Whether you have taken the plunge and become a full-time investor, or currently use your evenings and weekends to acquire and manage properties, as an active investor you are likely to be a busy person. If you’re a veteran investor, you may have the luxury of a little more free time by now, but in any case most of us get a lot of email on a daily basis.
With increasing quantities of email, it is helpful to have a system which is capable of separating important messages and making sure those get your attention first. On Monday, Google announced they would be rolling out Gmail Priority Inbox for all mail users this week. As a big fan of Gmail, this caught my attention and I immediately began to think about how this would make life easier for myself and other investors.
How Gmail Priority Inbox Works
If you haven’t heard about this new feature, the following video from Google does a pretty good job of explaining how it’ll work:
In short, unread messages deemed important will show up in a separate section at the top of your inbox. You can add or remove the important tag from messages, and over time Google’s algorithm will do a better job of predicting which messages it should and shouldn’t display as important. You can also use filters, one of Gmail’s best perks, to adjust which messages end up getting priority.
Taking Advantage of Gmail Priority Inbox as an Investor
This feature hasn’t been activated on my account yet, but here are a few ways I imagine this new addition will be useful:
1. Prioritize messages from your Real Estate Investment Team
As a real estate investor you probably have key contacts such as Realtors, mortgage brokers, home inspectors, laywers, property managers, or handymen who you do business with on a regular basis. If you don’t, check out my series on Building Your Real Estate Investment Team to learn more about assembling a great team of competent professionals to support you.
By setting up filters to prioritize emails from these people, you can ensure they’ll get your attention first. If you want to see that commitment letter from the bank as soon as it arrives, or get updates from your property manager right away, all you need to do is add a filter to prioritize email from these people by email address.
2. Prioritize responses to your marketing
If you have a rental ad up to fill a vacancy, advertise rent-to-own opportunities, or get the attention of motivated vendors, chances are they can contact you by email. You can use the same approach to prioritize these responses so they get your attention first.
In this case you can filter by keyword to make sure these messages get the priority they deserve. Choose a keyword or phrase which is unique to your advertising campaign in order to avoid falsely classifying messages as important. When a new prospect replies, their message will make it to the top of your inbox and you can respond quickly.
3. Use filters and labels to clear inbox clutter
If you receive regular marketing, newsletters or blog feeds to your email inbox that are not time sensitive, you can save some energy by having these skip your Inbox and go straight into another folder. Filter by address or topic to sort these recurring emails into folders which you can review when you have the time. By automatically labeling and archiving these items, you can keep your inbox clear making it easy to pick out the important items which need your attention.
How Will You Use Priority Inbox?
This topic brings a few questions to mind:
Which email provider do you use, and why?
Do you think Gmail’s Priority Inbox will help you be more productive?
What sort of emails will you give priority to?
Keep an eye out for Priority Inbox in your Gmail account, and let me know how you plan to use this great new feature by adding your comment below.
When it comes to making smart real estate investments, economics play a very important role in creating winning deals. There are always ways to make money in real estate, but sophisticated investors take the time to understand economic fundamentals and then swim with the tide rather than against it.
The following is a list of 7 sources for economic information that every Canadian real estate investor should be aware of. Most of these reports provide national and regional perspectives, while others drill down to the metropolitan level. A basic understanding of economic trends will allows you to make informed investment decisions, and these links are a great place to start.
Housing Trends and Affordability – This quarterly report highlights trends in housing affordability (the percentage of average income required to pay for an average piece of real estate) in provincial and major metropolitan housing markets. Affordability is a key indicator which savvy investors pay close attention to since it can indicate an overheated market and provide clues to a region’s appreciation potential.
Economics Digest – Updated monthly, these summaries provide an overview of reports published during the month by RBC Economics Research. Even if you are not an economics buff, these reports will give you a glimpse into the headlines and a brief summary of the key findings from each report. Full links are provided if you find something that catches your attention.
Data Commentaries – Economists at TD offer commentary on various economic indicators. Commentaries on Canadian Retail Housing, Canadian Housing Starts, and Canadian Employment are particularly relevant for Canadian real estate investors.
Regular Publications – Two forecast publications from TD economics are particularly useful. The Quarterly Economic Forecast and Long-Term Economic Forecast each provide analyst expectations for future performance of key indicators. The Quarterly Economic Forecast also contains commentary on important items such as interest rates, GDP, and employment statistics.
Housing Market Outlook – Published semi-annually, Housing Market Outlooks are available for each region and most metropolitan areas. The report focuses on new and resale housing performance and assessing the strength of the corresponding local economy.
Rental Market Reports – These in depth reports are updated annually and contain a wealth of economic insight at a metropolitan level. Several key indicators such as affordability, employment, vacancy rates, and rental rates are covered in great detail at the local level.
Global Real Estate Trends – Analysis on residential, commercial and industrial real estate across the globe is offered by this report. It provides global perspective on new and resale housing trends, vacancy rates, building permits and mortgage rates.
Household Credit Analysis – Rather than providing economic insight into the economy of our country or cities, this periodic report provides insight into the net worth of individuals and examines consumer debt trends.
Teranet - National Bank House Price Index – This website provides a price index for major metropolitan centres across Canada and discloses their methodology for calculating the index. Best of all you can download the raw data in Excel format and dive into the numbers for presentations or your own research.
Exclusive REIN™ Reports – The Real Estate Investment network focuses on economic fundamentals and publishes some great reports as a result. Examples include several analysis on the effects of local transportation changes across Canada, and their provincial Top Investment Towns reports. By diving into the facts and figures surrounding infrastructure changes and local economies, they provide succinct summaries which are very helpful to local investors.
As a real estate investor, you owe it to yourself and your investment partners to stay informed, and these seven resources are a great place to start. How else will you make smart decisions based on the facts rather than emotion and opinion?
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Whether you have taken the plunge and become a full-time investor, or currently use your evenings and weekends to acquire and manage properties, as an active investor you are likely to be a busy person. If you’re a veteran investor, you may have the luxury of a little more free time by now, but in any case most of us get a lot of email on a daily basis.
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