This Issue: Sell Your Property Fast in a Glutted Market

Just when it looked like teenagers finally got the message about how horrible smoking is, things are taking a turn for the worse. The steady decline in teen smoking in the country is at a standstill. About one in four high school students smokes.

For the longest time, teen smoking was dropping. All that anti-smoking advertising was paying off. Kids realized that not only was smoking no longer cool, but it also was a stupid, dangerous habit.

But now the progress has stopped. States are no longer spending a lot of money on anti-smoking campaigns. Meanwhile, tobacco companies have spent billions on cigarette price cuts to make them more attractive to teenagers. Kids are staying hooked.

I don't get it. Why do they smoke? It causes lung cancer. It causes heart disease. Can't they get that through their heads? The other thing. . . it's no longer cool to smoke. When I go out with people and I see them light up a cigarette, I actually feel sorry for them.

I can't stand smoking. I hate everything about it. If the most gorgeous woman in the world were to light up a cigarette, all of a sudden I wouldn't think she's very sexy anymore.

I'm lucky. I'm a non-smoker. I don't have to go through the pain of having to stop. But the fact is, when I see people light up a cigarette, I feel pity. So why can't we explain this to teenagers so they don't smoke? So they know how uncool it is.

Tell your kids all the facts, but most of all, tell them it's really uncool.

Donald J. Trump is Chairman of Trump University and featured in many courses, including The Trump Way to Wealth.

Editor's note: To learn more about keeping kids away from cigarettes, visit Smokefree.gov, the U.S. Government's online anti-smoking advisory.

Winning strategies from The Real Estate Investor Training Program

Articles and news stories everywhere today are reporting the grim newsthat huge numbers of houses are sitting on the market unsold. And the problem exists virtually everywhere in America.

Make no mistake about it. Itis much harder to sell a house today than it was a year ago.

Now, what is the first thing that most real estate investors do when they want to sell a property in a glutted market? Most often, they do cosmetic fix-ups. If a property looks better than others that are available, or if it has better features, it will move to the top of the pack and sell faster.

That's good thinking. But to make it work, you have to provide the fix-ups that matter to your target customers. Here's some great advice from our professor Gary Eldred, who teaches our Real Estate Investor Program.

• Stick with improvements that provide the maximum return on investment (ROI). Walk through your property and imagine that you are one of your target consumers who is seeing it for the first time. Try to see what they will see as they go from room to room and imagine what they would like to see.
• Don't ignore cosmetics. Are appliances visibly worn or outdated, for example? What about kitchen counters or bathroom tiles? Spend your fix-dollars in those "must have" items first.
• Get advice from contractors. Walk through your property with them and discuss ways to eliminate shortcomings or add desirable features. They have a wealth of experience that other professionals can't match and they can make suggestions to make your dollars go farther.
• Push contractors to offer you gold, silver and bronze alternatives. There are expensive sliding patio doors, for example, but also mid-level and very basic models. Installing a top-of-the-line patio door only makes sense if it is in keeping with your property and your target clientele.

Remember that the cost of lighting fixtures, counters, tile, carpet and other cosmetics can add up fast - especially if you are improving an apartment house or a multi-family dwelling. So set a budget for fix-ups and stick to it like glue. Getting "nickled and dimed to death" is more than an expression. It's happened to countless property investors, so be sure it doesn't happen to you.

Michael Sexton is President of Trump University. For more information on getting the biggest return on your renovation investment, be sure to enroll in The Real Estate Investor Training Program.

Property-selling wizardry from the Trump University faculty

The primary reason to advertise a property is to sell it. But there is another reason for advertising too. It is to generate a database of potential buyers for properties you will sell in the months and years to come.

This secondary advertising activity is especially important today. Properties are not selling as quickly as they were a year ago. If you have a database of prospective buyers and know what they are looking for, you can sell your properties more quickly. And moving properties faster saves you money in taxes, insurance and other costs.

The key is to advertise in ways that generate a lot of calls. Here are some of my well-tested strategies that work.

• Advertise a selling price that is lower than the norm. I am currently selling a three-family house in a city where similar properties rarely sell for less than $300,000. However, I am selling this property for $285,000 because it is not in the greatest neighborhood. If people call and want to see the property, I show it to them of course. But if they are not keen to look after I tell them the location, I ask what they are looking for and politely say, "May I have the opportunity to call you when something like that comes along?" So my advertising dollars are working for doubly hard for me.
• Advertise a benefit that sets you apart from the competition. I once ran an ad campaign in the New York subways that said, "Why rent when you can own your own house for $5,000 down?" Our phone rang off the hook and we built a huge list of potential buyers. "Zero percent down for qualified buyers," "motivated seller" and "seller to pay closing costs" are other phrases that generate calls.
• Craft ads that encourage people to call for full information. When I am advertising a property, for example, I never put its address in the ad. That would only encourage people to drive by and look at it without calling me. If they call, I will take them to the house, of course. But if they just drive buy, I cannot add them to my database or sell to them in the future.
• Analyze your advertising. How many calls do you get when you advertise a house at $250,000 in one town, for example? How many calls do you get when you advertise a house there for $300,000? You have to analyze the contact-generating abilities of different ads and invest your advertising dollars strategically.

Remember, it is never too early to start taking calls and developing your database. If you are building houses that will not be completed for a few months, for example, you can advertise now and start building your list of customers.

Never forget the power of advertising to make your phone ring, because calls represent dollars.

Jay D. Gottlieb, has taught the self-instructional course, Make Quick Profits in Any Real Estate Market at Trump University.Jay co-founded First Home Brokerage in 1994, a real estate investment company that acquired, renovated, and sold distressed single and multi-family homes to first-time homebuyers. The company quickly grew to be one of the largest re-developers of affordable 1-4 family homes in the nation, with sales of approximately $100 million annually and with over 3000 homes bought and sold. In 1997, Mr. Gottlieb was recognized by Crain's NY Business as one of the "40 under 40" top businesspeople of the year. In 1999, he won the Ernst & Young "NYC Entrepreneur of the Year" award in real estate. Currently, Mr. Gottlieb is president and CEO of Tri-State Home Sales LTD.

To master more powerful property-selling strategies, enroll in our comprehensive new course, The Real Estate Investor Training Program.