Got My First Website Lead

[Tom Scott]

I must be honest, when I started using Google Adwords I really figured it wouldn't generate much in the way of traffic let alone leads. At the moment I am using a $100 start up credit I got in the mail, so I am just trying to see how it all works. In spite of my meager budget, I'm at $10 a day max, someone actually filled out the form on the site and it only took about a week to get that first submital. 

The home was a 3/2 SFR just shy of 1800 sqft on 5 acres of land and the owner was in foreclosure. Not quite what I am after but I pursued it for practice all the same. Did a little research before I called the owner and then used him to verify what I had found. This was an interesting practice since I discovered that I can get quite a bit of pretty accurate data from the web even before talking tot he seller. Home was bought in 2009 for a loan amount of $170k and they still owed $156k. Based on similar sales int he area over the past 6 months, I think the ARV would have been around $150k so obviously there wasn't enough equity to make the deal work. Sounds like the house was in decent shape but the land it was on was uncleared. All the high comps that had sold in the area were small horse farms with cleared pasture land. I could have possibly added value to the property by clearing, fencing, and seeding the land as well as building a small barn but that is a large cash outlay for what would have most likely been a pretty meager profit. The best I could have offered him was around $70k if the house was in good shape and the owner had not yet tried to list with a realtor for a short sale. I felt bad for the guy, he didn't sound like he was very on top of his situation, I told him he would be better off trying to list it for a short sale and that I would most likely be his last worst option should he not be able to sell it on the open market. He seemed appreciative of the advice, so maybe I was able to help him a little.

So, overall it was a bust, but good practice none the less. Obviously Adwords and the like are not nearly as targeted as I would like, so I think I'll keep allotting limited funds to that campaign. My first direct mail campaign begins on Saturday so I expect an influx of phone calls beginning next week. Wish me luck. 

Tom