$40 Billion Wiped From The Australian Stock Market… AGAIN

According to News Ltd today – Is France next sick man of Europe? Europe is on the verge of a catastrophe. We could wake up one morning anytime now to hear news of tanks in the streets of Paris, Rome and Athens. Once again Australia is the (relatively) lucky country but people will be rightfully fearful with no signs of the stockmarket stabilising for some considerable time, and can be expected to turn to the security of good ol’ bricks and mortar.

IS NOW THE TIME? Today house prices in Australia are probably at or near the bottom of any post 2008 falls. Interest in property is now at a low ebb and as usual, that means the smart money is looking to buy. The killer in property right now is NRAS, a very exciting and unique special situation that very few people even know about. The NRAS opportunity is exceptional. But it won’t last. It can’t. Move fast or you’ll have another ”block of land” story to sheepishly tell your kids.

MAKE MONEY ON THE WAY IN WITH NRAS

EACH PROPERTY RECEIVES $10,000 TAX FREE

The Government has created NRAS. NRAS provides investors even a better return on their investment by providing a tax free rebate of $9,524 (Indexed by Rental CPI) per annum for a period of ten years. That means investors will receive over $10,000 TAX FREE from the Government on each and all of their NRAS investment properties over ten years.

Plus the Queensland Building Boost Grant is $10,000 /per property, for a person or corporation buying or building a new home in Queensland for a value less than $600,000 (house and land). There is no limit to how many properties per person. The grant is to assist housing affordability, increase housing supply and support employment in the housing construction industry in Queensland.

Beat the January deadline for the QLD Building Boost Grant – $10,000 TAX FREE for each property

Find out all about Queensland Boost Grant at NRAS Australia. Take the fullest advantage and always be one step ahead of other buyers, arm yourself with the best investment strategies – informed is the only way to buy!

When you listen to the short webinar you will learn:

• how you can secure $10,000 Qld Gov’t Boost Grant per property.
• how NRAS properties can be cashflow positive from year one.
• NRAS is very easily understood, you’ve just got to know about it.
• why this Government driven opportunity is available now.
• how NRAS investment property compares to any other property.
• that the Government has taken most of the guesswork out of identifying all the things you want for a great investment property such as locations for high growth areas, proximity close to schools, transport and services – all the things you want for a great investment property.
• PLUS you’ll realise you will receive a tax-free rebate of $9,524 (Indexed by Rental CPI) per annum for ten years. That’s over $10,000 TAX FREE from the Government on each NRAS investment property over ten years.

NRAS annual income tax-free incentive is currently $9,524 per property, and is CPI indexed each year. The Australian Government has intended NRAS to be a commercial, profitable investment for participants, while also assisting Australia to increase the supply of affordable housing.

To learn more, watch the short information webinar and hear all about the Government’s National Rental Affordability scheme (NRAS).

Smart as you may be, ’smartphones’ are way smarter than you think! Ever heard of QR Codes? QR – Quick Response Codes. They’ve been around for a while but starting to come of age because of the computers we call phones. And I’m lovin’ them!

Check out the one over to the right. Not the dog…the weird thing on its tongue (or look at the bigger one further down). They look the same, but they are 100% different.  All you need is a QR code reader on your smartphone. Any will do the job, but Qrafter for iPhone is pretty slick and the tech sites seem to think it’s the best of the sea of them. And it’s free. Bonus!

Now if you’ve got an iPhone get the free app Qrafter.

Alternately lick here for a selection of QR Code Readers for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7, I’d put the QR code for it, but it’ll mean zip until you unleash your phone to the world of QR Codes.

So once installed all you have to do with your QR code reader, is open the Qrafter app and point your phone so the camera can see the QR code image. And it can either save and store for later, or if you choose settings, it will automatically go to whatever information the image is designed to do. It works from screens, from printed materials, and even clothing.

Now isn’t that a marketers dream? If you’ve just scanned and tried it,  you gotta say it is pretty capital ‘C’ –  Cool!

A QR code is a description, it’s a direction and most of all it can be used powerfully as a call to action.

So why is this relevant to Real Estate? Because the marketing world is changing, and changing fast.  Technology is enabling us to either strike effectively and quickly, or miss the mark completely. You’re either part of the steamroller or part of the road.

If you are not ready for change, you ain’t going to like being irrelevant any better!

Selling a home is about getting your property in front of as many of the right kind of people as possible, in as short a time frame as possible, and be as cost effective and efficient as possible.

See it, snap it, sell it.

QR codes don’t just have to be just web addresses. It can simply be your detail as the call to action.

Just point your newly installed Qrafter app to image on the dogs tongue, and give me a call.  Talk to me about property.

This is so easy to do, it really is…and it makes a MASSIVE difference, try it and you’ll be thrilled with the results.

OK, here we go. To show you a working example let’s take a recent video I put together as an example – you’ll see it below. For other examples - you can see them on my YouTube channel - AdrianCJenkins.

Any bit of magic dust helps right? This is one of those rare occasions when simple know how = magic dust which makes you believe it might really exist. This know how makes a huge difference in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).

Video is easy for people to consume and delivered in minute to two minute soundbites. It’s perfect for our short patience and time poor society. Now you may think this is too simple to produce results…oh no!

With that in mind, you should optimise your channel page featured video. Since featured videos can be set to autoplay, we know it’s going to get views from all people visiting the channel. So, if you link another video inside the YouTube embed video, boom! People are sent straight on to your next video.

So to start off, what you’re best doing is taking your video with the highest views and begin linking. Once you see how easy it is, you’ll consider linking between all your videos, so no matter what the entry point – you always have something else to recommend people to watch.

OK cut to the chase.

Using the annotations feature of YouTube, you can easily link to other videos and even back to your channel page. Here is how to achieve this simple and very effective task.

1. Click on your highest viewed video.
2. Once open, at the top you will see a toolbar: Info and Settings / Audio Swap / Annotations/ Captions and Subtitles.
3. Click on “Annotations”.
4. You are now on the edit video page.
5. To the right hand side of your video, you will see a box with the “+ Add annotation” symbol.  When you click it enables you to choose to add a ‘text box’, ’speech bubble’ or other options.
6. Choose either ‘text box’ or ’speech bubble’ symbol and bam! A link box comes up in your video. (See screen shot below)
7. Type your comment in the Note field, then tick the box to choose to create a link at the bottom of the right hand side.
8. To position on the video, you can simply drag and drop. You can extend or reduce the time the annotation is visible in the timeline.

Creating links increases traffic to more videos

You can see just how simple this is and in action in the video below.

[youtube width="560" height="349"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM5SnP95p80[/youtube]

Watch on the timeline at One minute, the caption appears for a few seconds at the top of screen and the link is live. “If you like the video, click to join my YouTube channel.”

You can put as many links to as many videos as you like. Obviously there is a balance on what works for you, and what will detract from the experience of the video your viewers are watching. But, as long as your annotations are not TOO intrusive, you’ll lift your video channel views and popularity dramatically! If you’re using your video channel commercially that = $$$!

Make your video content strong, and you’ll see your subscribers or customers grow significantly.

A huge upside of this practice is that if someone else loves your video and embeds it on their site…your links and referral to other videos and channel goes with it. So, start implementing the links and you’ll quickly agree that in my opinion, it’s the number one way to increase views on your YouTube videos.

If you think this is useful subscribe to my YouTube Channel or follow me on twitter or facebook.

All this storm in a teacup about gangsters, and bringing the Gold Coast into disrepute. Mama Puleeaase!

The video was about ‘Rockstars’, it wasn’t left to interpretation - it said so in the video. It has been raising smiles and chuckles around the traps everywhere I’ve been these last two days. How can this advert cause so much controversy?

One should probably ask what is marketing? What is its purpose?

Marketing can be defined as “the management process that seeks to maximize returns to stakeholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage”.

In the case for this property, the returns will be determined by the levels of interest generated by the promotions. The valued customers are anyone interested in property, or more specifically people in the market to buy a property. And the competitive advantage is the ability to stand out in the crowd and be noticed.

For my two cents, it’s entertaining and an innovative, creative way to showcase an absolutely beautiful home in The Sovereign Islands.

Watch the video on my next blog “How to MAX your exposure with YouTube videos” and tell me, do you think it is funny or controversial? Is it good marketing or bad marketing?

Innovate or perish in the retail world

In the retail world the route of slash prices, slash prices further with deeper discounts ultimately can only end in collapsing business or poorer and poorer quality of product manufacturing. Quality costs money. Buy cheap pay twice.

Innovators in the retail market on the other hand are flourishing. For example look into how Zara have been so incredibly successful. A phenomenon totally going against the apparent negative growth trends in fashion or apparel retail. They are innovating and taking full advantage of the opportunities that technology enables them. They respond in real time to customer demands, changing up to 40% of their stock a week – the business model is so innovative that it has been studied at Harvard - and they are growing at speed.

I know which train I’d rather be on!

Is it a case of mixed messages? Or are the messages true, but just mixed.

Is all property down, or is it an urban myth?

If the press started telling everyone for the next 3 months that the property train was pulling out of the station, likelihood is everyone would be clamoring  to get on it. Fact is all houses are different animals and they are all running at different speeds. Ultimately if the value of the property is greater than the dollars offered deals are being hatched and transactions written. The press broad brush approach to “the market is down” might be misleading buyers.

The latest Midwood Report on property trends and prices shows that average sales volumes of houses on the Gold Coast declined 25 per cent in the September quarter compared with the June half year. Prices, however, rose by more than 8 per cent in the same period. What does that tell us?

A property purchase is all about confidence in the market. And right now the press is perpetuating a sense of ‘doom and gloom’ that whilst there are doubtless pockets its not all train wreck.

If a property is to be your home, the likelihood is you will stay in it for several years. In fact the average time Australians stay in any property we own is 7.5 years for houses and 6.5 years for apartments, according to independent data supplier, RP Data.

So whilst of course we all want to buy well, with that in mind, unless you are just in it to ‘flip property for quick profits’ you can pretty safely assume its a good investment.

We’ve all heard it said in plenty of conversations that there is a shortfall in confidence  and the only constant is uncertainty. Perhaps the RBA should make a clear message of the rates one way or the other. I appreciate that a firm message on rates might trigger a flurry of activity, business might start really feeling confident and investing funds and take affirmative action on planned business activity – Heaven help us that happens! That would likely mean more jobs delivering incomes resulting in consumer spending, (in fact the very spending that keeps an economy alive and exactly what the government stimulus package was designed for).

Depending on which day you read the news the economy might be strong or weak, or simply a  the frequently referenced ‘two tier’ economy.

To mix some metaphors the RBA seem by design, to keep everyone ’sitting on the edge of their tenterhooks’, with folk  month by month second guessing rate direction and uncertainty and in most cases breathing a sigh of relief when it’s announced as staying on hold.

With confidence in the foreseeable future, and property prices down right now is the time to be shopping. Put the bloody rates up, down or on hold, but include sufficient buffer to enable taking take a longer term stance that stops everyone second guessing and worrying and we can all start executing plans.

What say you?