International Buyers of Real Estate

Q&A - Interview with Olga Kellen

For Media: for Free Distribution

*E-Series: How to Beat Your Competition Selling Real Estate to International Buyers* by Olga Kellen can be found at http://www.amazon.com/author/olgakellen


Q. How have you come to the idea of publishing this E-Series?

Olga: The idea had come from the needs of my clients. I do international real estate consulting and receive questions on the subject daily. Many of them are about international buyers of real estate from Russia (my major field of consulting), but many are of general nature: "Is it important to do international marketing in the languages of potential buyers?" and "How will we communicate with the foreign buyers?" and similar cross-cultural and cross-borders questions.

To understand the frustration of a client who is just starting out to find their way into international real estate marketing I've googled "international buyers of real estate", and the results have come to me in the amount of 33 million pages! Can you imagine anybody digging through even a fraction of those?

Ok, maybe there are books on the issue with some condensed knowledge? I've tried to search Amazon for the same key phrase and a dozen of results have come out and none of them was a real match (hmm… in fact, some were strange - what does Monopoly, the game, have anything to do with international buyers of real estate?). Well, now the situation is completely different: if you perform the same search, my e-books come on top and they are really fitting the topic!

Q. Why do you think that such a publication is in demand by real estate professionals and private property sellers?

Olga: Based on the everyday experience with my clients I know that some of them are interested in contacting the foreign realtors who would send them international buyers from the foreign city where those realtors have an office; some other clients prefer to learn the places, prices and terms of their own direct advertising to potential buyers of their properties from abroad; some sellers and realtors already know which foreign country to target with their marketing while some are interested how to find it out; everybody is concerned with the marketing plan and budgeting of their campaign to reach international buyers with the message "I have a property for sale".

Q. Readers in what countries might/should/would be interested in the advice that the E-Series provides?

Olga: No restrictions. Any seller, developer and realtor from any country can hugely benefit if their buyers' base is being extended all over the world. Of course, there are already well-known "hubs" to which international buyers tend to be attracted most of all, but in no way it means that other less known destinations should not promote their properties internationally - marketing is the King.

My e-books are in English with the understanding that any person who wants to sell internationally should know the international business language and can read them, but if somebody wants to acquire translation rights into other languages, you are welcome to talk about that. I guess that sellers and realtors from non-English-speaking countries like France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Brazil, some new European countries, etc. can benefit from the material covered in this E-Series as those countries are always interested in international buyers for their properties.

Q. What makes the E-Series different from other publications on the topic?

Olga: As we already discovered, there are no books (or e-books for that matter) on Amazon that specifically cover the topic of international buyers of real estate, how to attract them and sell to them. At the same time there are plenty of magazine and newspaper articles, blog posts, news, stories and reports online and I believe offline too. But how an average person who is interested in starting out in international real estate sales can use all the information to their advantage without spending a lifetime on research?

Here's how my short educational how-to e-books come to help: each one of them is dedicated and covers one issue of the trade - how to find the best foreign realtors, how to advertise internationally, how to prepare the cost-effective marketing plan for a particular property for sale or realtor's services worldwide, etc.

It's been done on purpose - one e-book per one aspect of the business of selling properties internationally - and the reasons are two-fold: to make each e-book up to the point and easy to digest and apply (especially for readers from non-English-speaking countries) and also because most readers are not interested in the whole picture, but rather in solving various problems of their own - some want to work through foreign realtors and pay commission on sale later, some want to advertise on their own and no commission to pay, some want to sell to the Russian buyers and some to Chinese or South American, etc.

Q. How do you decide what to include in the E-Series?

Olga: It's a work in progress. So far I've been using the material that is required by my clients on a regular basis. The information comes from my own practice in international real estate consulting, research and writing. There are plenty of topics to proceed with and I will. At the same time there are subjects that are very much in demand, but I'm not an expert on - like selling to buyers from China, for example, who are rather specific with their cultural preferences, languages and types of properties they are searching after. For such parts of the E-Series I do my own extensive research and look for professionals to interview to make the advice authentic.

Q. What is your experience with marketing to international buyers of real estate? Are you a realtor?


Olga: I'm consultant, English-Russian translator and Russian internet marketer and researcher by trade. By qualities I'm an attentive to details problem solver.

The *Amazon E-Series: How to Beat Your Competition Selling Real Estate to International Buyers* by Olga Kellen can be found at http://www.amazon.com/author/olgakellen

Available for interviews:

Olga Kellen,
English - Russian Translator,
Associate member of ATA,
phone: 613-422-5625
email: olga@english-and-russian.com
web: https://www.english-and-russian.com
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/olgakellen

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