Tag Archives: Marketing

The Wisdom of Hindsight in the Real Estate Market

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“Consider the following observations about the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. real estate market:

A home in Silver Spring, Maryland comes on the market and sells in one day. That’s no big deal. But the real estate agent received forty-one offers. I’ll repeat: Forty-one offers in only a few hours. A home in the city of Alexandria sells in one day at a price $100,000 over the asking price. I’ll repeat: The house sold for $100,000 more than the seller’s asking price. More than 30 people camped out for 7 days in order purchase units in a new urban townhouse development. I’ll repeat: Thirty people living on the streets with sleeping bags and tents in order to buy in a new townhouse development. ” A dream come true you say? These are excerpts from the article “One Word For Metro Washington Real Estate: Insane, written by Henry Savage for RealtyTimes.com…in March 2004.Almost five years ago Mr. Savage painted a picture of a thriving sellers market that had gained so much momentum that home buyers were waiving financing and home inspections to make their offers more attractive to home sellers. As we have all witnessed, any market, whether stocks or real estate, cannot sustain this level of exuberance before something has to give.Home prices increasing 20% per year eventually results in fewer buyers for these over priced homes. Add to this mix, greedy money lenders offering low introductory interest rates (only to spike in a few years), and resulting in too many people owning homes they can’t afford. The demand for real estate begins to decrease, inventory rises, and eventually home prices drop. Sound familiar?The increase in interest rates, would also have a devastating effect on all of those buyers who purchased homes with little or no deposit and are faced with the expiration of the attractive introductory rates. Foreclosures and housing gluts would be a natural result of this market.Mr. Savage predicted this outcome in his article; stating “the bigger the boom, the bigger the bust”. Real estate, as do all markets, runs in cycles. The plight of our current market is the fall out from the golden age of real estate we experienced a few years ago.Currently, in the Metro D.C. market, the average Sold price is just under $550; a 12% increase from the same time last year. It’s not 20%, but definitely a more realistic increase one would expect. Perhaps we are entering a new cycle in real estate; one that reflects adjusted home prices, sensible lending practices, and smarter buyers.

Raise Capital With Private Investors

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If you have launched your own startup, your first biggest challenge is to raise capital. Fortunately, you choose from a lot of options to raise the funds your business needs. Among all the sources, crowdfunding is one of the best ones as it helps redefine how startups can get off the ground. In this article, we are going to help you know the benefits of raising capital with private investors through a crowdfunding platform. Read on to find out more.

Benefits of raising capital with private investors

1. Funding is not equity-based

First of all, crowdfunding is not necessarily equity-based. Although startups have the liberty to use the equity in order to catch the attention of potential investors, It’s not required to give up ownership to collect capital.

The good news is that some platforms allow their members to apply a reward-oriented approach in order to raise capital. For instance, if your business deals in a specific product, make sure you hand over a few units to your prospective investors before you roll it out for the ultimate users.

2. Attracting potential investors is easy

With crowdfunding, you can attract a lot of potential investors without putting in a lot of effort. Although you can try for angel investors, keep in mind that this process can cost you a lot of time. The reason is that you will have to pitch your small business concept several times.

On the other hand, if you use a crowdfunding platform, you will have to post your business pitch in only one place. And this page will be ready by hundreds of investors from across the globe.

These platforms have a lot of useful features that may help startups collect funds from investors. So, attracting potential investors and raising capital will be much easier using crowdfunding platforms.

3. Higher visibility

Crowdfunding can help you make your startup more visible. Since marketing may consume a large chunk of your budget, it makes sense to use a crowdfunding platform instead. For potential investors, it’s easy to fund a crowdfunding campaign.
And these activities can help boost the visibility of your brand. Plus, you can also attract investors for your next funding rounds.

The Bottom Line

If you want to raise funds for your startup, crowdfunding can be the best choice. All you need to do is become part of a crowdfunding platform and you will be able to tap into the pool of potential investors. And this will help you kick start your business and make it a success in the industry.