The real estate market in the US has gone through some radical changes since the advent of the pandemic. The housing inventory for existing homes shrank in 2020 as the majority of people opted to stay put for the time being, but this had a knock-on effect on house prices.
Due to the shortage of houses from 2020 through to 2022, homeowners saw their properties shoot up in value. One of the biggest stories was Florida, which saw house prices rise 18.6% between 2019 and 2021. Last year saw further rises of 14%.
Yet, despite home prices continuing to remain high, or perhaps partly due to this, house sales dropped month-on-month in 2022 in Florida. For property investors, this can be seen as a positive thing in some ways, as sellers may opt to drop their prices. And SEO plays a major part in catching these types of motivated sellers.
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Is Florida a good place for property investment now?
Mortgage rates and high house prices deterred many from buying homes across the states last year, and the trend seems to be continuing into 2023. In November last year, single-family home sales dropped 38.2%.
As house prices remain high, an investment could be an appealing proposition right now. If you can locate motivated sellers, you can invest in property at below-market value. And many do this by choosing distressed houses and homes.
Fixing and flipping homes is potentially a great way to get involved in real estate in Florida. If you have the finances in place and can avoid borrowing, then you can worry less about inflation.
One of the main problems with investing in property in the Sunshine State is finding the right homes to buy. Nowadays, a web presence is vital for real estate investors to attract motivated sellers. However, as OYOY Inc. explains, you will need to tune your SEO to increase traffic for your real estate business.
Why do you need SEO for Florida real estate investment?
Search engine optimization involves procedures to improve how a website functions, and make it more efficient. SEO also helps to ensure that a site appears early on in search results, ideally near the top of the first page, and thus attracts more visitors.
If you are trying to find motivated sellers and generate more leads then your business needs to be visible. Even if you are fixing and flipping homes as a sideline, you still need to market your brand.
Digital marketing has evolved, and search engine marketing and SEO are vital parts of any campaign to attract clients. In terms of real estate investment, you want to buy property low and sell for a profit (or rent). This means you need those sellers who are motivated enough to search for cash buyers. If you are on the second page of search results, you can be fairly sure your competition is receiving more leads than you.
How does SEO help with finding properties to invest in?
Clearly, SEO helps with visibility and in turn, increased traffic. But, you won’t magically appear at the top of Google rankings, you’ll need a proper understanding of SEO to do so.
Most businesses will opt to use an SEO agency here to audit the website and create a cohesive strategy going forward. Constructing an SEO strategy will help lay the foundations for long-term success, rather than quick fixes or patching over problems.
As you are operating in Florida, you must consider local SEO. By creating a blog and adding interesting content, you can start link-building. Writing articles and linking to relevant sites will help you to become something of a local authority.
This type of brand awareness will help put you in the mind of homeowners when they wish to find cash buyers. Using social media, quality content, and link-building will enable you to grow your reputation. And this is all part of a strong SEO strategy to generate more leads and rise up the search result pages.
Summary
Of course, attracting motivated sellers and getting more visitors to your site is a major part of investing in Florida property. But, you will also need local knowledge of house prices, and contractors. In today’s financial climate, you will need to protect your start-up from inflation if you are new to the business. Borrowing, labor, and other costs involved in property investment need to be considered carefully.
However, the house prices in Florida remain strong, and if you can find the right homes to buy and fix up, you could see a good ROI. To get to this point though, you will need to outsmart your competition, and real estate SEO can help here. There are many SEO agencies in Florida, and some specialize in helping real estate investors generate more leads.