7 Strategies for 2009 Florida Commercial Real Estate Investing and Tax Reductions

Here’s more on the South Florida Commercial Real Estate investing climate and ways to cope this year, in 2009.

Although the South Florida Real Estate Market has taken its lumps from
the continuing economic decline, there are a number of avenues to
pursue and advice to follow that can help maintain and improve the
value of your Florida commercial real estate investments. Florida commercial real estate tax reductions are a tactic that the most well-informed Florida commercial real estate investors use, regardless of market conditions, and especially at this time. 

“The poor economic outlook and the severe disruption in capital and credit markets seems to indicate that it’s a good time to stand firm, whether buying or selling, until there is clear evidence that economic and financial markets have stabilized. However it is precisely this type of cautious behavior that keeps downward pressure on market activity, creates no or limited value for investors, and most importantly constrains one’s ability to catalyze wealth creation. Florida commercial real estate investors who are ready to take advantage of once-in-a-generation opportunities will do well in South Florida in 2009 and 2010.”

- Edward A. Kearney, CCIM, Managing Director, Sperry Van Ness/Kearney Commercial Realty, Inc., South Florida 

Florida’s most experienced commercial real estate tax assessment, consulting and asset recovery specialists at Sperry Van Ness South Florida Commercial Real Estate Investment Services can provide the services and expertise you need to navigate this very challenging upcoming year, to extract maximum return from your real estate investments, and to protect or recover value from the assets you already own. 

For example, the Florida Asset Recovery Team at Sperry Van Ness (SVNART) was created to provide any client a single full service resource for the efficient and effective workout and disposition of any real estate related asset – including loans, portfolios and individual properties of all asset types. In addition to delivering optimal returns to their clients, SVNART and their strategic partners provide expert guidance throughout all phases of the Florida commercial real estate market lifecycle including Broker Opinion of Value, Appraisal, Marketing Proposals, Market Research, Leasing Services Property Management, Asset Preservation, accelerated Marketing/Auction, Sealed Bid, Investment Brokerage Services, Leasing Services and Loan Sales. 

The real opportunities in today’s difficult but navigable Florida commercial real estate market are not found by following simple collective wisdom or “the herd mentality”, but can be found in the application of any or all of the following Seven Strategies for 2009 Florida Commercial Real Estate Investing. These strategies are precisely the kind of professional commercial real estate advisory services offered at West Palm Beach, FL offices of Sperry Van Ness and throughout the surrounding areas. 

1. Look for Joint Venture or Recapitalization Opportunities:
   Many of the best opportunities in the South Florida commercial real
   estate market are not found in out-right acquisitions. Explore joint
   ventures that will allow you to co-invest with existing owners of
   assets in a fashion that will allow them to free up trapped equity or
   fund new developments. 
2. Change Market Focus: Focusing on secondary and tertiary
   markets where there will be less competition for assets is paramount.
   Many of the South Florida sub-markets for commercial real estate
   investments have particular appeal during economic downturns. 
3. Revise Asset Class Focus: Be open to asset class changes
   and rotation to take advantage of market opportunities as they arise.
   Diversification has never been more important than it is in
   today’s market. Look across multifamily, retail, office,
   industrial, hospitality, self-storage, net-leased, and raw-land asset
   classes, in all South Florida areas. 
4. Consider Trophy Assets: Only a few years ago, many first
   class assets were simply not affordable. Take advantage of higher
   vacancies, lease roll-over risks, and financing issues to acquire a
   trophy property at far less than premium pricing. 
5. Try “off-market” transactions: Seek out assets that are not
   listed by brokerage firms or commercial realtors; have your broker
   approach principal owners not for a listing but on a direct basis on
   your behalf for assets that are not publicly available for
   sale. 
6. Change Your Acquisition Timeline: Traditional acquisition
   time frames that were competitive 12 months ago will leave you running
   to catch up to the bottom feeders. Be willing to make rapid,
   unsolicited offers, put up meaningful earnest money deposits and close
   quickly where it makes sense to do so. 
7. Renegotiate with your Lenders: If your debt is non-CMBS
   debt, but is portfolio debt still on the balance sheet of your lender,
   don’t hesitate to inquire about buying out the debt at a deep
   discount. It is sometimes possible in today’s market to buy
   the debt for only a fraction of the outstanding loan balance; this not
   only improves your balance sheet and your cash flow, but it frees up
   your investment dollars to acquire other assets. 

To summarize, the South Florida commercial real estate investing outlook in 2009 and 2010 is not without promising signals, and encouraging examples – despite the predominant media reports and delayed government reporting. What’s most important to the sophisticated investor is the advice and professional services of true experts in the Florida commercial real estate investment and tax consulting business – like those offered by Ed Kearney at the West Palm Beach Sperry Van Ness offices, serving all of Southern Florida and surrounding areas.

Florida commercial real estate tax consulting and advice

It turns out that the real estate investment climate “bottom” might not be so far off, especially for tax-savvy investors in the commercial real estate market of South Florida – for example, now’s a great time for commercial real estate investors to leverage Florida commercial real estate tax advisors for maximizing commercial real estate tax refunds, asset recovery returns or otherwise get more value from existing commercial real estate, or brand new, “trophy” properties, in what’s been a very tough South Florida market – but is now fairly ripe with opportunity. For example, SVN Palm Beach (<a href=”http://www.svnpalmbeach.com”>http://www.svnpalmbeach.com</a>) is a very respected leader in this tax advisory area, especially in South Florida.

Now’s therefore the time for commercial real estate marketers, including owners of significant South Florida real estate investments, to get the word out on the Internet – about not only their property’s benefits and opportunity, but also the significant tax advantages that may be had.

Southern Florida SEO Basics for Internet Marketing

SEO… What Is It?

There is so much on the Internet now about search engine optimization (SEO). Some of the information is really good, while some is incomplete. Today, I thought I’d give you “everything you wanted (or didn’t want) to know about SEO, but were afraid …” Well, you get the picture!

There are five important phases to good search engine optimization, in Southern Florida or anywhere else:

1. Keyword research. Of all the keywords you may “assume” are used to research your firm’s product/service on search facilities (engines and directories), 99 percent of the time you will be wrong. It always amazes me how people actually use the search facilities, but it’s rarely the way we think they do. So, this is the essential starting point in SEO.

2. Optimizing Your Web Site. This includes rewriting your pages with the SEO keyword/phrases inserted with at least a 2.5 percent keyword density, as well as rewriting the meta tags that are in the hard coding of the pages. If someone promises you 13 percent keyword density, for example, your pages will read terribly with the keyword appearing too many times. It decreases the professional feel of your site and will lose you sales. Plus, the search facilities will penalize you for too high keyword density. Questions you’ll want to ask an SEO provider are:

a. How many pages are included in the fee?

b. Will the provider review periodically in order to edit the pages for better keyword results?

c. Will they be creating new landing pages; and if yes, are they included in the fee?

d. Who will have ownership of the rewritten text and landing page text? (You should require that you retain ownership and ask for it in writing.) This also includes any domains created just for the SEO marketing, if this is done.

e. What impact will this have on your current site?

3. Site Submission. A provider should be submitting your site to the major search engines and directories. Questions to ask:

a. Do you submit each individual page or just the index page (home page)?

b. How many times will it be submitted and how frequently?

c. To which search engines and directories will the site be submitted?

d. What type of inclusion — free only, paid only or both?

4. In-Link Marketing. Also known as link popularity, many search facilities view links back to your web site as indicating that your site is popular on the web, giving it a higher ranking. Unfortunately, there are several linking schemes on the web that can do you more harm than good. The search facilities are looking for “quality” back links. These are links back to your site from a site with a related topic. For example, if you are an attorney, the bar association may have a link to your web site on their site. That is a quality back link.

The popular scheme now is the articles placement scheme, where you write an article with a link back to your site and place it all over the web. Google has gotten wise to this scheme and has rewritten their algorithm to exclude any site with such back links. One site owner I know now shows up in Google only if you search on his domain name. All of his marketing had been using the article placement scheme. Though other search facilities still include sites using this scheme, they always follow Google’s lead and are expected to soon exclude them, as well. The questions to ask a potential provider are:

a. Exactly how are they going to create back links? If it sounds like a scheme, beware!

b. Do they do only global back links, or are they willing to do regional or even local back links? This is important if you do business only in a limited area, for example business and internet marketing in West Palm Beach, Southern Florida. You would still want some global back links (sites that serve a global community; continuing with my previous example, Martindale-Hubbell back link for a law firm web site), but only at pertinent sites with the remaining back links being regional or local.

5. Tracking and Reporting. Will the provider be tracking the results of the optimization? How often can you expect a report and what will be in it? You need to be aware of your return on your investment (ROI).

Some other areas of SEO to know are:

1. Guarantees. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. If you are being promised to rank in the top 10 search results, then read the fine print of your contract before signing. What are the stipulations and exceptions to this guarantee? Reputable SEO firms usually guarantee only to increase your rankings; because of the constant changing and variety of ranking algorithms used, a provider cannot guarantee a specific ranking placement. Additionally, they generally only guarantee to increase traffic with no conversion guarantees. Why? Because much is dependent upon you, your web site, your offerings and name recognition to close a deal — over which the SEO provider has no control.

2. Experience. How long has the provider been doing SEO? What type of customer service is included? Do they offer sit down, face-to-face meetings to discuss results? Do they have the temperament to take the time to explain what each element of SEO means?

3. Fee Structure. Are their fees based upon each itemized element of SEO, or do they offer package deals. Do they offer discounts for long-term contracts? To regular customers?

4. Your Competition. Does the provider do business with your competition? (Many specialize in certain fields or industries.) How do they handle the confidentiality? If in the exact same business, will keywords differ between competing firms? Are they willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement?

Even though you don’t plan to do SEO marketing yourself, it’s extremely important to know the above information. This knowledge can mean the difference between hiring a professional and getting the results you desire — or inadvertently hiring an amateur with little to show for your efforts.

This blog is brought to you courtesy of your Florida Webmaster For Hire professional.

Check out our Southern Florida Internet Marketing, SEO and Website management and maintenance services at www.webmasterforhire.us today!