When is a good time to start marketing?

[Matt Heath]

Hello Everyone,

I have been wondering this for a long time. When is a good time to start marketing for properties? Do you have to have money in the bank to start? What do you do for finding deals? What type of strategies would someone suggest a newbie to do?

Thank you for your time!

[Stephen Barton]

@Matt Heath You have an excellent question! Looks like you are thinking like a true investor. In my humble opinion you should decide what path you are going to take. If you want to do buy-and-hold you are going to need some serious dough. If you want to do some wholesaling I started with a couple thousand. We started very slowly by placing an ad in craigslist(we have only gotten 1 deal that way in a year), and we bought a list from listsource.com for $247 that had 1200 names, addresses. We chose absentee owners and wrote the letters ourselves. You need to make sure you BUDGET 6 months worth of money to write letters. The ability to stay consistent is key to this business. 90% of my deals come not from the first time a seller calls me but from the follow up. Remember that! Most of us do not keep good track of who we have talked to but being able to call people back and do what you say you do is all the difference between failing and success. 

Being able to guide sellers to what serves them best is the next piece of advice. I do not always get a person to sell their house to me because it is in THEIR best interest to list their property with someone else. Yeah, you heard me right. I turn people away. Sometimes they choose to come back to me after they realize that I am the only one who they have talked to that can get them the cash they need to sell. Listings do not always guarantee a sale of a property. Just make sure you are honest, moral, and ethical in everything you do and you will go far! Feel free to colleague request me and call me for any questions you might have. I love to help others and of course, there is no charge for this. I just get a kick out of helping others. I like to share the "love" so to speak. The way others have done for me. You can do this! Just believe in yourself and watch things happen!