When I first start selling real estate my concentration was Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Owned and Veterans Affairs (VA) Owned properties. They were vacant and easy to show. I could submit an offer for a client and it seemed like the whole process for me was a lot less cumbersome than dealing with a private owner and all the other parties involved in the transaction.
I remember I used to look forward to the new lists being published in the newspapers. I remember we had two newspapers back then. A morning edition and an evening edition. The HUD listings used to print in the Saturday papers on the back of the page or the inside back cover. I remember flipping to the back of the page for the HUD listings and if they were not on the back I would flip to the inside back cover.
I would look to see which ones were for Owner/Occupancy only and which were now available for investors to purchase. The prices were normally affordable either way. Sometimes my clients would call me on the new list before I could get a chance to call them.
The VA listings I remember being in the Wednesday evening paper once every three weeks. The list used to be sometimes and grew to at one time three pages in length. Virginia Beach normally had the most VA listings. They normally took up about a page by themselves.
Fast forward to 2011 and now the updates can be seen online. They are no longer available in a printed version of the newspaper. I really wonder how much an agent would make if they were to publish a HUD list in the paper every Saturday morning? May be a future marketing idea for myself.
Currently I publish an updated list of HUD Owned properties on my website. My website hits have increased dramatically. However, I don't know whether it is due to the feature zip codes I have on other major real estate portals.
At one time I was able to feature a table of listings which could be sorted by any column by clicking on the column header. Now for some reason the server I am hosting my website is not cooperating. It was a feature I had very active a year ago which seemed to be very popular. I will just eventually move to another platform.
Well just the thought of how the lists used to be in print makes me appreciate how convenient it is to just be able to look up online and not have to wait a week or weeks to see properties in your watch. You can basically Google any address and find out the current status of the listing.
I try an update my site at least once a day. I don't like looking at old stale information.
I imagine if the listings were just in the paper once a week or every three weeks now it would take several pages. Good thing the onset of technology helped make it basically a paperless gesture to get an update on a HUD Owned property. I think it would be very overwhelming to try and handle the lists in print nowadays.
Even though I think it would again be a great marketing tool to have a list in print to generate buyer leads.
I remember I used to look forward to the new lists being published in the newspapers. I remember we had two newspapers back then. A morning edition and an evening edition. The HUD listings used to print in the Saturday papers on the back of the page or the inside back cover. I remember flipping to the back of the page for the HUD listings and if they were not on the back I would flip to the inside back cover.
I would look to see which ones were for Owner/Occupancy only and which were now available for investors to purchase. The prices were normally affordable either way. Sometimes my clients would call me on the new list before I could get a chance to call them.
The VA listings I remember being in the Wednesday evening paper once every three weeks. The list used to be sometimes and grew to at one time three pages in length. Virginia Beach normally had the most VA listings. They normally took up about a page by themselves.
Fast forward to 2011 and now the updates can be seen online. They are no longer available in a printed version of the newspaper. I really wonder how much an agent would make if they were to publish a HUD list in the paper every Saturday morning? May be a future marketing idea for myself.
Currently I publish an updated list of HUD Owned properties on my website. My website hits have increased dramatically. However, I don't know whether it is due to the feature zip codes I have on other major real estate portals.
At one time I was able to feature a table of listings which could be sorted by any column by clicking on the column header. Now for some reason the server I am hosting my website is not cooperating. It was a feature I had very active a year ago which seemed to be very popular. I will just eventually move to another platform.
Well just the thought of how the lists used to be in print makes me appreciate how convenient it is to just be able to look up online and not have to wait a week or weeks to see properties in your watch. You can basically Google any address and find out the current status of the listing.
I try an update my site at least once a day. I don't like looking at old stale information.
I imagine if the listings were just in the paper once a week or every three weeks now it would take several pages. Good thing the onset of technology helped make it basically a paperless gesture to get an update on a HUD Owned property. I think it would be very overwhelming to try and handle the lists in print nowadays.
Even though I think it would again be a great marketing tool to have a list in print to generate buyer leads.
