Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo I
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino-Hollywood, Florida
October 6, 2006
12 Mountain Developers and 500 registered clients
Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo II
The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino-Hollywood, Florida
March 24 & 25, 2007
30 Mountain Developers and 900 registered clients
Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo III
The Signature Grand-Davie, Florida
September 14 to September 17, 2007
38 Mountain Developers and 500 registered clients
Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo IV
Expo IV was held at the Airport Sheraton Hotel in
Fort Lauderdale Friday, February 29th, 2008 for the broker open Saturday and Sunday, March 1st and 2nd, 2008
for the general public.
Because of the smaller venue, only 30 developers were able to exhibit.
322 registered client leads and 108 registered broker leads were given to each exhibiting developer.
Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo V
Expo V will be held back at the Airport Sheraton Hotel in
Fort Lauderdale
Friday, October 3rd from 5:00 pm to 8:00pm and
Saturday October 4th and Sunday October 5th from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm both days.
Again, only 30 developers will be able to exhibit
DEVELOPER SERVICES
Mountain Property Showcase, LLC. represents developers in a variety of ways. Because the company truly is a marketing company, it has the ability to offer a mountain developer a wide range of marketing services in addition to the expos twice a year. Here are some of the services we can provide in order to help you attract qualified buyers here in Florida for your projects:
1. Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expos
2. Individual Boutique Events and Dinner Parties
3. Access to Investor Clubs and Bulk Buying Groups
4. Participation in an Infomercial
5. Broker Office Presentations
6. Special Events such as Webinars
7. Equity from Investors for Land Acquisition and
Development
8. Participation in a Mountain Showcase Showroom
9. Call Center Marketing Capability
10. Mountain Property Showcase Website
Let’s take a look at each of these opportunities.
1. Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expos
Mountain Property Showcase, LLC. (MPS) in association with Dalrey Marketing Group, produced its first Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo in October of 2006. This one-day event was held at The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida on Saturday, October 6th where twelve mountain developers were showcased. Each developer paid $3000. to participate in this one-day event and over $20,000 was spent on marketing. Over five hundred clients registered for this expo with over three hundred actually attending. Several contracts came out of that event, but we realized afterward that October is too late in the season to do a mountain show like this and the holidays soon took priority once the show was over.
On March 24 & 25, 2007, Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo II returned to The Hard Rock once again. This time we made the event two days and filled the entire ballroom with thirty-six different mountain developers. Over nine hundred guests registered during our sixty-day promotion and over seven hundred actually attended. Every developer came out of that show with multiple showing appointments and several contracts were actually signed from these leads. Each participating developer paid $4000. per booth and we spent over $40,000 on local retail newspaper advertising, direct mail of postcards, hand delivery to local brokers of postcards, radio promotions, web blasts to all 50,000 tri county brokers as well as our very deep personal databases and some local public relations.
Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo III was held on September 14-17, 2007 at The Signature Grand in Davie, Florida. MPS actually retained one of the top advertising agencies in South Florida to help plan a $40,000 media plan which included newspaper display ads, newspaper inserts, email, radio and public relations. The show generated over 500 targeted and qualified leads of which 60% actually attended the expo. Over 300 buying groups totaling over 650 guests actually walked through the doors of Expo III. Some of our developers even sold some home sites during the expo, which was a nice improvement over last show. The clients who attended Expo III seemed very intent on making a mountain purchase with over 100 of those who registered actually said they were ready to purchase right away.
Expo IV is tentatively set for February 2008 back at The Signature Grand in Davie. Because of space limitations, we will only be able to accommodate a maximum of 36 developers again. Space reservations will be going out in mid October and we do expect another sell out based upon the demand for expo space from existing developers.
2. Individual Boutique Events and Dinner Parties
Mountain Property Showcase has the ability to focus on one particular developer or development and do anything from a simple wine and cheese presentation at a country club to a targeted audience all the way up to a full dinner presentation at a local restaurant or country club. We can also offer this on a co-op basis where we can do a group of developments at one event and take these clients on a three or four day tour of these various mountain developments.
We are already working closely with a developer in Georgia who sponsors many dinner presentations in the local market and who then offers attendees a free “Mountain Getaway” to qualified prospects. These “fly and buy” programs seem to be the most effective way of closing these clients on a home or home site. It is very presumptuous for a developer to think that a Florida based buyer is just going to plop down a deposit on a very expensive lot or home without actually ever seeing it first. The most successful developers know that they must first try and capture the attention of their prospective clients here in their hometown area before getting them up to the actual site in order to show them the physical site with all of the surrounding views, amenities, etc.
On April 25, 2007, Land Resource Companies held a wine and cheese reception at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood. This was a follow up event for Expo II on March 25th and 26th and was designed to get some of those 900 registered guests to come to a boutique event and present a Phase II opportunity for their project up at “The Villages at Norris Lake”. The company offered a weekend “Grand Opening” event for this Phase II which contains about 200 lots with lakefront and lake view lots starting at only $49,000. The company is willing to reimburse clients up to $500. on their flights and rental car charges and will pay for accommodations for any guest for the weekend that puts up a $1000. fully refundable reservation deposit. The weekend will include boat and helicopter rides, lunches, dinners and entertainment by a Grammy Award country music entertainer. The company expects to sell out all 200 lots during this Phase II grand opening weekend event on May 18th and 19th.
MPS is working closely with Land Resource to make sure that as many clients from Expo II attend and will have one or two of their principals attend the grand opening weekend event in May with some of these prospective clients. The whole point of this event is to take the momentum from the last Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expo and move these prospects through the process and make sure that there are incentives to get these clients up to the mountains. We cannot stress enough how important these fly and buy programs are because of the intense competitive nature of the market right now. With the Florida market slowing so dramatically over the past two years, these mountain developers must be more willing to offer these Florida prospects these fly and buy programs in order to get them up to their projects and allow them to see the opportunities first hand before buying.
3. Access to Investor Clubs and Bulk Buying Groups
Because of our combined fifty years of experience here in the South Florida marketplace, we are very closely aligned with the local brokerage market and know how to tap into the key power brokers who can generate the most success using their existing databases of buyers and investors. Many investors in Florida are now looking outside the Florida area for investments, as the four-year boom here from 2001 to 2005 has now given way to the inevitable correction phase. Most local investors feel that the Florida market will continue to soften for at least another year or so and then stabilize, but the years of 25% plus annual appreciation are certainly over here in Florida. We certainly believe that some of these mountain properties can generate very substantial returns to investors if these select investments are chosen properly.
We are working with a bulk-buying group that likes to come in early in the pre development process and take a substantial position in Phase One lots from a new development. This group markets this first phase to their investor group, which will wait two years for some of the infrastructure and amenities to go in before trying to resell their lots at a reasonable profit. This bulk sale allows the developer to generate a substantial amount of cash up front, which may then be used to pay down any bank loans, reduce marketing costs and start putting in all of the roads, utilities and clubhouses that may have cost the developer a lot of cash up front. Of course the bulk buyers are looking for a reasonable discount and commission in order to entice their investors to purchase and carry these lots for two years. Generally speaking, the bulk group is looking for a 10% referral fee, which covers the master brokers, power brokers and co brokers in the program. In addition, a 13%-15% developer paid rebate is required to go into escrow with the borrower’s lender and this 15% will generally pay closing costs and an interest only carry for about two years while the developer develops the property and the investor waits for the two year appreciation to resell their lots. With the challenge of the mortgage market right now, we can only work with developers who have lenders in place that can accommodate this type of program.
4. Participation in an Infomercial
Mountain Property Showcase is in the process of producing a generic, mountain lifestyle infomercial and television commercial that will sell the overall mountain experience to the local Florida buyer, whether they are an end user or investor. These infomercials and television commercials will not focus on any one particular development, but will allow a group of approximately twelve developers to participate in the production and running of this video. All calls will be directed to a local call center where leads will then be forwarded to all participating developers in order for their in house sales staff to follow up with each of these leads. We are still working out the costs of production as well as the schedule of running these infomercials and commercials on cable as well as broadcast stations. The idea is to spread the cost amongst a group of developers and make it affordable and worthwhile. We all know that frequency is one of the key elements of any successful marketing campaign and because of the substantial costs required, we will need a solid group of developers to share this expense. We are expecting to generate hundreds of leads per week from these broadcasts and realize that most individual developers would not be able to afford to do this sort of program on their own, but the power of the co-op group will allow us all to share the costs and make this a very feasible and successful program.
5. Broker Office Presentations
MPS has already gone out to many of the local brokerage offices here in South Florida to promote some of its Mountain Destination Real Estate Expos. In the process, we have added a large number of brokers who are now supplying us with leads of their clients who may be interested in mountain property. Many of these brokers are also potential buyers of properties and nothing speaks louder to a client than an agent who has already purchased property in a specific development. We share our referral fees with these local brokers, so when we are paid a referral fee by you, we can split part of that with the referring broker. Ideally, we would like to work on an over ride referral fee which will compensate us as the master broker and still be able to pay the co brokers the full referral fee that you normally offer an out of state broker for referring their client.
6. Special Events such as Webinars
We are currently working with several developers on individual promotions locally that include not only wine and cheese receptions and dinners, but also highly targeted phone and website seminars where we can actually have a group of buyers on a conference call run by one of our partners. The client calls an 800 number and is given an access code, which links them into the conference call. They then sit in front of their computer as the host walks them through a power point presentation. At the end of the presentation, clients are invited to participate and the following day, those who have expressed an interest will be sent their contract via Federal Express.
7. Equity from Investors for Land Acquisition and Development
Because both partners of MPS are both very experienced commercial brokers by trade, we have access to capital from investors, some local, some foreign who are looking to get involved early in the development process and put up equity and debt for land acquisition and development. We can discuss your individual capital requirements on an individual basis as your need arises. Many of our investors are also looking for commercial opportunities such as developing and purchasing shopping centers, office buildings and industrial warehouse type properties. So if your project happens to include a commercial component, we can help market those as well. Should you be in the market for additional large tracts for development, we can also offer you projects that we are being offered through our large network of mountain brokers
8. Participation in a Mountain Showcase Showroom
Within the next twelve to eighteen months, MPS is planning on setting up an actual showroom whereby a group of participating developers will showcase their properties to local buyers. These prospective clients will be invited to visit this “Mountain Property Showcase” and be able to see videos about various developments and actually walk out with brochures. A full time mountain property specialist will be on hand to greet and answer any questions that these prospective clients may have. Again, all participating developers will have all leads forwarded up to them for follow up from the developer side.
9. Call Center Marketing Capability
MPS has just started a call center to handle sales of a project in Tennessee, where one acre lots are starting at $19,900. The leads are being generated by opt in email blasts and are really geared toward investors. One of the partners in this call center operation has twentyfive years experience in selling vacation packages and timeshares and sees mountain property as the next logical extension of his business. He has over two and a half million existing clients in his database that can be used as a source of leads for our various mountain developers. As the program progresses and his sales staff becomes more proficient with selling these higher priced properties, we can begin to offer more expensive lots in Georgia as well as the Carolinas.
10. Mountain Property Showcase Website
A comprehensive “Mountain Property Showcase” website is in the process of being produced and will hopefully go live by the end of 2007. The site will be designed to capture all leads at the entrance to the site by having clients register and answer some basic qualifying questions. Once this information is captured, MPS will register that client with the appropriate developers and then follow up with both the client and developer to make sure the client is being serviced. The website will also be used to register attendees for upcoming dinners, events and “Mountain Destinations Real Estate Expos”.
