iHOUSE Website Customer Close-Up
Alicia DuBose is a successful Detroit, Michigan broker who owns her own company, DuBose Realty Group. Unlike the vast majority of REALTORS®, Alicia does not specialize in the purchase and sale of single family residences. While Alicia is a licensed broker and her associates are licensed agents, DuBose Realty Group specializes in Property Management. The thing that truly sets Alicia apart is her innovative and comprehensive marketing strategies that keep her at the top of the Detroit rental market.
“We are a full service Property Management company. What I mean by full service property management is that we handle everything from marketing the property, to hosting open houses, to screening and placing tenants, to rent collection, to maintenance and rehab projects, as well as eviction services should we have to go that route. The State of Michigan mandates that Property Managers be licensed Brokers. I am a Broker and my Property Managers are licensed REALTORS, so if any of our clients wanted to sell properties from their portfolio, or buy properties to add to their portfolio we could accommodate them.”
Alicia didn’t always dream of being in the real estate business. Before getting into real estate she worked as a Computer Operator. “That drove me nuts” she said. So how does someone go from being a Computer Operator to Property Manager? “Well, what happened was I got married and moved to Georgia. While looking for employment in Georgia, I got hired with the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics. My position was to assist the Property Manager at housing the athletes that were coming to town. We found them temporary housing for their stay in Atlanta. I really enjoyed it so I decided to stick with it, and not keep searching for a job in my field of computer science.”
Alicia now has 13 years of property management experience under her belt, and has been a licensed REALTOR® for about 10 of those years. She has been a Broker and owned her own company, DuBose Realty Group, for about 4 years. Even with the market downturn, her business continues to thrive. According to Alicia, “The rental market is really good. Detroit was a renters’ city to begin with. We had a lot of single family rental homes in Detroit prior to the housing market going down, and we have even more single family rental homes now. Unfortunately, so many people are losing their homes and are now renting… And with so many people losing their homes, investors are purchasing them in bulk via short sales and/or at auctions, and are hiring us to place tenants and manage them. Now is the time to buy and hold in Detroit… And DuBose Realty Group will place tenants and manage your investment until the market gets better.”
You better believe that Alicia isn’t sitting around and letting all that action pass her by. Her marketing initiative is truly inspiring. “Detroit has riverfront festivals every weekend in the summer… There’s always something going on down there.” Alicia and her colleagues typically setup a booth at these festivals. “We cook hotdogs, pass out balloons, and take pictures with the clowns for the kids, and all the while we’re marketing our homes for rent. We get a lot of traffic with our booths, and get a lot of leads from investors and potential tenants.”
Along with the seasonal festivals, DuBose Realty Group also markets at concert venues and play theaters. “We do a lot of advertising in concert line-up papers, and in the theaters’ playbills. We market a lot at the Music Hall and at Chene Park, which is an outdoor concert arena. Our literature simply says ‘Homes For Rent’, and then lists our website address, and we get a lot of interest!”
Alicia and her colleagues also hosted a local radio show. “We recently stopped, back in December. We had a radio show… it was twice a month on Saturdays. We talked about our rental houses, what was available for rent, what was available for sale. Now we just run radio commercials.” The commercials focus on “homes for rent, for we try to attract as many potential tenants as possible. Investors listen as well, and contact us to place tenants into their properties and manage their homes.” So are the commercials a worthy investment? Alicia says, “Yeah, the commercials really work!”
With all the varied marketing activities that DuBose Realty Group participates in, their website has played an integral role. Everything leads back to their website, from their paper flyers to their radio commercials to their billboards. “85% of all our clients are non-Michigan residents, and we’re in Michigan, so our website is a big part of attracting new business to our company. Our website is VERY important! We’ve got clients from Hawaii to New York to California… and they find us online through iHOUSE. We manage properties only in Detroit and its metropolitan area, and our clients are investors who own property here in Detroit, and they find us online… Thanks to iHOUSE.”
Alicia loves her Homes for Rent and Property Management Info pages on her website. The Homes for Rent page lists their homes available for rent, and the Property Management Info page allows Alicia to upload documents for prospective investors to review. She also loves the View Neighborhoods page, which she has linked to an interactive map of the Detroit area. “We get a lot of business from View Neighborhoods. A lot of people view the neighborhoods with this link online prior to purchasing a property. This is a great tool for our out-of-state investors. The MLS search is great, for we get a lot of leads from this area of our website as well.”
Business is booming for DuBose Realty Group and Alicia was excited to share that she recently started another company. “We’ve branched off to Board Up’s,” she said, referring to her new company www.HouseHuntersofDetroit.com. “We have a website with iHOUSE for that company as well.”
Congratulations Alicia on the success of DuBose Realty Group, and good luck with your new business venture! And keep up the great marketing!
