If you want to start investing in real estate then we have some great tips for you which can help you to ensure that you make the best success from your investment. Ali Ata has spent our 30 years in the real estate industry from real estate agent to investor and he has learned a vast amount during his career which he wants to pass on to anyone out there looking to get started in real estate investment. I asked Ali what his top tips would be for those investing in real estate, and here is what he had to say.

Understand Communities

Something which Ali says many real estate investors overlook is the wider community when they are buying property, particularly crime rates. This stands to reason of course that someone who is buying a home for their family is going to want to live in a great community and not just a great property. When you find a property that fits in with what you are looking for, you then need to look outside the property to the wider community in terms of amenities, safety and other important aspects.

Crossing State Lines

Something which Ali spoke at length about was that many investors don’t look beyond their own locality when they start investing. Whilst this makes sense given that an investor is going to feel much more comfortable in their own neighborhood or city, there can be a lot of value to be found if you look further afield.

Burgeoning Opportunities

Ali is a big fan of looking for new and burgeoning communities that will grow in the coming years and he recommends that you also learn about how you can leverage this to find more success. Keep your eyes on the news to see if there are large scale projects taking place which are going to attract a lot of investment and jobs into a certain area. This can give you the upper hand and buying properties in these areas can give you a great deal of value.

Fix It First Time

Ali concedes that he has made oversights throughout his investment career and one of those was not repairing something in a property of his prior to renting it out. Because of this one of his big tips is that if you buy a property and there are things to fix, get them done before you even consider renting out the property. Failure to do this could easily come back and bite you at a later date, which is why it is so important to get it out of the way first.

The final tip which Ali gave was to understand customer trends and what types of property are the easiest to sell and rent. Once you are able to grasp the customer trends you are going to be in a much better position to make your investment really work for you.

 

When it comes down to needing money quickly, it’s hard to find a faster solution than Hard Money Bankers. The company, based in Maryland but serving individuals across the mid-Atlantic, has made the process as fast as possible. This allows people to pounce on real estate investment opportunities before the competition track things down.

Not only is speed important, but trust is important as well. A lot of people believe that Hard Money Bankers might just be the most trusted lender in Philadelphia right now. That’s a huge statement for a city that size, but their track record backs it up.

A simple, efficient application process

No one wants to have to fill out form after form when getting money for and investment opportunity. Wasting just a little bit of time can be the difference between capitalizing on a great deal and missing out. That’s why HMB has made sure that they have the most simplified application process online.

Anyone searching for Philadelphia hard money lenders will see that they just need to fill out a few answers to get started with HMB. From there, some individuals prefer to contact the company and get information that way. Others want to do as much as possible online, and that is also available.

Outstanding reviews

Take a look online, and HMB has some of the best overall reviews in the industry. That’s saying a lot since there are a fair amount of companies offering money in the same way. The only problem is, some Philadelphia hard money loans have hidden terms and fees, which is going to kill their reputation.

All details are available for any person to sift through before signing with HMB. The goal of the company is to be as open as possible. Any company that does not try to stay open with their customers should be considered shady.

Easy repayment process

Just as the application process is straightforward and easy to accomplish, the repayment process is very easy as well. Everything can be done online, which saves time and effort. Anyone who works in the real estate industry always has a pretty hectic schedule, and it can sometimes be hard to keep up with all the different payments. There is an auto payment option for people who want to pay back the money if they wish.

Building trust with every location

With a presence in a handful of states, Hard Money Bankers is attempting to grow into areas all the time. Philadelphia is one of the major markets in the United States and getting more and more people to sign up is going to build up its reputation. As long as the company continues to stay strong and offer something that provides great value, customers will continue using them. It’s hard to find a company to truly trust when applying for hard money loan, but once it is found, everyone should be holding onto it as much as possible.

There are lots of factors to think about when it comes to satisfying the expansion needs of any business. Investing in a traditional structure is not always the best choice when you consider the current economic situation of the world as a whole. In fact, securing the cash necessary to build one can be challenging.

For a long time now, investing in a temporary industrial building has been a more affordable alternative to permanent structures. This is the reason it has gained popularity among lots of companies in recent years.

In this post, we will take a quick look at how you can reduce the cost of expansion by buying used temporary industrial buildings.

UNPARALLELED CHOICE

There are many huge used structures available in the market today and used temporary industrial buildings are no exemption. They are suitable for all applications and industries. Ranging from washrooms and toilets, marketing suites and offices to classrooms and storage, you will always find something that will suit your business. The fun part is that it is more affordable than investing in new temporary industrial buildings.

These buildings can be reassembled easily to suit the expansion requirements of your company. This implies that you have nothing to fear if you do not find the actual structure type that you need.

 

TIMESCALE REDUCTION

One of the most time-efficient ways to expand your business is by using used temporary industrial buildings. Sometimes it may take a few years to build a permanent structure, which will mean that you may need to spend more to complete the building process. However, it only takes a few weeks to complete the assembly of temporary buildings. Check this site to hire a temporary building.

This implies that you can quickly go about carrying out your daily business activities without having to pause production.

 

THE DURABILITY FACTOR

In a lot of cases, many companies only see temporary structures as a quick and temporary fix that will require a huge refurbishment over time. In some cases, they even see them as structures that will require replacement as time goes on. However, temporary buildings are quite durable and can last up to 60 years if you take good care of them.

This implies that you can still get a huge benefit from temporary industrial buildings that are 12, or 25 years old. Typically, they are built to continue serving their purpose for some decades — if you buy them from a reliable source.

This means that you don’t have to cough up a lot of cash to renovate your structures every 10 to 15 years.

 

LIFECYCLE AND RESALE COST

Temporary industrial buildings are so flexible that they give you a low lifecycle cost and an amazing lifetime value. Under a typical circumstance, used temporary industrial buildings often cost half what new ones do. Temporary structures can be restructured, developed, or extended to meet the expansion requirements of your company.

 

If you are in a dire need of a cheap and durable means of expanding your company, you should consider buying used temporary industrial buildings.

It’s tempting for marketing gurus to declare that the print aspect of marketing is “dead” and, for this reason, that many businesses and organisations would be ill-advised to seriously consider utilising it. However, sometimes, the falling popularity of a marketing method can provide a strong incentive to use it.

After all, the fewer competitors of your firm who do use it, the more you can stand out simply by doing the opposite. Just consider the following off-kilter means of utilising print marketing.

Distribute printed books rather than ebooks

One well-worn marketing method in the B2B space is making and publishing ebooks as an alternative way of showing text and infographics that, otherwise, you might have preferred to save for blog posts. However, switching to printed books instead could pay off in the current culture.

That’s because, as LinkedIn points out, sales of printed books have recently increased as ebook sales have declined, largely due to younger readers’ preference for the paper-based offering.

Try printing out magazines, too

Remember the print magazine? Okay, so it’s not quite dead – but, over time, its popularity seems to have been eroded by the digital space, where websites serve many of the purposes previously met by those papery periodicals. However, statistics hint that you could benefit from bucking the trend.

In one study, customer magazines were found to boost brand loyalty by 32%, while 44% of all customers receiving a magazine act positively on it. Furthermore, independent editorial content in consumer magazines can, on average, improve the corporate brand image by 9%.

Embark on a direct mail campaign

Yes, evidence suggests that doing so can still be useful. The US Postal Service has reported that, of direct mail recipients, about two-thirds were swayed into visiting a particular website. This shows how you can cleverly use print marketing to augment your online efforts.

Besides, as acknowledged in a Forbes article, direct mail remains effective for reaching older people who are especially inclined to read long-copy mailers.

Direct mailers can take many different forms, all of which you could make a reality through utilising the right printing equipment from a manufacturer such as Duplo International.

Make print materials compatible with AR

Whether or not you reckon AR (augmented reality) is the future of technology or simply a silly fad, you can’t deny its effectiveness in the right circumstances. Just look at how the AR game Pokemon GO took off upon its 2016 release, while AR remains influential through Snapchat.

As AR is about overlaying digital elements on views of the real world, this technology can prove surprisingly useful in print marketing. Imagine someone being able to point their smartphone camera at your print ad and see a digital image suddenly spring to life on it!

Resonating with hyper-local markets

There are certain industries, like that of private investigators, where people still find the businesses and services they need by consulting print directories. For this reason, if your sector is particularly specialist, you shouldn’t forget about inserting ads into these directories.

 

If you have kids or other commitments that mean you have to stay home for much of the day, you may be considering starting a career from home. The benefits of starting a lifelong journey from the comfort of your own house are clear, but the paths by which you can do it might be a little fuzzier. To help you out, here are eight exciting careers that you can start from your office at home. Some can be done at home for the rest of your life, while some only start at home and give you the option to continue in an external work environment if you only need to work from home for a couple of years. With so much to choose from, you’re bound to find an exciting career that suits you perfectly.

• Virtual Assistant

Outsourcing is a more and more common way that businesses support themselves due to the virtual nature of the internet. A business can be run entirely from one computer if enough jobs are outsourced. Why not cash in on that and help a business remotely from home? Businesses need a lot more help nowadays as the internet has eliminated 9-5 opening times, so becoming a virtual assistant and offering your talent at organization and communication is a great opportunity. There’s essentially no start-up cost as well, and you don’t need a specific degree.

• Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is a popular online career due to the potential to scale a business easily. Affiliate programs are a marketing technique that is often the first ways many businesses can earn income online. It is simply the process of earning commission for a product that you recommend. This is perfect if you’re in touch with a lot of friends that value your opinion and can be combined with other great home-careers.

• Running a Blog

Being a blogger is a lot more profitable than it was at the start of the internet. If you create engaging content that people want to read about things that you are passionate about, you can make a decent living. You need to build a loyal audience, which only comes by being genuinely excited about your blogging topic, as well as being much more expert than the average person. If you attract enough of a following, you can monetize via advertising or selling your own product/service.

• Social Media Consultant

Do you use social media? Are you good at it? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, you should consider being a social media consultant for a brand. These social-media wizards are responsible for attracting new customers and promoting businesses through cutting-edge social media channels. A good consultant can manage many channels at one time and can make good money by working from home. It also has the potential to be a fun, enjoyable and creative job.

• Web Designer

Entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly popular, and for every business looking to attract customers there is a website that needs to be created. Freelance web designers who can deliver an attractive site that gets the job done are in high demand right now, and with platforms like Fiverr, you can serve clients well from across the globe. Before you start charging though, you need a portfolio, which does take a bit of time. You also need to have the expert tech-knowledge to build and manage a website, which is not for everybody.

• Criminologist

This may sound impossible, but many expert criminologists actually get started by working not in a police department, but from their own home. Many countries require at least a BA degree in Criminology before jobs like forensic psychologists are put on the table, and Canada is no different. However, with just a customary search for online criminology degree Canada, you’ll see that it is very possible to achieve a criminology BA remotely. Going for an online degree is perfect for those who only want to work from home for a couple of years, and the employability opportunities are excellent. It’s probably the most exciting job on this list and gives you the chance to contribute to societal change.

• Teacher

It is also possible to get some teaching qualifications online, and the benefit of this is that it allows you to have the flexibility of going on to teach in real life, or just staying at home and teaching through Skype or Zoom, which are favored for its ability to integrate a virtual workspace. If you’re a good enough tutor, you can make a lot of money, and many find teaching one of the most satisfying jobs around.

• Content Writer

There are so many websites on the internet, and if they want to be looked upon favorably by Google’s SEO prioritization, they need to feature original engaging content. That means there are thousands of websites that need content creators. If you love to write, spread information and learn a lot (you’ll have to do a lot of research), this job might be for you! Typically, companies pay you by the article, so this is a job that pays more the longer you do it as you get more efficient. It also offers flexible hours, which suits those who might have some days freer than others or have a social life that extends to weekdays.

Working entirely from home is more possible now than at any point in history (not counting those who live and work on a farm). That’s due to one factor that connects all of these occupations – the use of a computer. If you’re looking to work entirely from home without using computers, you may find it impossible. If consistent internet or a broken computer is an issue, most local libraries have computers you can use for free.

Alternatively, you could try and amend some of these jobs for a more low-tech field. You could become an affiliate marketer using just a telephone, and could certainly try your hand at being a virtual PA with just a landline and a diary. Either way, working from home can be a pleasure due to its flexibility and control. Having said that, if you’re prone to getting lonely it may not be for you; but it’s worth trying as setup costs are normally minuscule, allowing you to try it for a couple of weeks with nothing to lose if it’s not for you.

 

If there’s just one word we should use to describe how Brexit will pan out, it would have to be “uncertain”. However, it is exactly because of this uncertainty that, if you are considering selling or buying a house, you might benefit from doing so now to avoid running unnecessary risks.

On the subject of its membership of the EU, the nation has asked itself “should I stay or should I go” more often than The Clash. However, whatever your own stance on the issue, it’s not too hard to assess how the Brexit factor has impacted UK property prices so far.

The immediate effect of the referendum

Figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that UK house prices have steadily increased since roughly the beginning of 2013. However, since June 2016, when the British public voted to leave the EU, this growth rate has dramatically slowed.

Whereas that rate was 8.2% in June 2016, it had dropped to 0.9% by June 2019, as the Mirror recalls. Average prices of UK houses continued to rise until peaking at £232,000 and, in June 2019, sat at £230,000, according to the ONS.

The north-south divide in the housing market

How has the housing market fared more recently? One report by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and relayed by Bloomberg reveals that, in August, house sales were flat or negative in most areas of the UK, with RICS’s headline index of prices negative.

Still, one picture that becomes clear when August property prices are studied is that of London and surrounding regions suffering the most in the market’s post-referendum downtown. Whereas outright declines in prices were reported in London, the South East and East Anglia, values in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are said to have stayed resilient.

Should you buy a house now?

It could prove a surprisingly convenient time to seal a property purchase. Nationwide building society says that the average UK house price sat at £216,096 in August – £1,567 lower than the value a month earlier, as the Guardian reports.

Furthermore, with the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit intensifying, it’s understandable why, as Rightmove director Miles Shipside has claimed, “more buyers are now going for the certainty of doing a deal” rather than postponing it and risking a no-deal Brexit complicating matters yet further.

Buying now, while prices are historically low, also means that you could save some money to spend later on improving that home, should it turn out to have a few previously unnoticed issues.

For example, if you quickly finalise the purchase of a house in the North East, where Rightmove reveals the number of house sales soared by up to 10% in August, rest assured that roofers in Newcastle, Sunderland and nearby can be at close hand should you come across a leak.

While a no-deal Brexit could sink property prices further, it could also curb your ability to afford a house in the first place, with interest rates and job losses potentially increasing.

 

The rise of the internet and its advance into various fields of life has been a very positive factor for the most part. We now have access to more information than ever before, to the point where we’re starting to place less emphasis on a person’s ability to retain knowledge, and more on their ability to find the information that’s relevant to each problem.

But it’s also brought about some problematic developments. It’s easier than ever to break into a company and extract useful information from it, and a skilled industrial spy doesn’t even have to physically interact with the organization in any way these days. Protecting yourself against this is a critical component of running an organization of any scale.

You’re Not an Exception

The biggest mistake you could make is to think that you’re safe just because you’re a small fish. And it makes no sense. Does the small corner mom-and-pop store leave its doors unlocked just because there’s a huge supermarket next door? Quite on the contrary, smaller companies are just as attractive to data thieves, because they can usually expect to deal with weaker security… and in most cases, they are right.

Constant Training is a Must

You have to train your employees on identifying common attacks like phishing, general forms of social engineering, malware, and so on. Instill proper security practices, like forcing a strong password and other similar factors. Penalize those who deviate from the norm and reward those who demonstrate a strong security culture. Remember the old saying – a chain is as strong as its weakest link. If a single employee in your organization is behind everyone else in their security knowledge and practices, then your entire company is at risk. And it only has to happen once.

Investigating Suspicious Cases

From time to time, you’ll discover something unusual in the activity of your employees. It’s not a good idea to play detective and attempt to figure out what’s going on by yourself in these cases though. It takes a lot of expertise to do it properly, and more importantly, without alerting the potential spy that you’re on to them. Contact a company like Secure Forensics that provide computer forensics in Los Angeles and across the US and let them deal with the situation. That way, you’ll be sure that you’re not missing any important details that can potentially change the whole context of the situation. And that’s quite common in cases like these.

Never underestimate the potential of maintaining a strong security culture in your organization, no matter its scale. Even if it’s just you and your buddy from college, everything we said above still applies. And the larger your company grows, the more of a concern this is going to become. Not just because you’ll be a more attractive target with your growing assets, but because you’ll have a constantly growing number of employees to oversee, and each of them will be a potential security weakness. Prepare yourself for this in advance, because there’s no way to avoid it.

 

Whether you’ve had experience of running a company before, or you’re new to the business world, staying up to date with the latest developments in your field is important. The CBD industry is becoming increasingly popular. With many users of CBD claiming a wide range of health benefits, it’s inevitable that many entrepreneurs are seeing the benefits and deciding to set up business. If you’re thinking of starting a CBD business, here is what you need to know.

Understanding CBD

Whether you’ve tried CBD oil before, or you have little to no knowledge in the field, getting to grips with the potential health benefits can help when it comes to engaging with customers. Many people use CBD oil to help treat a range of ailments, such as pain and inflammation, anxiety and depression, insomnia, and MS symptoms such as muscle spasms. While CBD oil is legal to use in every state, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) are yet to approve CBD oil as a medicine, therefore, it’s crucial that you don’t label your CBD oil products as medicinal drugs.

Have a Business Plan

To increase the chances of your CBD business being a success, you need to have a thorough business plan laid out. Outlining your objectives and goals, sales forecast, the types of consumers you plan to sell to, as well as what products and services you will deliver can help you stay on track and organized. If you aren’t prepared before launching your CBD business, it’s likely that you will fall at the first hurdle. With so many established CBD businesses already in operation, doing all that you can to stand out is important.

Know the Law

Before starting a CBD business, you need to know that selling CBD products is regarded as a risky business, especially when you take into account the federal government’s stance on cannabis. Many activists and organizations are trying their best to reform marijuana laws which adds some risks when it comes to launching a CBD business. Staying in the know and adhering to the laws and regulations will help ensure you’re operating your company legally and above board.

Finding a Supplier

Customers need to trust and believe in your CBD business. If you don’t have much knowledge in this field, it’s important that you do as much research as possible into the various suppliers who could benefit your company. Any CBD products that you sell should have a certificate of analysis which will provide reassurance to your consumers. You may be interested in using Cope CBD who sell a variety of private label CBD products.

Marketing Your Brand

If you’re not tech savvy, you will either need to brush up on your knowledge or employ a marketing team to help build awareness of your business. Whether it’s being active on social media platforms like Facebook, or creating a blog for customers, how you market your brand is important. On your business website, you may want to include a live chat function which will enable you to directly communicate with your customers, helping to assist with answering any queries that they may have.

Having extensive knowledge of CBD is important. For customers to trust your brand, you need to know what you’re talking about. Also, creating a detailed business plan, staying up to date with laws and regulations, as well as finding the best supplier for your products can help increase the chances of your CBD business becoming a success.

To read more on topics like this, check out the business category.