Real Estate And Surfing | The Zen Of New Thinking

I am officially a Ventura, California local now, I have a surfer as a client after 2 year!  

Seriously:  I am inspired this morning, this project really got me thinking about several things you may not think are related:

• The Zen and culture around surfing
• Investment in California Real Estate
• Venture capital, private placements, REIT’s  (private real estate investment trusts)
• Opportunities for real estate professionals
• Online Marketing

I promise not to bore you:

The Zen and culture around surfing..

Interesting:  I have been in Ventura California for a little over two years now.  I was flabbergasted initially: how could this place remain so inexpensive, unpopulated: when it is sooo beautiful.  After a couple of months of visiting chamber of commerce meetings and local leads groups,  I described trying to sell to a surfer like talking to one third of a person; the other two thirds: one third is wondering when the surf will be up again, and one third thinking that somewhere in the world it is 4:20.

If you wonder why anybody would want to sell anything to a surfer, you are not from around here.  Many high level executives, trust fund babies, and business owners surf: you must interface with surfers to live here.  They have a culture, a Zen:

• They love their lives and their sport
• They are experts at many other things and surfing, and all of them are experts at keeping their priorities straight

I have learned to respect and value their perspective on life in general: as in Real Estate, and in life, priorities matter: our lives are greatly affected by the decisions that we make.

Investment in California Real Estate

It is absolutely amazing to me: I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, but always thought of southern California as an over-populated mess.  I had only seen it by flying in for conventions – I had no idea: most of California is wide open spaces, really.  If more people knew this, there would be twice as many people, and there would still be plenty of room: the endless miles of pristine beaches with no population at all; if you are not from here, you do not know or you would be here.  Think about this: do not expect this to change anytime soon: the growth hasn’t even begun, really.  With the changes taking place in how people work and live (at home), the landscape of roads, cities, and population demographics, Zoning; all are in for wholesale change, and, with change, comes opportunity.

Venture capital, private placements, REIT’s  (private real estate investment trusts)

Jeff Belzer  is a surfer, with local fiends: he grew up here, and owns a local surf school where everyone’s kids learn to surf safely.  If you have every been to this part of California, or Santa Barbara, Carpenteria, many other coastal towns here: then you know that there are mainly thee elements to society here:

1. The already rich (trust fund babies, entertainment relatives, etc..)
2. The people who work on their cars, tend bar, mow lawns, wait tables…
3. The middle class here consists almost completely of military, civil service  (police, medical, fireman etc)

The simple fact is that there is plenty of money laying around doing nothing at the moment.  If I were a Realtor, or a property management professional, I would definitely be putting together a private offering to raise money to buy REO opportunities and flip them: in Jeff Belzer’s's case, he knows the people who he taught to surf, they have the money, and they like him: perfect!  The question comes to mind: how many of you are in a similar position to raise a pool of investment funds?  How timely is this when there is so much money sitting on the sidelines, and nobody knows where to put it??  WAKE UP! SOMETHING IS MOVING AND YOU ARE BEING LEFT BEHIND!

Opportunities for real estate professionals:

You can go to PPMFast.com: this is the best place I know to get all your forms and paperwork: for under $100 you can download a complete template up-to-date and legal in your state: you just fill in the blanks and start raising money: in this country, you can start as many business as you like, raise money form anyone who will give it to you , in increments of any amount $5000, $5,000,000 whatever.  With Regulation D Rule 504 of the federal securities laws, and similar exemptions under state “Blue Sky Laws”, you can even raise $1,000,000 from up-to 35 unsophisticated, small investors without a background in business: and an unlimited number of  ‘sophisticated’ or  ‘accredited ‘  investors (most of the people a Realtor or Real Estate professional deals with fall into this category – all agents and brokers are Accredited)  Under REG D, RULE 506: you can raise AN UNLIMITED AMOUNT FROM ACCREDITED AND/OR SOPHISTICATED INVESTORS!

Why aren’t more of you doing this: you have the contacts, the expertise, and the cost is nominal??  IF YOU CAN ACTUALLY SELL REAL ESTATE, YOU CAN DO THIS!

Online Marketing: YOU HAVE A FARM ALREADY

As a real estate professional, you already have (or should have)

• an opt-in email list that reads everything you write (mine is over 5000)
• Groups at Realtown, ActiveRain, linkedin.com, Yahoo, Google…places where you can post partial articles that lead back to your blog, effectively reaching many thousands of group members for free, overnight.
• direct email is not considered public advertising – in other words, you can ask everyone if they would like to read your ‘executive summary’ (I like to ask their opinion, so they do not even realize that they are being exposed to the offering legally in the process)
• knowledge about what to buy, when, where, why in your market – every reason why they should invest with you!
• the ability to buy, sell and get paid – difficult for everyone who is not you!

You can put up a nice blog like this one I did for Jeff, create an offering, invite your list…..now what is your excuse?  Why aren’t more of you doing this?!

Now picture the Zen: you are writing in your blog, this article will be read by 20,000 people within a few hours.  They will receive it because they have opted in, to a group, or a site, or your blog, or your Facebook, twitter…and they will read it, and they are all the right people.   Do you know of more cost-effective marketing?  article done, time to see how the surf is doing…get it?  Israel: 805-827-2450

1. Jeff Belzer says:

   July 31, 2010 at 4:05 pm

   Excellent blend of social media, investment opportunity, and oh ya I surfed today. How about you?