Note: To follow is an excerpt of an interview with successful bloggers from the Real Estate Investment Club or the REIClub.com -- Halle Eavelyn, Manager of Halle Homes, LLC and Cherrathee Hager, of Twin Oak Properties. To listen to the show archive or download an MP3, go to www.IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com/031809.

Mosca: Please tell us a little bit about who you are, what you are doing and then we can talk more about social media.

Hager: I am in Salisbury, North Carolina. I own Twin Oak Development where we do real estate investing, rehabs, and different types of marketing. My job is to buy distressed properties, some REO, owner-occupied or for sale by owner and rehab them.

Eavelyn: I have a background in everything from preconstruction real estate to specializing in lease options. I have acquired a toolbox of nothing but creative real estate techniques and that has led me to do financing for private lenders, private banks with a focus on private lending inside of this unique market that we find ourselves in. This is probably going to turn out to be the best real estate market of any of our lifetimes and I want to be able to capitalize on that so I had raised a fund prior to the beginning of 2008 and I am about to start raising another fund as well again using private money. That's what I'm focused on at the moment. I also have a background in doing distressed and rehab houses but not nearly as extensive as Cherrathee.

Mosca: Cherrathee, what are you seeing in your neck of the woods in North Carolina?

Hager: We are seeing a lot of new investors coming on board interested in buying properties because of either job layoffs or changes in career. One thing I do in my classes is to make sure I'm educating people that this is not always so easy. That you can't automatically get into real estate investing just because you read a book. It's important for people to understand that you do have to have a team, goals and some experience or a mentor. In our area, we have been very lucky, particularly the Charlotte metro area, not to have experienced the devastation in the real estate market that some areas have seen. Even our foreclosure rates are not quite as high as other areas. We are still able to get properties here at bargain prices but you need have numerous exit strategies.

Eavelyn: And a cash cushion to go along with that. People say I have three months worth of money for this house and that will be enough because I'll have sold it or rented by then. It's amazing how often those A plans go awry. I completely agree with Cherrathee, you have to have a B. plan, a C. plan, and a D. plan as far as your exit strategies go.

Mosca: It's important to always have a strategy for moving on. Do you agree that they key with real estate is the ability to consistently get into the right property in the right market and have your money make money?

Hager: People sometimes don't understand that when they're starting to invest – you have to be willing to reinvest those profits back into another property. Of course, you have to make sure the first is a very wise investment

Mosca: Social media, blogging, viral marketing if done well can help bring business to you from the most unlikely of places. Can you discuss a story or two about your experiences?

Hager: I am fairly new to this. I have been with REIClub.com since the first of this year. It is exciting to be able to share my ideas and thoughts with other people and also get feedback from that. I've had some contact saying that they received ideas from me or that something that I had written had helped them be successful quicker.

Eavelyn: I completely respect and appreciate Cherrathee's approach about helping everybody and for me that kind of goes along with territory. I've spoken all over the country. I've had people who said I bought my first property because I heard you say something that meant something to me. Social media is the new entrée into creating a large network. If you're the person who wants to build a real estate business and you can grow that network, the best way to do that is to drive traffic to your Web site. I'm on Twitter all the time, Facebook every day, and LinkedIn all the time. Sites like REIClub.com are not just good for blogging but also good for meeting a network of investors but how does that network of investors find out about you? Social media is an incredible way of getting to meet people and getting to know people. I find it an amazing resource. The fact that there is a that kind of availability for investors to be able to go in and look at hundreds and hundreds of responses that are all archived can really help jumpstart peoples business and I think that social media can really help grow peoples business.

Mosca: Halle, that's why we're so proud of our website at incomepropertyinvestmenttalk.com. We feel that we have a lot of knowledge content on there to help investors learn. The next question is from Andrew Waite in Phoenix

Andrew: There are a lot of leaps of faith involving you in social media and then investing the time to generate the blogs, to create the videos, to post them, and monitor them. How much of that though actually can be translated through to actual revenue, to profitable business?

Eavelyn: To me there is hard revenue and then there is soft revenue. I met somebody online with whom I did business, but in comparison to the hundreds of houses that I've bought and sold, we are at the tip of the iceberg. We are in an early adoption phase. The soft revenue, using social media as a way to drive traffic to a Webinar has been extremely lucrative for me in the past. It's only going to get much bigger.

Mosca: Both of you have experience with rehabbing properties. There is a great deal of rehab properties on the market right now. Many are being called great “deals.” What constitutes a great deal? I'm thinking that price cannot be the only decision-making factor.

Hager: You're exactly right Peter. Price is not always the determining factor of a great deal. It has to do with the return over a period of time. People need to be very careful not only in this market, but all of the time. New investors may go in and trust the person giving them that information. They take their rehab numbers and their after repair value numbers and the fact that they can get X number of dollars for rent or they could sell this house for X number of dollars when it's completed, and then go in blindly and end up devastated. Always conduct due diligence.

Hager: Real estate associations within certain neighborhoods in certain areas within the area that you're purchasing are also great resources for finding rent comps, effectively marketed properties and occupancy rates and things are

Mosca: What are the costs associated with rehabbing and how do they reflect whether or not someone should actually invest in a property?

Hager: The formula has always been to have those costs associated with acquiring it, rehabbing it, closing and holding costs add up to no more of 70% of after repair value. In fact, I've been advising people to go back to 60% because that gets you into a much more safe position. As far as costs, develop a team of contractors and subcontractors, work with each other, and understand the costs of all that needs to be rehabbed. Of course, then you have to factor in your holding costs, lending fees, closing costs and utilities and maintenance fees. We look from the back end to the beginning so we can plan and envision what we want, be conservative and still get the same product we need to have at the end.

Eavelyn: Two other things: theft is a big issue. I'm in the Atlanta market and it seems that every house was broken into in one summer. It was insane. Also, Cherrathee's gauge of 70% or 65% or 60% in some markets is actually way to high right now. Cherrathee's market is very stable, which is fantastic, but I wouldn't touch Atlanta right now for over 50% all in. I think even in California 60% is probably about the most that I would go. In Nevada, and in Arizona, I'd be looking at 50%. In Atlanta we've been buying properties at 20- to 25%.

Mosca:What is your golden nugget for today?

Hager: When looking at real estate investing, consider that as a means to a lifestyle that you want to create for your family and yourself. If you go into this with the right purpose, being able to be safe and take your time, get your education and be smart about your investing, you'll be very successful.

Eavelyn: Don't be afraid of using social networking as a tool. Be an early adopter. It can help you grow your business, especially if you want to have a national base as opposed to a locally based business. It gives you a chance to reach out to an enormous audience. Give yourself 15 minutes a day and know that over a month you'll start to really be able to use those as your regular tools.