Targeting Houses/Neighborhoods

[Chris Speights]

This question is exclusive to wholesaling, but is a "starting out" question...so, posted here. Please move if needed.

When getting ready to find properties, do you guys find it better to market in general (basically anyone that may have a home they want to unload can contact you) or is it better to target neighborhoods or zips?

Just curious...marketing in general (ie bandit signs or CL postings, etc) seems like you would have to weed through too much stuff.

On the other hand, targeting a neighborhood or area seems like a lot more work...not afraid to work, just saying it's a lot more driving, mailing postcards/letters, etc...

So, is one better than the other, do both work, do wholesalers typically try to do both? I am just trying to be as efficient with my time as possible, but be mindful of my budget I am working with...not sure if there's a way to do both of these things at the same time, or not.

If you "target" areas, how do you do this? For instance, I live in (around) Houston. Obviously it's a large city. How do you decide that neighborhood b is a better place to focus on that neighborhood a or c?

Am I overanalyzing this? Does it matter? I mean, is the goal to generate 10,000 calls and hopefully 10 of those deals work? Or is it better to target 100 houses and hope 10 of those work?