Biggest Seller Lead Generation Website Vs. Mail Vs. Doorknocking?

Question

Hello Investors. What generates the most mostivated seller leads for you? Websites? Mailers? DoorKnocking? I would love to hear everyones answers but especially Southern California.

I have been trying to break into the wholesale game for 5 years now and I've been having trouble with finding actual motivated sellers. I have tried buying lists from both ListSource.com (Absentee) and USLeadsList.com (Inheritance) and mailing yellow letters with follow up postcards. After about a year of yellow letters I switched to typed business letters. Between both letters I would get a lead far and in between and when I got a motivated seller on the line my inexperience shined through and the deal would fall apart.  With every new lead I get better but there is just too few leads so far. Anyways, I finally gave up on the mailers because it was bleeding my bank account dry. Recently I started looking into a Website and doorknocking. About a year ago I was inches from getting the contract signed on a Preforclosure. So I thought that would be a good niche to get into. In the past few months I have knocked on over 74 doors of preforclosure leads 4-5 weeks before the scheduled Trustee Sale and not one has shown any sign of turning into a deal. I know it is a numbers game but this is getting ridiculous haha. A legitimate website has been on my mind for the past year but just haven't pulled the trigger because of funds. I love this industry even though I have yet to make a deal and I'm not giving up anytime soon. I will do it I just need the leads. Any advise on what type of leads I should go after would be greatly appreciated as well. Thanks Everyone for listening to my rant

Jeff Rappaport · Answer

@Tyler Thornton, most new investors can relate to your challenge.  It can be difficult to find motivated sellers especially when you are working in  a seller's market.  However, to make things really work as an investor creating leads (consistently) is the life blood of your business.

Here are my suggestions:  First, I agree with @Adrien Schebott that sending 250 letters a month may not produce the results you are looking for.  I would also make sure you plan on following up with each seller 4-6 times during the year.  Depending on your market you may have to send 2000 mailers before you get a deal you are looking for.  I would also not send a yellow letter on the first mailing.  It is costly and on your first mailing you are trying to clean up your list.  You will get a bunch of mail back being undeliverable so why waste your money on a yellow letter (I think yellow letters have been way overdone anyways).

I don't know what kind of response rate you are getting but it is very important to track.  If you get 3 or so calls a month the marketing is actually working.  As far as door knocking, I used to do that as well.  It is not an easy gig!  Working the preforeclosure market is much different now than it was 10 years ago.  Sellers are able to manipulate the system and stay in their house much longer than they could years ago.  That could have something to do with your response rate.  Also, what are you saying to them?  These sellers are typically mad, in denial, and embarrassed.  Saying the right or wrong thing coud be the difference between a deal and no deal.

So, where does that leave you?  No closer to getting that deal you want so bad!  I do applaud your persistence!  This is not easy!  Here are a few of my opinions:

Generating motivated seller leads

Direct mail - Based on your small sample size you may not see any results for months.  Rather than competing with all of the other investors that have a much bigger marketing budget than you have you might want to concentrate on smaller type lists.

Code Violations

Divorce

BK

Evictions

There are a lot more.  You can certainly continue to mail to absentee owners as well.

If you are going to do a website (you should) you can now look into Google adwords and SEO.  Basically driving online sellers to your website.

Next, work on some of the free but need to use some of your own time type marketing.

Make calls on FSBO and rentals on Craigslist and Zillow.

Place ads online

Drive neighborhoods and look for vacant and distressed homes

Go to garage sales and estate sales and see if the property will soon be sold

The last two suggestions I will give you is based on not knowing your experience.  I am not sure what you are looking to do with these leads that are coming in.  However, if you know how to structure owner financing, lease options and subject to deals you will be able to provide the sellers with many more options rather than just a lowball cash offer.  The more solutions you can provide the better chance you can buy the house!

The last suggestion is to either focus on one area of real estate - finding the deals, finding the buyers or finding the money.  If you become good at any of these aspects of real estate you will make money.  You might also consider working with another experienced investor in terms of birddogging or finding buyers.  That way you can learn first hand what it takes to be successful and make some money along the way.

If you have any addtional questions please pm me!  Good luck!

Account Closed · Answer

If you've been trying to get started for wholesaling for 5 years and still haven't gotten anywhere, you need a mentor.  Had you invested in a good mentor 5 years ago, you would have paid for the training many times over.

Brian Gibbons · Answer

@Jeff Rappaportwrote some awesome tips.

@Tyler Thornton

I think wholesaling is a very tough area to SPECIALIZE in

I think having a license and being able to do creative financing to help homesellers solve a  problem is an easier gig  and a faster paycheck than specializing in wholesaling

My friend @Dev Horn has written about the "rule of seven" and wholesale marketing

In Wholesaling,  You need to take a good list and mail it seven times or more, and in competitive areas like where I live in Los Angeles it's more like 10 times

That's a lot of money in marketing,  and a lot of time with no money coming in

@John Hixon  I believe has spent six months in marketing without a lot of results

in my 30 years experience I believe if you had a real estate license and you went after expired and cancelled listings and long days on the market (DOM) and you look at other solutions besides cash offers, like

subject to,

lease with option,  lease purchase,

wraparound mortgage purchase,

joint venture with the seller on a minor rehab,

and of course listing it,

all these alternatives to cash offers will allow you to make money faster than just Wholesaling

The other issue about Wholesaling:

Cash Buyers need to be buying right now in that area for you to quickly make some money, if they are not buying, you will have a hard time.

Adrien C. · Answer

I'm by far an expert on marketing and wholesaling as I've been doing it full time 3 months. I sent out 850 absentee letters and got 1 deal. My list is very specific so when I get a call, I know there' sequitur to work with and I'm not wasting a lot of time on stuff that I can't buy. I just sent out round 2 this week. I've sent out 400 letters from my driving and have closed 2 that way. I have 2 in the pipeline from driving but those were returned letters and I chased them down at a different address. I use a few investor type websites where sellers post their houses and have closed 2 from that.

My 2 cents for you is that 250 letters a month isn't enough to break the numbers in your area. I'd rather send out 500 to one source vs splitting it.

Mike Waltman · Answer

How many people were you mailing to and how often? What criteria have you been using for your list? My experience is limited to education at this point but it seems like people around here generally agree the quantity and quality of the list are key elements (along with type of lead) to a successful direct mail campaign.

Also adding a basic website to compliment your direct mail campaign could be a good/cheap way to boost your exposure. It also provides sellers that are actually motivated a good way to get more information on the service you provide and adds legitimacy. Heres a good blog post by Brandon Turner on creating a good cheap website in case you haven't come across it yet..

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/06/0...

If funds are tight though door knocking sounds like a good route though. Maybe order some door hangers (pretty cheap on yellowletters.com) for the people that don't answer.  Also just thought (not based on experience) but it could be helpful to have a flyer providing a clean, tangible outline of your services for those that do answer the door and aren't receptive to talking at that moment. Website on both pieces and now you've provided access points to information for potentially motivated sellers you might have written off.

Hopefully someone with door knocking experience can provide info on the type of leads that have been the most successful for them.

Brian Gibbons · Answer

Ludmilla

Buying sub2 or lease purchase or AITD wrap in California is possible, I think you need a seller that has tried to sell with an agent and has failed, look for expired listings or cancelled listings.

Scott Costello · Answer

I think you gave up way to early on your investor carrot site.  It took me 5 months before I got my first lead and after 9 months I was getting 10 leads/mo and after 2 years I'm getting roughly 40 leads (sometimes 20 sometimes 60) per month.

You can do all the things Carrot says to do, but it really depends on the competition in the market you are targeting.  That will determine how fast you will rise to the top of the search results.

You really jumped off the ship right before it was going to hit land I'm afraid.

Tim G. · Answer

My site is all organic, no adwords.

Just using keywords won't work. Your site needs to be by googles decision the best option to rank on your chosen words. You and everyone else are all using the same words, so what happens next in their decision.

Age of website, unique visits, length of time of those unique visits etc... The trick is to draw good traffic to your site to assist it in ranking. It took me over a year to close a deal from my website.

Dev Horn · Answer

For those who don't want to do all the marketing, there are services where they find the motivated sellers and you simply buy the leads - such as FastHomeOffer.com, HouseBuyerNetwork.com, or ZBuyer.com.  I'm not a huge fan of ZBuyer because the leads aren't exclusive, but those leads are cheaper as a result.

Otherwise, here are the most productive ways to market:1) ADWORDS - just need an account and a landing page for lead capture2) DIRECT MAIL to specific groups such as absentees with high equity3) OUTDOOR - billboards, bandit signs, car wraps, etc.

The TV idea from Erez above is a good one - you can actually do some pretty targeted advertising with cable TV and a good ad is a call generator.  We run 15-sec spots.

Ludmila Hill · Answer

Great stuff guys!

Tim Gordon

How can I learn/find info on alternatives to cash offers?

My niche right now is flipping, not really interested in wholesale. Would those alternatives work if you're flipping?

Thanks in advance!

Biggest Seller Lead Generation Website Vs. Mail Vs. Doorknocking?

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