On week 2 of direct mail campaign ..

[Stephen Kiser]

Hello everyone, After 1.5 years of selling residential real estate and being stuck in analysis paralysis I started a direct mail campaign. My goal is to get my phone ringing with motivated sellers. I want to be able to look at a deal from all angles and not leave money on the table. Whether the deal is best to wholesale, fix and flip or list on the MLS I am open to all angles.

My first batch of mail was sent out 1 month ago and my second batch was sent two days ago. I pulled my list from the Realist tax search that comes with my MLS access. I narrowed it down to specific cities in my area that I am interested in investing, last recorded sale earlier than 2009, over 1,000 sq ft, under $200,000 last recorded sale. (I am looking for less than 200k for ARV). I used the pre-foreclosure and distressed lists for both owner occupied and non owner occupied homes.

Month 1: I sent 230 letters to a pre-foreclosure/distressed property list. Yellow letters with handwritten font and handwritten address on the envelope in red ink. I did not use a return address.. 

My results were 7 phone calls, 4 said take me off your list, 1 asked me if his house was being foreclosed and acted completely clueless, 2 left messages seeming a little angry and never returned my follow up calls and 1 had a home with a terrible tenant that wanted to sell but she had no equity, monthly payments were within $50 of the average rental rate for that neighborhood and I was unable to take the listing due to the fact she would have to bring a check to closing in order to cover realtor fees, attorney fees etc. 

Month 2: It has only been 2 days since the letters hit the streets and no calls to date. I used the same list minus the few people that wanted off the list. I tweaked my original letter to see if that affects the response rate at all. 

I contacted my county last week to get a list of home owners that are behind on their taxes. They sent me an excel file with 68,000 entries.. I narrowed that list down to about 200 home owners that are way behind on their taxes. I am having to take the bill # on the spreadsheet, plug it in the bill search on my counties website, take the parcel # to Realist where I find the home info. For the past week the bill search website has been down and I was unable to include this list in my second mailing but will be including it on my third.

Has anyone used Realist tax search to pull lists? 

Will 240 letters a month pull enough leads to do a consistent amount of deals? 

Is $10,000/mo in passive income a realistic goal for 10 years? 

Thank you in advance for all of the great feedback/advice! 

[JD Martin]

If you figure on something between 1-5% conversion rate for most stuff - store visitors to buyers, website visitors to customers, etc - you're actually getting a pretty good response. 5% of 230 is 11 or so. 

No return address screams instant scam or spam.