International Networks to find real estate investors

I heard on a news article while attending a conference in Toronto, Ontario this week that Canadians now lead in terms of international investors into US markets; which is hardly a surprise to me; considering Canadian investors understand the US property markets better than anyone else; and strong CAD has also helped many Canadian investors to purchase investment or holiday properties in the south.

I am, however, very surprised to hear that majority of US real estate developers are still finding international marketing as a relatively new concept to consider; not even reaching out to some of the “easier” markets such as Canada, UK where there are very few language barriers or investment barriers compared to emerging markets or other non-English speaking markets.

I thought I might take this opportunity to highlight some of the useful strategies that can be applied if you are interested to find international investors for your properties.

Step 1: Keep all options open, and don’t just limit yourself to English speaking markets; we have been approached by many property developers in North America and Australia to market properties to Asian markets; particularly Chinese speaking investors – as they are emerging as the 2nd fastest group in international real estate investments; one article last week also suggested “Chinese offshore real estate investment” is a fast rising Chinese exporting industry!

The reason is simple (and also applies to most of Asian markets including Indian markets); housing price in Asia is just way too high; in fact, there is not even 1 city in Asia that is considered as affordable in a recent survey; as opposed to more than 90% of cities in North America is considered as affordable.

The same can be said about Australia; where no city is considered as affordable in Australia; and housing price there is often 50% to 200% higher than North American markets.

North American real estate market is a dream place for the rest of the world; and for North American developers or real estate agents, always use this as an attractive point in your marketing. Similarly, the rental yield in North America is also unheard of in other markets, a rental yield is above 7% in North America for rental property, which is 5% higher than Australian markets for instance.

Step 2: Have all the marketing tools ready. The very good marketing tools to reach global investors are: multimedia tools, have lots of images; have lots of videos if possible. I was on a house hunting trip in Toronto last week; and I spent 2 weeks online; and those video clips have helped me so much.
You should do the same, take videos and upload them onto YouTube, and link them to your website; and also showing the surrounding areas; these will help investors a lot to make decisions.

Step 3: Have some information in different language. Especially Chinese, as most European investors have good understanding in English; but not for Asian investors. Have essential information like rates, suburb profile, amenities; the fact sheet in Chinese, and upload them on the website, this will improve your visibility on Asian search engines as well (remember the problem between Google and Chinese Government at moment?)

Step 4: Global real estate referral networks is a good idea; this is nothing new as such programs are well in place in UK for instance promoting US properties; but apart from UK; this kind of relationship is yet to be extended elsewhere for American real estate companies; not even in Canada or Australia for instance.

There are many ways to develop relationships overseas; you can go to the country’s leading real estate websites and contact agents directly; or you can establish relationships with immigration agents as well.

Some of these agents or immigration agents will also assist you in terms of establishing marketing campaigns to their clients. Remember this, each year, there are over 1 million new immigrants arriving in US, Canada and Australia; the top 3 destinations for immigration – this offers tremendous opportunities for real estate projects; and you should not miss this potential market!

If you are looking for more information about marketing your real estate projects to international investors; please contact us for more information. We have also published a report Global Real Estate Investors Guide available from http://researchwhitepaper.com