Wholesaling Real Estate

[Janet Hansen]

Looking for ways to bring in tons of leads from motivated sellers. Would using a car magnet work well? What would you use to generate lots of leads? Any advise will be much appreciated. Thank you! :)

[Scott E.]

Car magnet isn't a bad idea. Come to think of it, I've never seen somebody around my area using a "I BUY HOUSES" car magnet (and I drive around a lot).

Direct mail is another option. But that takes a lot of time, effort, and money to build a quality list then hit that list several times over several months.

Door knocking can work, but uncomfortable and potentially dangerous.

I work with a couple of the largest wholesalers in town, they are constantly sending out deals. And what I'm hearing from them is that wholesaling has become more challenging than ever before. Sellers are pretty savvy nowadays. They often know what their homes are worth. Or if they don't, they know that going to market is going to get them the most amount of money.

Best of luck. Still money to be made out there.

[Gabriel Flynn]

A car magnet could be a good idea. You might want to look at creating a 1-3 page website where sellers could enter their details and then you capture those details in a CRM like Aweber or Mail Chimp and then put a decal on your car in a professional way advertising your services. 

[Steven Foster Wilson]

Quote from @Janet Hansen:

Looking for ways to bring in tons of leads from motivated sellers. Would using a car magnet work well? What would you use to generate lots of leads? Any advise will be much appreciated. Thank you! :)

 I think Bigger pockets, Facebook, and networking events are easy ways to get motivated buyers and sellers. Cold calling here in Columbus, I have found so many investors that are not wanting to sell their property but buy more. Keep trying, the key is to be okay with hearing “No.”

[Marty Boardman]

Being a real estate investor (wholesaler) is a lot like being a fisherman. You want as many lines in the water as possible. A car magnet isn't a bad idea if you drive around a lot. When I first got started I had a big decal on the back window of my 1995 Honda Accord. It didn't work because no one believed I was capable of buying their house driving this car. Hah! I actually had a guy say "if you had the cash to buy my house you wouldn't be driving that piece of sh-t!"

There are inexpensive ways to generate leads (door knocking, driving for dollars, handwritten letters in the mail). If you have a little more money to spend you can try text blasting to pre-foreclosures, absentee owners and landlords. And if you really want to spend you can do direct mail, radio/TV ads and/or billboards and paid SEO.

As Scott mentioned, it's never been more competitive finding deals. Sellers are more educated and the entire lead generation process has become highly streamlined/efficient. Good luck Janet!

[Marco Rodriguez]

I tried an "I BUY HOUSES" on the rear window of my hatchback and got ZERO calls. I paid $400+, did not get results and it made my car look trashy.

I have had success with direct mail letters.

[Lydia R.]

Unfortunately 'tons' of leads come with spending tons of money. But there are several methods that will bring in a consistent flow of warm leads as long as you stay consistent with your marketing efforts

1. Direct Mail

2. Cold Calling

3. Door knocking

4. Facebook Ads--connect ad to a short form: name, address, contact info, reason for selling, asking price and follow up with everyone who fills this out

5. Lead magnets directed at a specific distress type Ex: The comprehensive guide to successfully navigating the probate process in X county. You can safely assume anyone signing up to receive that lead magnet is involved in a probate case in that county.

6. Bandit signs

7. Networking/Word of mouth

Car magnets can work. It would be an easy thing to try to see if you get results. I've seen people who have wrapped their cars with some kind of I buy houses message/branding but Ive never asked if they get many calls. I have some custom I buy houses t shirts but the only people that have called me from those were creeps who wanted to know if I was single. When I first started I tried almost everything and then stuck with the things that started working. San Antonio is a great market! Good luck!

[Rick Pozos]

I have never gotten any leads from magnets, but when I showed up to look at a house, they knew I was serious.

Like mentioned above, do as many things as possible. Not one thing is going to get you a deal, lots of things are!! Car magnet, hand out 1000s of business cards, networking at meetups, be knowledgeable. Lots of local people. 

[Marc Maitre]

There's a lot of strategies to be honest the answer is not really what works; because they all works each strategies depend on the person an market will yield different outcome. If you have a car and want to do that, sure, have a number that's not a personal phone and pick it up whenever it rings. google other strategies and stick with that strategy for at least 6 months to give it time to work. 

[Aaron Bihl]

The reality is if you want "tons of leads" you'll probably have to spend tons of money on marketing.  My company buys 6-8 houses a month in the San Antonio area and our average cost per deal is around 3k in marketing...you can do the math... 

Buying off market deals is simple but its not easy

[Don Konipol]

Quote from @Aaron Bihl:

The reality is if you want "tons of leads" you'll probably have to spend tons of money on marketing.  My company buys 6-8 houses a month in the San Antonio area and our average cost per deal is around 3k in marketing...you can do the math... 

Buying off market deals is simple but its not easy

Thanks Aaron.  You’ve made a VERY IMPORTANT point.  You are a successful wholesaler, and to ensure and continue this success you spend about $250,000 annually marketing/advertising.  People wanting to be investors and having no capital somehow all want to believe they can be successful “driving for dollars” or “putting up 10 signs”.  That’s why the drop out rate of people who try to wholesale SFR is so high.

[Aaron Bihl]

Quote from @Don Konipol:

Quote from @Aaron Bihl:

The reality is if you want "tons of leads" you'll probably have to spend tons of money on marketing.  My company buys 6-8 houses a month in the San Antonio area and our average cost per deal is around 3k in marketing...you can do the math... 

Buying off market deals is simple but its not easy

Thanks Aaron.  You’ve made a VERY IMPORTANT point.  You are a successful wholesaler, and to ensure and continue this success you spend about $250,000 annually marketing/advertising.  People wanting to be investors and having no capital somehow all want to believe they can be successful “driving for dollars” or “putting up 10 signs”.  That’s why the drop out rate of people who try to wholesale SFR is so high.

There are definitely ways to bootstrap it when getting started, just not super sustainable if you're trying to build a business. If I needed a deal and didn't have much funds to market I would pull an failed/expires MLS list from propstream and coldcall it until I got a deal. Also, there's community around REIsift (a list stacking tool) that's all about finding and researching messy deals and people in that group consistently pull good deals without huge expenses.

[Jerryll Noorden]

Quote from @Aaron Bihl:

Quote from @Don Konipol:

Quote from @Aaron Bihl:

The reality is if you want "tons of leads" you'll probably have to spend tons of money on marketing.  My company buys 6-8 houses a month in the San Antonio area and our average cost per deal is around 3k in marketing...you can do the math... 

Buying off market deals is simple but its not easy

Thanks Aaron.  You’ve made a VERY IMPORTANT point.  You are a successful wholesaler, and to ensure and continue this success you spend about $250,000 annually marketing/advertising.  People wanting to be investors and having no capital somehow all want to believe they can be successful “driving for dollars” or “putting up 10 signs”.  That’s why the drop out rate of people who try to wholesale SFR is so high.

There are definitely ways to bootstrap it when getting started, just not super sustainable if you're trying to build a business. If I needed a deal and didn't have much funds to market I would pull an failed/expires MLS list from propstream and coldcall it until I got a deal. Also, there's community around REIsift (a list stacking tool) that's all about finding and researching messy deals and people in that group consistently pull good deals without huge expenses.

 All, 

There are 2 main forms of marketing. Inbound and outbound.

Yes for reliable deal flow, you have to do paid marketing if you want immediate leads, but it seems a lot of you don't understand the power of inbound marketing.

Let me show you this...

We get more highly motivated off-market seller leads with crazy profit margins, for free every single day...

Yes for free.

Not only don't I pay a cent, but I don't lift a finger either. By the time these motivated seller leads appear in my inbox, they already convinced themselves they want to sell to me.. specifically to me.

And want to talk about lead quality?

We rarely buy houses over 30% ARV. Our wholesale fees are 6-figures.

Why? Because this is inbound marketing done right.

Do not misunderstand... there absolutely is room for outbound marketing (again.. when done right).

But don't simply assume that you HAVE to spend money on marketing to succeed. We don't!

The fine print here is that it took me 3 months to set up my system and rank #1. Some people can't wait 3 months to get this going. This is why I recommend doing correct outbound marketing while you work on your free inbound marketing strategies.

You simply switch over from paid outbound to free inbound when it starts running on its own.

The lesson here is, 

know your options, and understand what it takes to generate motivated seller leads. It is not the strategy that matters, it is the logic behind targeting a motivated seller is that matters. In order for me to do this, I literally studied what a motivated seller is, and my definition of a motivated seller is completely different from what most of you consider what a motivated seller is and what a "lead" is. 

If you don't define these 2 concepts right from the start, you are always going to have trouble generating actual leads!

If anyone wants to know how I do this step by step, just reply to my post and I will start a new post with my procedure so you can get value out of this.