Finding Motivated Sellers and keeping them...

[Nina Harrison]

Hello ALL,

As you can see, I just joined this evening, and I must say that I have gained a good amount of information from a lot of different articles... Thank you.

I am a wholesaler and I am struggling a bit to actually find pre-foreclosures and motivated sellers. I am a subscriber to RealtyTrac, so I get all the latest listings. In order to find the homeowners, I have mainly used the method of "direct mail"... and well, lets just say its definitely a small -to-medium success ratio. I have had about 25-50% of my letters returned back b/c of vacant properties.
I was lucky enough to catch the attention of two homeowners who were behind on payments and were interested in getting rid of their house to save their credit. Unfortunately, they no longer had interest in selling to me... and well I know that the competition is fierce out there, so Im wondering what is the best way to actually find homeowners and keep them.

Is direct mail a waste of time? Im going to continue doing it, because Im a firm believer in staying focused and sticking to it. I just want to know there are any other alternative ways that are successful in capturing motivated sellers for foreclosures and pre-foreclosures to do short sales and if there is a good amount of equity, just close in a on great deal so I can flip the contract over to the Retailers.

Anyone have any suggestions??

Thanks