How long did it take to get your first lead? Everyone chime in! : )

Question

My partner and I are in the midst of low budget marketing including bandit signs, will be driving for dollars and posting notices on door steps but was wondering how long did it take you to get your first deal?  How many leads did it take?  What strategy did you use? I'd love to hear the low cost ideas.

Nathan Paisley · Answer

It took less than 30mins after putting up 50 bandit signs. It was actually our first phone call ever. Unfortunately it took over 5 months to actually close on it. Tons of title issues but we had a good title company to help us out. I HATE putting up bandit signs though... you get a lot of tire kickers.

Every method you've read about or heard about actually works. It's just that some work better than others! My advice is keep doing SOMETHING! The more you do, the more you learn, the better your chances are of being successful!

Dev Horn · Answer

Based on what I've seen across multiple markets, it might take you getting 100 incoming leads (web or phone) to find 20 real opportunities to land one deal.  Hopefully not the 500 (offers) to 1 (deal) ratio Shaun experienced!

Your goal is to FILL YOUR FUNNEL - get as many people coming in as possible so the good ones can be filtered out.

The really frustrating thing is when you find a great deal, make the offer, and then lose it to someone who will pay more (even too much).  Depending on the competition in your market, the old ARV x 70% - Repairs formula may not win any deals.  Be prepared to follow up with sellers and fight to get the deals on every real opportunity you can find.

JPaul Mills · Answer

I guess you can say that I'm one of the LUCKY ONES but I landed my first contract and first closing all within 25days of putting up my first bandit sign.  And I started wholesaling July 1 and I have closed on 3 deals and one will be closing this coming Monday for #4 giving me a total of just under $35k so this is definitely worth the labor of gorilla marketing. Now granted not every lead I talk to is motivated enough to sell where the numbers work but if you don't make offers you will never get any deals

Shaun Reilly · Answer

I made over 500 offers before I got my first one accepted.

Took around 4 months of being serious.

James Bowen · Answer

A year late to the party but just the reassurance I needed! I've been generating online leads (passively) for the past two months. I've spent ~$200 on ads, generated ~10 leads and put in ~4 offers. No accepted offers yet, but I'm staying positive!

Darrell Shepherd · Answer

My first one was 15 years ago, but it took about 4 months after I quit my job and went full time.  I did buy 4 that month, though.  The first time I put out bandit signs I put out 35 and got over 100 calls.  About 4 months later I could put out 100 and get 30 calls.  Damn gurus came through teaching bandit signs and they started springing up everywhere.  Same thing happened to the penny saver, I used to kill it out of that thing, then someone came through teaching it and the next week there were 35 "we buy houses" ads when there used to be 1-4 or so.  Just saying what works varies a lot by market and competition.

Shaun, I don't know that I did 500, but I do the same thing...if I do the work I tell them what I'd buy it at, my agent knows the game.  I probably made 300+ MLS offers last year and only had two accepted.  We got laughed at a lot, but I refuse to buy dumb just because so many other people are.

Dev, it was damn hard to hit 70% minus repairs last year, but I'm seeing it open up some now around here.  OP, if you're wholesaling you just need to know where your buyers will buy at and work backwards from there.  I see a of people buying at numbers that don't make sense, so if you can exploit that, more power to you.

When I was learning I was taught you talk to 100 people to see 10 houses to buy 1.  Some of that will depend on how targeted your lead generating is, but that's still the numbers I use to set people's expectations.

I don't know your budget, but if you want to talk to people, you can set up a website on Investor carrot for $30/mo and do an adwords campaign for about $1-2/click targeted right and you'll get calls and leads off of it.  I don't have mine ramped up, but I was getting one about 3-5 a week for about $100/mo.  Pretty easy to increase and decrease lead flow with ad words, which is nice.  You do have to watch your budget on that, though, it can get away from you quick if you're not careful.  Facebook was a total waste.  Bing was OK, but I was expecting more of a CPC difference and there wasn't much of one, so I just stuck with Google.

Rachel H. · Answer

In my niche, it took me almost a year to do my first deal - 8 months exactly. It can definitely be a rocky start sometimes but it's the journey that keeps me going.

Hope that helps!

Kyle Cabral · Answer

Guys, thanks for all your responses! Great stuff.

Mark Brogan · Answer

it took me about 4 mnths of marketing to code violation homes in my area to get my first wholesale deal

i probably sent out 200 marketing pieces in that time

Shaun Reilly · Answer

I should clarify that if I get a lead I make an offer.

In the case mentioned here I was mostly doing MLS stuff that were mostly HUD, Fannie and other REO and short sale properties.  So if I bothered analyzing it they got an offer regardless of how low it might have been.

Now a lot of those <40% list offers didn't seem like they would go any place until someone countered back at ~60% list and we settled out a little over 50%.

How long did it take to get your first lead? Everyone chime in! : )

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