Condemnation In Real Estate: What It Is & How It Works

Condemnation In Real Estate: What It Is & How It Works

Real estate can be tricky, especially with the legal aspects. One term you might come across during your journey is condemnation. But what does it mean?

What Does Condemnation Mean in Real Estate?

In short, real estate condemnation refers to the legal process of taking private property for public use. This usually happens to properties or structures that are damaged or deteriorated and have become an eyesore or public nuisance.

The process by which this happens is referred to as eminent domain, which gives the government the power to take property for public use so long as they provide just compensation to the owner.

There are a few things that must happen for condemnation to occur:

  • Property must be taken for a public use
  • Property owners must receive fair compensation 
  • The owner must receive a notice and have an opportunity to be heard

If you’re a property owner, it’s crucial to understand real estate condemnation and how it works. That way, you can know your rights and what to expect if it ever happens to you.

The Condemnation Process

The condemnation process largely depends on where you live. Different states have different laws concerning condemnation, so it’s essential to check with your state or local government ahead of time.

Generally speaking, the condemnation process starts when a government agency decides that a piece of property needs to be acquired for public use. The agency will then file a lawsuit against the property owner, and if the case is successful, the court will award the property to the government.

The property owner usually has time to vacate the premises and may also be entitled to compensation for their losses. The amount varies depending on the situation. Typically it is based on the value of the property and any personal belongings that need to be relocated.

FAQs

When does condemnation happen?

Condemnation typically happens when a municipality or other governmental entity needs to acquire a piece of property for a public project, such as building a road or constructing a public school.

The government will first try to negotiate a purchase with the owner, but if an agreement isn’t reached, the government can claim eminent domain to take the property through condemnation.

Who carries out the process?

The property’s municipality is responsible for carrying out the process. First, the municipality notifies the owner of their intention to condemn. The owner then has a certain amount of time to fix the issues with the property or appeal the decision.

If they fail to do either, the municipality can condemn the property.

Can you stop property condemnation?

The short answer is rarely. Local governments have the power to condemn your property for public use through eminent domain to build roads, schools, and other public infrastructure projects.

However, if you present evidence to a judge that the intended property project is not actually for public use, condemnation can be stopped.

Additionally, it’s happened that governments have backed down upon realizing what it would cost to seize the property.

What is inverse condemnation?

Inverse condemnation is a legal process in which the government seizes private property for public use without fair compensation to the owner.

Published on Sep 28, 2022 under

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Greg Harrelson Abe Safa

5 Lead Generation Strategies That Work During a Shift

5 Lead Generation Strategies That Work During a Shift

5 lead gen strats that work during a shift-2

In the real estate industry, generating leads is essential to success. While many different methods can be used to generate leads, not all of them work during every shift.

That’s why knowing which lead generation strategies still work during a shift is essential to get the desired results.

If you’re finding that your lead generation efforts aren’t working as well as they used to, try out these five strategies. They’re practical and can help you get the results you need.

What a housing recession is and is not

 

Pay Attention to Your Past Clients

Your past clients are a great source of leads, especially during a shift. They already know and trust you, so they’re likely to list their home with you when they’re ready to sell.

Reach out and touch base with your past clients regularly to generate leads from your past clients.

Let them know you’re thinking about them, and offer your help if they have any real estate needs. By staying connected, you’ll come to mind when they’re ready to sell.

It's all about activity!

 

First Sale by Owner

Many homeowners are hesitant to sell their homes with a real estate agent.

Instead, they try to sell their home on their own. But after a few months, they often realize it’s not as easy as they thought it would be.

That’s when they turn to you for help.

To generate leads from the first sale by owners, start by advertising your services in your local newspaper and online.

You can also knock on doors or hand out flyers in neighborhoods where you know homeowners are trying to sell their homes.

Expired and Withdrawn Listings

Expired and withdrawn listings are homes on the market that didn’t sell.

The homeowners may have been unrealistic about their asking price or had trouble getting their home show-ready.

Find out why their home didn’t sell and see if you can help them come up with a better price or get their home show-ready.

By acting fast, you can snag these motivated sellers before the competition.

Use Workflows To Work Your Database

Data shows that seven to nine percent of your database will sell their homes in the next year. 

To generate leads from your database, start by using workflows. Workflows are a series of email, print, or digital messages you send to your contacts regularly.

Not all workflows will work for every database. That’s why it’s crucial to determine which workflows work best for your databases.

Open Houses

Open houses are no longer as typical as they used to be, but they’re still a great way to generate leads during a shift.

They’re also great for meeting new people and getting your name out there.

Implement These Strategies Today

All of these strategies can help you generate leads during a shift. But it’s important to remember that not all of these strategies will work for every real estate agent.

The best way to determine which lead generation strategies work best for you is to experiment with a few different ones and see what works for your business. But always ensure that you’re active and reaching out to people. Use these five strategies to start generating leads.

What are you waiting for? Implement these strategies today and post your results on the RealGeek Facebook page. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Rubber band workflow

 
Greg Harrelson Abe Safa

How well do you know your market?

Well Do You Know Your Market-2

Greg Harrelson & Abe Safa discuss market stats and what information you should know and be able to communicate to clients.

Start off the week with a few stats.

 

You have to know the data!

 

You're looked at as an authority when you are the one who brings the data!

 

The information is not as valuable as our interpretation of it.

 

How Well Do You Know Your Market?

Generate more business by having a better understanding of your market. Greg Harrelson and Abe Safa discuss the importance of knowing your market statistics, as well as how you can use your market data to improve your business.

As a real estate agent, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of market statistics and trends. Knowing the numbers, how to interpret them, and how to communicate them makes all the difference in helping clients make decisions.

The Significance of Knowing Your Market

The real estate industry is data-driven. In order to compete, you need to know your market inside and out, what’s happening now, and what has happened in the past. This allows you to anticipate changes and better serve your clients.

When consumers are uncertain about market conditions, they tend to be hesitant about making a move. Abe mentions that “It’s imperative to have many data points that you can give to them to help them make a decision.”

It is your job as an agent to be the expert and provide clarity about what is going on in the market, enabling clients to make informed decisions based on solid data.

What Data Should You Focus on When Researching the Market?

Knowing your data differentiates you from other agents who may not be as knowledgeable about the market or who are presenting outdated information.

Some critical data points to focus on include:

  • Inventory level
  • Absorption rate
  • Trends for showings
  • Mortgage applications
  • National and local data

It’s not just about knowing the numbers; it’s about understanding what they mean. You need to be able to explain the data in a way that is clear and concise without being overwhelming.

“Be an authority in their eyes. Know the market and then communicate the market,” advised Gabe.

Effectively communicating data means translating it in a way that will not only help your clients understand but will also provide them with insights into how this information will benefit or endanger them.

Simplicity and relevance should be your utmost priority when coaching clients about the real estate market data.

Takeaways

Market data changes daily. In order to keep up, you need to be in the habit of regularly checking your market stats. This way, you can be prepared for whatever comes your way.

Paying attention to the data helps you better understand what is happening and, more importantly, why it is happening. This knowledge gives you an edge over other agents who may not be as informed.

While market data is readily available for consumers, the many conflicting pieces of information can overwhelm them. As an agent, you must establish authority and ensure that you are the resource they can rely on.

By understanding the market, you can help your clients make smarter decisions. When you know what’s going on, you can explain things in a way that makes sense.

This helps build trust and confidence with your clients, which is essential for any successful business relationship.

 

Coaching Keeping It Real

Keeping It Real: The Resources To Equip Your Real Estate Team for Success with Sascha Chatman

Keeping It Real: The Resources To Equip Your Real Estate Team for Success

 

 

In this episode of Keeping it Real, Sascha Chatman and  Frank Klesitz, CEO of Vyral Marketing, break down how you can equip your real estate team for success.

Learn more about the resources needed to manage your own team of real estate agents. Of course, a capable workforce is one thing for generating leads and obtaining success in the real estate world. However, having the right resources available is one of the critical factors needed to equip your real estate team for success.

Recruiting Presentation 

 
 
 
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Transforming Your Success into Their Success

 
 
 
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Creating a Schedule

 
 
 
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Buying this Year vs Next Year

 
 
 
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Discovery Phase

The discovery phase is meant to determine whether or not the agents being recruited are the right fit for their real estate team while providing the necessary details for the agents to know what their team is about. Sascha first discusses their team goals and strategies to ensure agents know exactly what they're walking into. He also discusses other matters, such as expectations from the agents themselves and their commissions.

The discovery phase may be one of the most important parts of knowing how to equip your real estate team for success. In order to succeed, you need to have a reliable workforce on your side that shares the same goals and is willing to cooperate with the rest of the team to move forward. Having a compatible and efficient team is one of the best resources you can have in real estate, as it can significantly affect your business' productivity.

Ad Educated Buyer is Easier to Work with!

 
 
 
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Agent Utility Belt

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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This is the highlight of the entire video. Sascha compares his utility belt of resources to Batman's belt of tools and trinkets. This belt essentially exists to store all resources and keep them within reach. Don't get the wrong idea, though. It's not an actual belt. Instead, it is usually a cloud or a compilation of all your valuable resources, such as videos, links, and other agent tools. Having a utility belt that is curated specifically for your team and your needs could help increase the productivity of your workflow because you won't have to scavenge for resources when you need them.

Not only does it make you more productive within your workplace, but it also gives off the sense that you are reliable and organized. When clients ask for something, you will easily have it within reach. 

Clients understandably have many questions before closing the deal, so one of the best ways to answer them is to grab a resource from your utility belt. For example, you're talking to a client about title insurance. Instead of answering their questions yourself, you could take an informative video from your utility belt and ask them to watch it. This makes it easier to understand and relate to.

Having a utility belt is a great way to equip your real estate team for success. It also comes in useful during business transactions. All in all, it's one of the best resources that a real estate team can have.

Having the right resources is essential in equipping your real estate team for success. Create an agent utility belt that caters to your team by signing up for the Real Geeks platform today. We provide valuable resources that you and your team can use to achieve the best possible outcome in every situation. Get started with us today!

Coaching SEO Keeping It Real Real Estate Lead Generation IDX

The Power of SEO and Area Pages w/ Bob McCranie

 

 

The Power of SEO and Area Pages With Bob McCranie

 The-Power-of-SEO-and-Area-Pages-w-Bob-McCranie

Do you want more lead traffic to your website? In this latest episode of Keeping It Real, we explore the latest SEO best practices with Bob McCranie. Bob is the Broker Associate & Team Owner at Texas Pride Realty Group - HomeSmart Stars and an expert on utilizing SEO best practices and Area pages in his strategies.

Join host Frank Klesitz, CEO of Vyral Marketing, in breaking down the strategies and best practices behind a robust, high-conversion online presence in today's evolving digital landscape.

Bob on Why Real Geeks:

 
 
 
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Bob on Organic VS Paid Advertising:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

If you need some help optimizing your site, tips on how to turn up the volume on your current lead flow, insight into different strategies that have provided wins for agents across various markets, -- Check out Bob's Area Page lead generation strategy!

Bob on Optimizing Your Real Geek's IDX Website:

 
 
 
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Bob on Attitude & SEO:

 
 
 
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Bob on virtual companies & online work:

 
 
 
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Top 3 Ways to Generate Lead Traffic & Boost Your Sale Funnels' Visibility in Your Market

Bob, a Brokerage Associate & Team Owner at Texas Pride Realty Group - HomeSmart Stars, shares the techniques and strategies he deploys to increase overall visibility to prospective clients in his market. 

According to Bob, he deploys three unique strategies to get leads. These strategies roughly refer to attraction marketing, SEO & optimizing his website based on popular search engine optimization guidelines, and demographic farming/cultivating his existing audience. 

Let's dive more into these strategies and find out how Bob executes them to get as many leads as possible.

Bob on Attraction Marketing:

 
 
 
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Attraction Marketing

Attraction marketing, also called event marketing, is Bob's number one strategy. This strategy is based on the idea is that you don't have to run Ads all the time or cold calls but have people gravitate towards you because of who you are in the community. In the case of Bob, he's a well-known Broker Associate with long years in the industry. Newer agents can begin working on their community visibility by hosting events. 

Bob on the fun of event marketing:

 
 
 
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You can draw people to you by hosting events, posting about them on social media, and generally being a social connector. It doesn't have to be a real estate event, but any event that serves as a lure to connect with people.

Bob on marketing his events:

 
 
 
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Some of the events you can host include:

  • Kite Flying, BBQs, & Outdoor Events
  • Theater Events, Movie Nights, DriveIns, Concert in the Parks, etc. 
  • Recycling Events, Food Drives, Community Service Events, etc.

Bob on building collaborative events:

 
 
 
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Starting successful community events takes consistency and patience. Make a schedule and stick to it when promoting your events. You can put up physical signs around your area. Put up flyers at your local coffee shops and gyms, and utilize social media ads. These have proven very effective no matter which markets you are located in. 

Bob on using creative postcards for marketing:

 
 
 
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Putting in a constant effort will build attendance over time, and before you know it, you will have collected a community of regulars at your events that can also serve as a potential client base. Networking greatly helps get leads, even if not by a massive count at first.

Your Website

Bob on the importance of having your own IDX website: 

 
 
 
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Bob on making IDX websites work for you:

 
 
 
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The second and perhaps most important is internet marketing, specifically SEO. Your primary medium is your Reel Geeks website, which helps you draw in more organic leads. You still run Google ads, which brings you steady business.

However, you must have a website to lead your potential leads and provide them with the information they need.

Of course, just having a website is not enough – you need area pages. Bob stresses the importance of area pages and being specific about where you want your leads to go. He combines social media and SEO, focusing locally on his pages.

No one looks for real estate in the main city. People always look for the suburb or neighborhood they are looking into.

You create business pages for each suburb of the city you're covering. Each page must have a call to action that takes the reader to the actual area page on your website. It has to lead to the direct page for the city or suburb, not the homepage. It helps to pre-fine all searches as much as possible, directing leads where they want and giving them satisfaction.

 

Bob's Take on Ads & Real Leads

 
 
 
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How Bob Determines His Area Pages

 
 
 
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Building a Backlink Strategy

 
 
 
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Backlinks & Area Pages

 

 
 
 
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Demographic Farming

Bob's last strategy has to do with demographic farming, which is about cultivating or nurturing your lists.

Using Funny Postcards in Demographic Farming:

 
 
 
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In this example, he developed his holiday list using postcards sent creatively and in good fun. For instance, he would send a holiday postcard in June or Valentine's Card with a humorous caption. Of the many postcards he sent, the most creative and successful is the tagline, "No, I don't want to buy your house." Bob doesn't want to buy your house, but he can sell it at a 30 to 40% better price than others in the market. The idea is to keep it fun, so people will look at the cards or mail and know what Bob has to offer.

Per Bob's experience, the strategies that can help you bring in leads are – attraction marketing/events marketing, SEO and area pages, and demographic farming. Add them to your process, and you can turn up your current lead flow to the highest volume.

 

Keeping It Real Real Estate Lead Generation

How To Generate Seller Leads in Low Inventory Market w/ Lisa Chinatti & Jason Posnick.

How-to-Generate-Seller-Leads-in-Low-Inventory-Market-w-Lisa-Chinatti-1

We are excited to welcome back one of our favorite guests, Lisa Chinatti, for this episode of Keeping It Real. Lisa is a top producer based in Westford, MA, with over ten years of Real Estate experience. 

Jason Posnick, the Sales Manager for the Chinatti Realty Group, also joined and has an enormous passion for developing others, solving problems, and conveying positivity into people’s lives.

The market is hot right now. A shortage in housing inventory has been a problem faced by real estate agents for years. As times change, you also need to adapt and learn how to generate seller leads even in low inventory areas. Lisa gives you her tips and shares what she and her team are doing to maintain their seller lead flow.

Lisa and Jason break down the most effective approaches to 5 different lead sources and how to create a plan that meets your needs regardless of which market you are in.

 

 

 Online Home Value Leads

People want to know what their home is worth. For this, they usually go to a landing page or web form where they have to input information that will help them discover just how much their home is worth in the market. How do you lead traffic to this page?

Lisa shares that the best way to get online home value leads is to be diligent with retargeting and email work. Some strategies you can do to approach this lead source is to also take advantage of Google Pay-per-Click (PPC) and Google My Business.

Having a lot of photos and geotagging them will increase your visibility as Google tends to favor local experts. Google reviews will also help drive traction, as well as links to your other content or social media pages.  

Circle Prospecting/Door Knocking

While circle prospecting or door knocking are considered older, traditional techniques, they will never die. How to generate seller leads through this lead source requires some timing and knowing the five touchpoints for circle prospecting. These five touchpoints include:

  • On the day of signing the listing

  • Before the listing goes to the market

  • Once the offer is accepted

  • On the day of the inspection

  • When the deal closes

Each of these five touch points necessitates a different message from which you could build your business. Instead of feeling like they’re talking to a company, which may be off-putting, consumers can view you with trust, which will convince them to do business with you.

Buyer Leads From Buyers Who Have a Home To Sell

Using ads strategically in your follow-ups can lead you to discover that a lot of buyers have a home to sell before they can make any purchase. There’s a big chance you can get buyer leads who have homes to sell by marketing Facebook posts towards listings and open houses.

In a low inventory market, it can be effective to market every new listing as a “coming soon.”

However, there are some workarounds that won’t get you in trouble with laws concerning coming-soon marketing. Along with Google PPC, this can prove to be an effective way to generate seller leads.

Google Local Services

When using Google services to generate seller leads, reviews are crucial. Reviews don’t just get you credibility, but they also tell Google that you’re a local business or service, which is more favored by their algorithm. Many potential seller leads also rely on Google reviews to see if an agent is right for them.

That said, building reviews increase your chances of being more visible while also convincing seller leads to contact you directly — especially when they want to know the value of their home.

Agent-to-agent Referrals

Agent-to-agent referrals are all about nurturing relationships with other agents regardless of your industry. Usually, people who want to sell their house will be moving to a different state, so they contact an agent in the state they’re moving to.

This agent can then send you a referral, so you can help them give the client a smooth transition and experience. This is only possible if you build relationships with other agents by giving value and sharing knowledge.

Put Yourself Out There

Learning how to generate seller leads in a low inventory market can take some time, but the effort is well worth it when you start generating an incredible amount of leads.

Begin by putting yourself out there and taking advantage of online tools like Google PPC, Google My Business, social media marketing, and email marketing.

Powerful, simple & easy-to-use, sign up for Real Geeks today.

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