Who are Perfect Foreign Buyers for Your Property for Sale during Covid-19?

While traveling is restricted all over the world, it’s obvious that just only international INVESTORS are still buying profit-making real estate in foreign countries – as buying for their own families vacations would usually require personal visits and viewing of the property they want to buy.

Let’s look at 2 recent descriptions of condos for sale in South Florida – both are 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, more or less the same asking price around $300k AND in the same very rare(!) building in Miami-Dade county that allows short-term rentals:

1. “ALLOWED SHORT TERM RENTALS, 1 block from the beautiful beaches, 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. The unit offers open views and very bright natural light, excellent for investors. LOW- EXPENSES WITH HIGH RETURNS, large balcony/terrace, open view of the park, assigned parking. The HOA includes maintenance of common areas, water, waste, cable, and internet. The areas close to restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, and more”

AND

2. “Here comes a great corner unit! These corners are almost never for sale. Now is the chance to acquire one! In absolutely perfect condition and furnished with high quality furniture. Good taste all over. One block to the beach, restaurants, shops, etc. Can make a 3rd bedroom with the den if desired”

So, being an investor, would you consider the first or the second condo??? The answer is obvious – what investor would care about the “good taste” of the previous owner of the second unit while the “short-term rentals are allowed” in the first one!!!

Pay attention to features attractive for investors and you’ll be able to sell your property successfully to foreign buyers even at the times of crisis.

Happy blog reading,

Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2020 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

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Tips on Real Estate Translations

To continue the previous topic of foreign languages in real estate marketing to foreign buyers: I expect that covering practical questions about translation would be interesting for many property sellers, realtors and developers.

Of course, you are lucky if you master a foreign language of your potential buyers yourself. It’s a fact that some of the foreign buyers prefer a bilingual realtor who speaks his language too, in a foreign country where the buyer is going to purchase a property.

Not all the buyers prefer a realtor of their own national original though – some international buyers think that it’s better to use a realtor in a foreign country who belongs to “the natives” so to speak. It’s a fact too.

Thus, if you do not know the language of the country from which you want to attract the buyers, you have to use translation services in your real estate marketing and communication with the foreigners. (The costs are negligible in comparison with the sales potential!)

I’ve already written a lot on the best ways of getting the most effective real estate marketing in the foreign languages and at the same time saving as much as possible (without losing quality!) on translation.

Here are some links to my articles on the topic:

-How to Choose the Right Translator (Part 1)
https://foreignbuyers.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/choose-right-translator-part-1/

-How to Choose the Right Translator (Part 2)
https://foreignbuyers.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/choose-right-translator-part-2/

-How to save on translation of marketing material and local communication help for foreign buyers (Part 1)
https://foreignbuyers.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/save-translation-marketing-material-local-communication-help-foreign-buyers-1/

-How to save on translation of marketing material and local communication help for foreign buyers (Part 2)
https://foreignbuyers.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/save-translation-marketing-material-local-communication-help-foreign-buyers-2/

-English Russian Translator Olga Kellen (these are my own credentials)
http://www.english-and-russian.com/english-russian-translator.html

Happy blog reading,
Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2019 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

How to Build Trust with Real Estate Foreign Buyers and Partners (Foreign Brokers)

During the summer holiday I’ve completed and published the new e-book on Amazon: *Build Trust with Buyers and Partners: Practical Advice to Achieve Success in International Real Estate Sales* http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FZ86G93

Why is the topic really important to get success with the foreign buyers and realtors (if you want to bring them on board)?

As Forbes says: “Trust is the most valuable business commodity”, thus we take it for granted that without establishing trust with your foreign buyers directly or with the cooperating foreign brokers first, who in their turn would be trusted by the buyers they send you, there will be no sale.

Ok, what do the international real estate buyers want? Actually the same as your local buyers want: to purchase great properties for great prices, from a seller or realtor they can trust.

But how are the foreign buyers different from your local buyers? Three major aspects: language, culture and distance. To achieve trust (and thus sales!) you have to meet the buyers’ expectations in all three: marketing to them in their language, adjusting your message culturally if required, and disclosing full information about the property for sale upfront.

Throughout the e-book we call our target real estate buyers: “international”, “overseas”, “foreign” or “foreigners” as a general large group. But in real life they are Chinese, Russian, German, and French and so on, and each nationality of buyers (a sub-group) would require a specific approach in terms of their own language, culture, and internet, if you want to market and sell real estate to them. Find your own promising niche of the international buyers (nationality) and address them accordingly.

Establishing trust with your international buyers before being able to close a real property sale is a very significant factor of your success in this business, and hopefully you will find all six parts of this e-book helpful in this regard.

They cover the following topics:

-Why trust is the most essential ingredient in being able to close the real estate deal with a foreigner eventually?

-How has language become not only a tool of communication, but trust building too?

-How are the foreign buyers different from the real estate buyers from your own country?

-What’s the difference between realtors, their duties and work in various countries?

-How can your first email to the foreign realtors become the first step to building trust?

-How can you make your property listing (online presentation) instilling trust remotely?

Happy blog reading,

Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

Who Else Can Help You with Selling Investment Properties to Foreign Buyers?

In the previous post we have discussed how foreign travel agents might be capable and willing to help you with selling real estate (especially vacation properties) to the foreign buyers.

There is one more group of professionals in the foreign countries that can help you with selling investment properties to the foreign investors. Would you like an expert in investing to recommend your property to his clients who are looking for the best opportunities to invest their money? Yes!

These professionals go under various names: investment consultants, financial planners, wealth managers, and the like. They help their clients with analyzing various options of investing, and real estate is one of them.

You have to research the playing field of such consultants in the foreign countries that you have chosen as your target to get the foreign buyers for your investment property.

I can talk about Russia from the position of authority, for example. The profession of an investment consultant is rather new over there, but there are already schools for their education, and institutions and private persons start to understand the value of using their services.

Not all of such consultants deal with real estate though, some only concentrate on paper investing like domestic and international stocks, etc. So, you have to look through the list of services that each one of the investment consultants provide and choose wisely.

No doubt, you have to prepare a good detailed financial description of your investment property to make sure that the consultants you approach would be convinced that it’s a solid and profitable investment for their clients – then they would be able to offer your property for sale to their clients, and you’ll be a happy camper selling to the foreign buyers.

Note: Of course, the foreign realtors might be your major cooperating partners in real estate sales, also having international sales without your own spending on marketing in the foreign countries. A condensed knowledge on the subject has been published as an e-book on Amazon, here’s the link: How to Find the Best Foreign Realtors and Make Your Offer of Cooperation in Sale Irresistible to Them (E-Series: How to Beat Your Competition Selling Real Estate to Foreign Buyers Book 1)

Happy blog reading,
Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

Who Can Help You with Selling Properties to Foreign Buyers

On this blog we have talked a lot about involving foreign realtors as partners in your real estate sales to foreign buyers, as a road to be successful in selling real estate internationally without spending on marketing in foreign countries.

(Note: a condensed knowledge on the subject has been published as an e-book on Amazon, here’s the link: How to Find the Best Foreign Realtors and Make Your Offer of Cooperation in Sale Irresistible to Them (E-Series: How to Beat Your Competition Selling Real Estate to Foreign Buyers Book 1))

There is another large group of foreign professionals that might be interested to ship you the foreign buyers and get a commission on sales – travel agents in the foreign countries. At least this is true for Russia, where many travel agencies also offer properties for sale in the countries where they send Russian travelers.

Of course, nowadays some Russians prefer to book their travel online, but the majority use the travel agents for convenience: flights, hotels (or apartment and villa rentals!), transfers, excursions (if interested) and visas (if any required) – all in one place!

Let’s look at some Russian travel agencies’ websites, and we can see that many of them have “Properties for Rent Abroad” and “Properties for Sale Abroad” on their websites.

Thus, if you have done your research and are convinced that the Russian buyers might be interested to purchase your properties, go ahead and contact with your offer of co-operation as many travel agencies in Russia that you may find.

The same is true for other buying countries, especially if their citizens need a visa to come to your country where you have properties for sale, as the travel agencies in such countries usually take care of obtaining visas for the travelers they serve, which makes it enticing for a traveler to use their services instead of going a do-it-yourself route with a lot of running around (physically and online) to get a visa, book a flight, rent a place to stay, etc.

Happy blog reading,
Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

A Little Known Secret of Promoting Your Real Estate Services to Foreign Buyers

How to be considered an acknowledged expert in real estate in your country/area in the eyes of the foreign buyers and sell properties to them as a result? Free and easy, although requires some work in the foreign internet.

Become an Expert

1. Find the major real estate portals on the foreign internet of the foreign country of your desirable international buyers.

2. Look at their “Consult an expert”, “Ask a question” or any similar section and pay attention to questions/answers and experts that consult about your particular country.

3. Find out how to register on the portal to be able to answer questions about your country’s real estate.

4. You’ll see that all experts/consultants answering the portal visitors’ questions have a clickable link to their websites – and that’s exactly what you need!

5. Anybody interested in real estate in your country will come to your website through this link and buy from you, not from anybody else, as you already had established yourself as an expert!

6. The more questions you answer, the more links to your website you’ll get from that foreign real estate portal with high traffic and high position in the foreign internet. If the links go to your real estate page in the according foreign language, this page of yours will go up and up in the major search engines in that foreign internet. And this will become a significant source of the targeted traffic of your potential foreign buyers!

7. Now you’d like to ask a question I guess: how can you do all of the above if you don’t know the foreign language of your potential buyers – to properly participate in the described activities? Well, there are two ways to accomplish such a promotion: hire a bilingual associate or employ a freelance translator’s help (the cost of which will be just a tiny amount in comparison with your commission on international sales to the foreign buyers).

Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

More on Real Estate Online Promotion to Foreign Buyers

In the previous post we have discussed the easiest and fastest way of promoting your new web presentation of properties for sale to the foreign buyers: placing ads on foreign real estate portals and linking them to your web page in the according foreign language.

It supplies the constant traffic of targeted foreign buyers, but costs money of course. Another issue with this promotion: it exists as long as you pay for your ads, but disappears immediately as soon as you stop paying the portal for advertising.

There are other options of showing your web presentation of real estate for sale to the foreign buyers, and these options are free and these links stay forever – isn’t it great?

Of course, instead of paying for advertising, you have to spend your own valuable time if you know the foreign language of the prospective real estate buyers and do the promotion yourself. Or you have to have a bilingual assistant or a third party helper (a freelance translator), but it’s much cheaper than advertising, and what is the most attractive – you stay on the foreign buyers’ radar forever!

Here we are talking about some third party websites that concern your country’s real estate in the foreign internet – forums, for example, where people share their opinions, personal experiences, ask and answer questions about properties similar to yours.

Some of such forums allow outside links in the discussions – and this is exactly what you need! Register to participate, say something meaningful, include a link to your page in that foreign language, and here we go – you have targeted visitors from this forum where people gather on the foreign internet who are interested in what you might offer them!

Case Study

Recently I’ve got a request for services from Mauritius – to help with promoting their local commercial real estate for sale to the Russian buyers. To offer a justified and effective marketing plan to my client, I had to learn about the country and its presence on the Russian internet first of all.

Mauritius is a tiny island state off the coast of Africa, a vacation spot, popular with the Russians. And we know that where people love to travel, they often buy properties.

Among other things I’ve looked at the Russian forums about Mauritius. And voila – there is an investment forum on the first page of my search that among other things talks about investing in real estate in Mauritius and I see a link posted by a registered user to his website. It’s a great opportunity for the future promotion of the Russian web presentation of my client’s properties in Mauritius!

This is the way to go for any other internet in any other language to attract the foreign buyers from any country you consider worthy of your marketing efforts.

Happy blog reading,

Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

 

How to Promote Your Online Brochure to Foreign Buyers

In the previous post we have started to talk about the cost-effective way of marketing real estate to foreign buyers on the foreign internet by creating a separate page in that foreign language on your English website.

Now let’s talk more about the direct promotion of such a page on the foreign internet – to deliver the info to as many potential foreign buyers as possible (still without robbing a bank).

As mentioned earlier, we can’t really rely on the foreign search engines to automatically place such a single new page anywhere high enough in their organic search results, so we need to do something to have visitors, right? After all, you’ve created the page to attract attention and get sales, not to sit invisible.

I always compare the case of a website (or page) without any promotion done to the following situation: you have designed and printed thousands of beautiful marketing brochures and then, instead of giving them away, you put them in the basement where nobody would ever see them. Does it make any sense to spend on creating and producing the brochures in the first place?

The fastest, easiest and effective (not the cheapest maybe) method of getting potential foreign buyers to see your new page and learn about you, your services and your offers of real estate for sale in their language would be your ads on the foreign real estate portals linked to the page you want to promote.

Your target foreign internet searchers – the potential foreign buyers of your properties – visit such portals very often and in great numbers, as they know that tons of properties might be found there. Being there you get your share of the targeted internet traffic and may successfully compete with other sellers of some similar properties.

Yes, the ads cost money, but some careful researching of the portal’s traffic numbers and pricing would allow you to find the best cost-effective portal or several. Also pay attention to strategically place your ads where the most searchers for your country’s properties would go on the portal (ads on a country’s specific portal page may be cheaper than on the home page, for example).

Happy blog reading,

Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

3 Tips: How to Save on Marketing Real Estate to Foreign Buyers

Selling real estate to foreign buyers is a lucrative business, but to get to the field would cost money… How to reduce your initial marketing costs?1. Do your due diligence

Research carefully your possibilities to sell your area properties to some particular groups of international buyers, and choose first of all only the most promising one to concentrate on this language internet to market your properties. If there are other promising groups (languages) as well, put them on the back burner for a while and thus save your marketing budget.

(Go back to some old posts of this blog to check on choosing the foreign countries for your real estate marketing.)

2. Look carefully at your marketing texts before sending them for translation, and brush them up according to the needs of your prospective foreign buyers only. Eliminating things that have no interest for the foreigners will reduce your word count and the total cost of translation this way.

3. Instead of creating a foreign language working copy of your full website, make just one informative separate page in the foreign language on your existing website. It can serve as a short combination of “About us”, “Our area”, “Our properties” and “Contact us”.

Also place a couple of your typical properties for sale (with photos and descriptions) on this page and a link to your catalogue/search (that will stay in English for now). There will be no urgent need to update these typical properties often, and thus you save on translation and web design.

This way you’ll have an online “brochure” in the foreign language of your first choice for international real estate marketing. You can’t count on the foreign search engines to place such a single page high in their visitors’ searches of course.

Anyway, you have the following powerful options to show up in front of the foreign buyers’ eyes:

a. Find business partners in the target country to co-operate with you in sales and allow them to copy your typical properties for their own advertising (with their own contacts of course) and they will send you buyers.

b. Place an ad on a foreign real estate portal and link it to this foreign language page of yours, thus you’ll have a steady traffic of the foreign buyers from that foreign country.

c. Find forums on the foreign internet that is your target, where people discuss your country’s real estate, post some meaningful opinions with links to your brochure in their language, etc. This way you’ll also bring the targeted traffic of buyers to your properties. (Note: there are also other known promotion methods you can use for your online brochure on the foreign internet.)

Happy blog reading,

Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator

Copyright © 2018 by Olga Kellen
All Rights Reserved

 

Foreign Buyers of Real Estate in Florida, U.S.A.

In the previous post we have established that in the U.S.A. some particular groups of the foreign buyers prefer to purchase properties in some particular states.

Let’s look at Florida as an example and find out the details that can be very useful if a Florida real estate seller (realtor, developer) wants to attract the foreign buyers to his property by proper real estate marketing.

As the Florida Association of Realtors reports, the international buyers purchased more than 61 000 properties (which made up 15% of the Florida residential market) in the last year, and paid more than $24 billion for that. The median price of homes sold to foreigners was 18% higher than the locals spent on a home. 72% of the foreigners paid cash.

The following countries send buyers to Florida (in round numbers):

-Canada (both parts) – 22% of all international buyers in Florida
-Brazil – 7%
-United Kingdom – 6%
-Venezuela – 6%
-Argentina – 5%

Then Colombia, Germany, France, China, Mexico, Ecuador, Turkey, Israel, Russia, etc. follow. See, how many languages and cultures they represent?

You really have to choose your major marketing venues wisely. And knowledge of which national group of buyers prefers what Florida destinations, would definitely help you – for example, according the Florida Association of Realtors:

“In Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area buyers are predominantly Latin American and Caribbean (46 percent), as well as Canadian (19 percent) and European, Russian including, (18 percent).

“In Orlando- Kissimmee-Sanford area buyers are mainly Latin American and Caribbean (37 percent), European (22 percent), and Asian (15 percent).

“In Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area there is a more even mix of buyers from Canada (32 percent), Europe (23 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (17 percent), and Asia (17 percent).”

Etc. Where exactly is your property for sale located in Florida?

To start your international marketing, you have to research your own area in terms of which foreign buyers’ group or groups would like to purchase here and what language (s) they speak and search internet for properties to buy. Then your real estate marketing to these particular group or groups of the foreign buyers will be successful.

Happy blog reading,
Olga Kellen,
The Amazon Author
International Marketing Consultant and English-Russian Translator