First direct mail campaign

[Brandon Hurlburt]

Finally decided to do my first direct mail campaign because I can't find any good deals on the MLS. Seems like any time there is a half way decent deal, something I would still try to get knocked down a good 15%, it has an accepted offer at list price or above by the end of the day.

I wanted to do pre-probates and inheritance leads for my first campaign. But I couldn't find any cheap lists, and to go through county records and scrub all of the junk deals was taking way too much time. So I think I decided on absentee owners for now. The criteria I have set so far is at least 40% equity, and a home value of <100k. I was thinking about also doing a purchase of >10 years ago, but I read that a good majority of motivated sellers are new investors that just want to get out.

Are there any tips that anyone would recommend to get the best ROI? I'm looking to buy them all with cash, so I probably will only be buying 1-2 houses a month if possible. So I don't really need 1,000 leads, just a few high quality ones.

[Braden Smith]

I haven't found a deal on the MLS in over two years. I think that is true for most areas of the country. There are no deals left to be found on the MLS.

Absentee owners are the most heavily mailed lists there are. Every guru out there tells people to mail absentee owners. And many people mail it because it is cheap. If it's easy and cheap, you can bet there's a million other people doing the same thing.

In my opinion, you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd in this ultra competitive REI environment we have nowadays. Be creative. Think outside the box. Use your own style and personality to come up with a unique list to mail and/or a unique marketing/advertising method. Be creative with your mail pieces and try to do something other than the same old tired "we buy houses" phrase.

I know in my area, we have reached a point of absolute saturation with the number of realtors and investors out there. Just in the last couple to a few years, I have seen the number of wholesalers in my area increase exponentially and the same is true with realtors. Im also seeing a lot of the new realtors trying to be investors also. And all these newbies and rookies are all doing the same exact things...