Not all mortgage companies take care of their REO properties, but many do, and some of those homes need repairs as well as regular maintenance. When I was the local broker for Fannie Mae one of the primary tasks I performed was to find the vendors, submit the bids, award the jobs, and make sure that work was done.

Almost all of my Fannie listings got a thorough scrubbing and new paint inside. Most had carpets shampooed, and some had to have new flooring. When winter approached, the pipes had to be drained and we had to arrange to keep enough heat in the house to keep things from becoming damp and mouldy. Some required new lighting fixtures, new plumbing fixtures, and a variety of other repairs.

People losing their homes can sometimes behave in uncharacteristic ways. I’ll never forget walking into one repo and finding the kitchen sink missing – along with the furnace, the water pressure tank, the bathroom vanity, and even all the light switch covers and ceiling fixtures. They’d also thrown rocks down the well. That one kept me busy with repairs for quite a while. (That’s the drawback to being the listing broker.)

Outside there was always more work – lawns had to be kept watered and mowed in summer and walks shoveled in winter. One of the items on their sheet that didn’t apply here, but might apply in your city, was pool maintenance.

So you see, if you provide any of those services, you should be marketing to the brokers in your town who handle repossessions. Call a few agencies and ask around – you should be able to find out who to contact.

Remember, you don’t have to be a professional to bid on some of these jobs. Cleaning and lawn mowing, for instance. You only need to behave in a professional manner.

Be prepared to give a written bid and to stand behind it. Also be prepared to wait 30 days for payment. And be sure that when you meet with the broker to ask to be put on the list, you look and act like a professional.

About the bids – Fannie Mae and some of the others have policies that call for 1, 2, or 3 bids depending upon the cost of the project. So for cleaning you might not have competition, but if you’re painting the interior there could be 2 others bidding against you.

Don’t feel bad about profiting from someone else’s troubles – someone is going to do those jobs, and if you want extra income it might as well be you.

I’m talking about link exchanges. Everyone knows they need their web site to rank high in a generic search — unless they want to pay for clicks. And while optimizing a site for SEO is fun and does do a lot of good, there’s that external SEO to deal with.

And that’s where friends come in.

While the big companies can hire someone to go out and get them links, most of us cannot. But we can trade with all the people we know and trust to do business well. We all have someone else who helps us do business in some way, or we have customers we can trade with.

For instance, if you run a small retail store, you have dozens of vendors — some of whom are small enough that you could call them up and suggest a trade. You also have customers who buy from you regularly. Why not trade with them?

The same holds true for Realtors, Insurance Agents, Plumbers, Landscapers, Dog Groomers, Hairdressers, Chiropractors, Motel and Restaurant owners… in short, everyone.

The links you add can also be a source of referrals back and forth between your businesses — which is a second benefit. Would you rather choose a plumber from the phone book, or from a list of “preferred vendors” on your favorite Realtor’s website? I’ll admit, you won’t get a ton of business that way, but it certainly won’t hurt.

One thing to keep in mind is the content of the links. For the maximum benefit, they should be from your keywords – definitely not from “click here.” It will take a little extra effort to decide how to word a sentence to do that, but from everything I’ve read, it will be worth the effort.

Right now I’m working on getting links from “web copywriter” because I’m trying to raise the ranking of that page on my site. Location doesn’t matter to me, because my clients come from all over the country, but if you have a local business, try to work in the name of your City as well as the keyword that will draw folks to you. For instance, link from “Boise landscaper” or “landscaper in Boise,” rather than just “landscaper.”

And that reminds me… if you link to a certain function of your business, be sure to link to the proper page. Just today I followed a link to find more information about something that was promised, and when I got there I got a home page with no clue about where to find the information. I left in disgust. I’m sure you’ve encountered the same thing.

That’s my thought for the night. Let’s all get busy and help each other tomorrow!

Yours for success,

Marte

www.marte-cliff.com
writer@marte-cliff.com