding of the role of “media” in social media. Media is the show, not the commercials. Media means it better be interesting, or even entertaining, or I am going to change the channel. This is the challenge. We are not entertainers. We are business people. So how do we make that leap? Simple – create a social media persona and get into character.

My character in social media is the same one I use on TV and radio – a housing expert with an attitude problem towards the rest of the media who trashes my beloved housing market. I am a credible optimist. I hate when CNBC runs an idiotic story about the “housing meltdown” and it motivates me to respond with a counter-attack. It’s also therapeutic. I no longer just get mad. I get even.

Here is a recent example, albeit a mild one, where I tried to show the host on FOX News that a minor change to the tax policy will not hold the market recovery back.

My point here is simple: the world is eager for credible optimism on housing. The more you understand the fundamentals of the housing market and housing economics, the more confident you are in a recovery, and the more persuasive you can be to your audience. The opposite is also true – the less you really understand basic housing economics, the more susceptible you are to all the negativity in the media.

I know you are bombarded with advice on your social media strategy, but I am going to give you some more anyway. Take on the persona of a defender of the housing market in your town. Get into character. Use all the media negativity as a flashpoint for your commentary. Set the record straight with passion and the people will follow.

To learn more about housing economics and how to use it in social media, join the OwnAmerica Network. $149 and 6 hours and I will have you fighting the good fight with confidence. Visit www.OwnAmerica.com.

Stereotypes suck. You understand this because there is a stereotype of the typical “realtor” that you hate. You know what I mean. You’ve seen it depicted on TV and in movies, and in the smarmy marketing campaigns from non-traditional online real estate companies who think they can do it better (and usually go bankrupt).

The stereotype is usually an extremely cheesy salesperson who doesn’t stop talking long enough to take a breath, or of a hapless and frustrated housewife just trying to pick up a little pocket money. Neither one professional. Both insulting to our profession, but also rooted in reality. The quintessential cheesy realtor does exist in our industry, but that is not who we are, and we resent being depicted that way.

Now, as one who suffers from the ugly side of stereotyping, consider the image you have in your mind of the real estate investor. Is this him?

A vulture who only wants to take advantage of someone else’s misfortune? The “get rich quick” type. Sure, there are vulture investors out there. In fact, within the past week I have had conversations with two different investors: a private equity fund manager with $200,000,000 to invest in houses, and a drunk guy at a hotel bar who wants to invest in houses. Both had the same business plan – “I’m gonna buy foreclosures at half price”. Brilliant.

You’ve seen the reports that 27% of all home sales in 2011 were investor purchases, but who wants to deal with those idiots? They are abusive, disloyal louts. You want no part of that, but consider the possibility that you are buying into a stereotype that is not the rule, but the exception. Consider that there are hundreds of thousands of investors out there that are not vultures, not disloyal. In fact, they are in search of a real estate professional who they can be loyal to, but they can’t find any who care enough to get the training and tools that would make them really helpful. Here are some stats that illustrate my point;

• 59% of all the people searching the web for real estate investment information have never invested before.
• If you search Google today for real estate investing information, you will find page after page of people telling you to “buy foreclosures at half price”.
• If you search Google today for real estate investing information, you will not find a single real estate brokerage company or agent. Not one. Zero. Zilch, Nada.
• 1,230,000 homes were bought by investors last year, and only half of them were distressed properties. The other half were regular MLS listed, market-priced houses.
• 0% of all the marketing and promotion you and your company put out there is designed to attract investors.
• 0% of all the marketing and promotion your competition puts out there is designed for investors.
• Therefore, 100% of your contact with investors is accidental. You don’t look for the right ones, so the wrong ones find you.

The point is, there are delightful people all around you – in your sphere of influence, your neighborhood and your network – who are thinking about buying a few houses to diversify their investments and provide for their retirement. They have realistic expectations, and they need help. Ask yourself, can you help them? Are you really useful to someone in that situation? Is it time to make a small investment in your education and equipment so you can be useful to those types of investors? Not the vultures, but the regular folks who want to own American Housing for the long term? Is it time to learn how to sell houses as investments?

It is. Don’t hesitate. Stop being deterred by the stereotypical investor. Once you do, you are smarter and better than the stereotypical realtor, and that’s a good thing to be. Visit www.OwnAmerica.com to learn more.

Greg shares some insight with current entrepreneurs in this housing market despite what the media states. Greg also discusses the current opportunities in this housing market for today’s investors.

According to a National Association of REALTORS® study released this month, investor sales jumped 65% in 2011, from 17% of all home sales in 2010 to a staggering 27% in 2011.  At the same time, purchases by buyers who intended to occupy the property declined by 15.5%. Translation – without investors, the housing market would not have improved last year.

This is good news on many fronts. First, investors are a leading indicator of confidence. They are looking for opportunity and willing to take risk to seize it. Home buyers are looking for reasons to stop being fearful of a prolonged economic stagnation. They need to know it is safe to go back in the water, while investors need to feel it is safe, but want to get a jump on the competition. Different motivations produce different timing. Investors act first, and home buyers will follow.

Second, we need rental stock, and the majority of today’s investors are not buying to flip, but buying to rent and hold. This is good for the market. Patience and reasonable expectations; the opposite of “get rich quick”. Today’s investors are, more than ever, regular people who want to build a portfolio of houses to hold and retire on. What could be bad about that?

Just ask our friends in the media and you will find out. The wizards of smart at CNBC saw all this investor optimism as a “cause for concern”. I find that very interesting, since the same news outlet published a story the very same week cheering how investment volume in the stock market was way up, which was a good sign!

Investors are a misunderstood constituency. Even our beloved trade association, NAR, considers promoting homeownership our industry’s only objective, as if an investor is taking food off someone’s table by buying a house. I was very pleased to see NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, cheer the investor activity as a positive sign of recovery in the most recent report.

We should not treat a renter as a lost opportunity. We should not treat an investor like a vulture. This is the housing industry, not the homeownership industry. Every house needs an owner. Every house needs an occupant. They don’t need to be the same person. And when any segment of demand for housing jumps by 65%, it is cause for optimism, not concern.

Don’t ask me for a stock pick, and don’t ask CNBC for real estate advice.

Greg Rand takes calls from live listeners on different concerns and interests in real estate investing. Greg also addresses the current housing market as well as current headlines.

We attempted something that I think might be a first in real estate brokerage and I wanted to share the feedback. You know by now that investors represent 23% of the national market. It may be a little higher or a little lower in your town, but it’s still 3 times bigger than new construction at the peak, and 5 times bigger than corporate relo ever was. OK…enough said…huge opportunity. How do we capture it?

Last week we tested a concept called the OwnAmerica Double Header:

- A Real estate agent certification by day

- An Investor Seminar for their customers by night.

Interesting, right? Instruction, know-how, tools, and a customer experience all in one day.

We chose Denver because I had recently done a segment on FOX Business about what a great investment Colorado is. The video went viral with real estate people and consumers alike. It felt like a good omen to try out the Double Header there. With a couple of weeks of lead time we had 82 real estate professionals and about as many consumers in attendance for the respective events. Here is what we learned:

There are active investors, and then there are everyday people who just want to buy a couple of houses for long term retirement planning. People are hiding right under our noses who want to invest, but they don’t know who to turn to. Our industry still doesn’t show up when you search Google for “Real Estate Investing”.

Most people don’t even know they can use their IRA to buy investment property. There are two reasons. Their financial adviser tells they they can’t or shouldn’t, and they don’t know how to go about choosing and making the investment. Our sponsor, Equity Trust Corp, the leading provider of self directed IRAs, reports that they are in contact with thousands of people who want to buy an investment property in their IRA, but they don’t have a path to follow.

If you offer them information, education, tools and service, they show up and take action. We surveyed the customer attendees after the event. A staggering 100% said they would definitely be investing in the next six months, and 75% said they had taken action toward that goal since the seminar. It was 4 days ago!

Real estate agents who love their product love learning about how to understand and present it as an investment. The reaction from the agent audience was great. We literally had a blast. From fundamentals of the housing pendulum, to tracking migration and job growth, to analyzing case studies of investments, to crunching numbers. It is all core to what you do for a living, so it’s engaging. Plus, I am hilarious. A special thanks to RE/MAX Professionals of Denver for their support.

The survey results from that group were equally staggering:

Q: Will you improve your business based on what you learned?

A: YES, 100%

Q; Do you believe you will make money because of this course?

A: YES, 100%

Q: Would you recommend this course to a colleague?

A: YES, 92%

Here are some testimonials. We have a winner here folks.

First, force lenders to relax their standards in order to make everyone a homeowner, whether they have a down payment, good credit and a steady job – or not.

Once the loans start going bad because the people can’t pay, launch a massive PR offensive that casts defaulting borrowers as victims and banks as villains. Encourage more defaults in this way. Keep this going relentlessly for five years.

Launch a major legal and regulatory offensive to block foreclosures and encourage more borrowers to default by providing government mandated benefits if they do. Let the log jam of distressed properties pile up to the sky.

Sue the villains and extract billions to spread around to the victims. Reward defaulting borrowers with cold cash to reinforce that the stigma of mortgage default has been completely removed.

Create a government program to convert the massive log jam of foreclosures into rentals. Offer institutional investors a sweetheart deal with discounts and attractive government financing. In return, require investment funds to convert the foreclosures into low income housing and Section 8 (government subsidized) housing 

Further reward the foreclosed borrowers with rent controlled housing in the same neighborhood where they owned. (Maybe even rent them the same house they defaulted on. That would be perfect!)

The (Intended?) Results:

Lenders will exit the home mortgage business. If they can’t take foreclose, they can’t lend. If they can’t rely on a borrower’s sense of obligation to repay, they can’t lend. As the basic social contract of personal responsibility to repay debt is broken, all historic underwriting algorithms become obsolete. They can’t lend.

Rental rates will be undercut by government rent controls in cities with a high concentration of foreclosures. This will drive private investors out, and cause home prices to decline as it become much cheaper to rent than to own in those markets.

Create the largest government controlled and subsidized housing project in American history, complete with a million loyal voters.

Brilliant!

I covered some of this on radio recently…