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What are your fellow Southern Barter Club members up to? How are they using their barter dollars? SBC member Mike Huebner loves bartering, so we sat down to get the scoop on how he uses barter and how he helps others put their barter dollars to good use.Mike has been in the real estate business in the South for 31 years and is a 24-year bartering veteran. With around half a billion dollars worth of real estate under his belt at any given time, he’s the man to turn to when you’re in the market for personal or investment property.
Mike, how has barter helped your company over the years?
Barter has helped us pay for many expenses that we had been paying cash for – hotels, entertainment, meals, auto repair, printing, employee incentives and advertising.
I heard you did an ad campaign on barter. Can you tell me more about that?
We have been able to try many different types of advertising, including radio, direct mail, magazines, newspapers, cable TV and billboards enabling us to determine which type works best for us. Because of our involvement in barter, we were able to experiment using barter dollars instead of cash.
What type of real estate do you sell?
We sell home sites, homes and commercial properties in the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola, Destin and in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia. Our prices start in the 40s and go up to the 300s for our home sites on the water. Homes and cabins are 170’s and up and commercial properties are 125,000 and up.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that you accept barter dollars as down payments. How does that work?
We accept barter dollar down payments up to 20% down and occasionally more if possible. We can also finance some of the barter down payment if the customer doesn’t have all the necessary barter dollars at the time. Any opportunity that a barter member has to invest barter dollars in real estate growth areas for their future is a huge plus. I have many clients who have initially purchased a home site with a barter down payment then built a home on it, utilizing additional barter dollars, have put it in to our rental program and are receiving positive cash flow and are having their rentals pay their mortgage.
What a great use of barter dollars! If someone has plenty of barter dollars for the down payment, but doesn’t think the bank will finance the rest, are there options?
If someone has a barter dollar down payment, we have great bank financing currently as low as 3.5%. We also offer developer financing to our customers who would prefer to go that way.
With property prices so low, now’s a great time to invest. Why is property a good investment as opposed to other forms of investing?
Real estate has increased in value 80 of the last 84 years that records have been kept. Real estate in growth areas will always be a good place to invest with a very stable track record. Currently we are in a buyers market where many opportunities abound.
So there you have it. That is indeed a great way to put your trade dollars to good use! Thanks for sharing, Mike!
If you want to find out how you can put your barter dollars to work for a bright financial future, contact Mike Huebner at 440-821-8404.
