How Would You Market Online to Find Possible Investors for a Large Bahamas Resort ?

Hi Deckman, there's a chance that your topic is too far off the Internet marketing theme for this forum. If that happens, you're welcome to continue the conversation with me by private message.

You have a challenging project! Even with the tourism draw of Las Vegas, financing for City Center hung by a thread. Several other billion-dollar projects got canceled or taken over with unfinished construction. And look at the news reports of Dubai's troubles. This shows that "build it and they will come" might not be a winning strategy in the current economy, even in the places where the most people with money come to see what's new and spectacular.

Investors might be a bit wary of major resort investments for a while. Given the recent news about trouble with banks and commercial real estate, I imagine that finding the funds might be unusually challenging right now.

So the first question is whether now is the best time, or whether it's better to put the venture on the shelf for a while. If you can get it built, there won't be much competition for brand new resorts when it opens. But will the economy support enough people coming to it?

If you want to press on:

I would start by making a list of all the comparable size resorts around the world. I'd find out who funded them, and how the vision got in front of the investors for their consideration. What is the story of what happened between dream and groundbreaking? I'd look for what techniques have been proven most successful to reach investors. How many used the Internet to find their funders?

My guess is that the most useful technique was personal connections between friends and business associates. "Hey John, you mentioned you're looking to invest in something different, did you hear about that big new resort project in the Bahamas?" Your best bet here would be to play golf with the right people, or get your proposal into the hands of someone who plays golf, or went to school with, or already does business with the right people.

My guess is that the second most successful fund-raising effort might be the use of an investment banking firm to establish the investment syndicate, for an up-front fee plus a percentage when the deal closes.

In the U.S. you need to be very careful about promoting investment opportunities, so that you don't wind up on the wrong side of the security laws.

Once you have your homework, then the question is how much use the Internet could be. Are there that many Google searches for keyword terms like "investment opportunity resort Bahamas?"

Once people do learn about the concept, do they really want to download everything or would they expect that their attorneys or accountants will take care of obtaining however many notebooks and file boxes it takes to document things? The people with the money are more likely to be in an older generation that expects to read papers on their desk. They won't be bothered that there's not an app for that.

Chris

Market it just like any other real estate.. you are selling the land.. is Bahamas government friendly to foreign ownership? you should have no problem selling the land.. it is only 100 miles south of Florida..

Is your friend willing to divide? Not sure about the price tag of that 400 ac.. but smaller tract of lands will be more workable for a lot of more investors...

Read Felix Dennis's book "How To Get Rich" - as he covers
the raising of capital from the point of view of somebody
who actually succeeded wildly in business before writing
anything about how to do it... unlike most authors in the
"success" field.

There is a lot of capital out there looking for good investments.
You could lose control if you aren't careful, but the money
is out there. I doubt it's easy to find through IM. Better
through country clubs and general offline networking.

I'm presently doing some consulting for a guy who owns a
villa in the Grenadines. He grew up in the Caribbean and
I think he invested there partially out of nostalgia.

I would focus on finding investors who are looking for a good
opportunity and also have an interest in the Caribbean.
Yachters might be a good group to look at, and also people
who dive and so forth.

Deckman,

There are far more investors looking for good investments than there are investments to be found.

The key is the prospectus, and the convertibility of the investment in the property.

The Bahamas is no longer a hot market for the tour and travel biz, and that effects the quality and quantity of serious investors.

There have also been some interesting tax changes that make investing off shore a mine field. (for US investors)

The fundamentals remain the same, money is looking for the deals, and money will find the good deals.

Depending on how you structure the deal, and the ranges of the buy ins, will determine who your target is going to be.

Start doing homework on pre-construction investments, and you will notice that its a fairly small group of people that are doing the same deals over and over.

Mark Riddle

I am not looking to get schooled here on What the Market is and isnt. All of the research and Due Diligence has been done. I am just wondering what a big player, if he were to be searching online, what he would be searching so that I could get in to this arena and start putting the seeds out.

Mr. Enthusiastic, Thank you for reminding me "In the U.S. you need to be very careful about promoting investment opportunities, so that you don't wind up on the wrong side of the security laws. I have made this mistake twice "looking for investors" when all the paperwork specifically says "Joint Venture Participation" so I do need to slow down and get it right.

John McCabe You are right on the money "The good news is that the net can make playing "six degrees of separation" much quicker, and give you access to people you could never reach by calling the receptionist." and this is what I am playing off of.

My friend purchased this primary piece of land, for phase one,back in 1999. Since then there has been about 10 arduous years of master planning . Several of the 400 acres are scattered throughout the Bahamas and will support other phases of the master plan.. The Island that phase one of the resort will be going on is basically uninhabited and just supports a handful of Bahamians.

This resort will not be for your normal traveler but rather a play ground for the big players to purchase homes and other parts of the real estate as well as a place to dock personal yachts up to 150 ft in length.

Loren Woirhaye, I really appreciate your input here. You have some pretty good insight on the type of partnerships that are being sought. I know this will not attract your typical small $ guys since we are looking for long term partnerships.

Mark Riddle, when you say "There are far more investors looking for good investments than there are investments to be found." this is the type of possible JV's being sought. This project is not for the tour and travel biz .
"Depending on how you structure the deal, and the ranges of the buy ins, will determine who your target is going to be."
Since this project will be done in phases it allows the JV aspect to be broken down into smaller increments and could probably let one in for $500k. I also like your idea of doing homework on pre-construction investments but when you are looking for partnerships it does change the rules.

I believe you have to go offline for something significant like that.

Why not approach financial planners about offering it to their clients? You sell the financial planning or investment group and they put together a place for your presentation. Your city should also have a local real estate investing club that would be interested.

I am not going to go into the intricacies of this investment project, because as the guy said he has already done his due diligence.

If you want to get the word out about a deal like this, then you need to focus on social networking, as well as article marketing. Write a few articles about your topic and submit these articles to the top article directories. These articles can often times get listed high in Google, which will give this investment opportunity more exposure.

Consider writing a press release online. This is a very powerful method that can get a lot of interested people to your opportunity fast.

If I had to give you one piece of advice, I would say join Facebook and Twitter, and begin to hang around the places where big time investors hangout. This would be a great way to build a solid network not just for this investment opportunity, but also for projects in the future.