absentee owner mailing

[Mark Cohen]

Around 2 weeks ago I did my first mailing to absentee owners. I was very specific in my criteria and only sent to 100 owners (will do more in coming weeks) I am a real estate agent and was not seeing anything good on mls (shocker) and I am actually looking to buy for myself as rental properties, so I figured I could give decent offers.  

Well so far 3 callers, none especially motivated, all looking for considerably more than I would be willing to offer. I had casual, pleasant,15 min. conversations with each of them, all resulting in that they should list w/an agent. (I do mention at that point that I am also an agent, and while thats is not the intentions of my marketing I would be more than happy to help them sell)

I know its a small sample size, but these sellers all thought they could be patient and get more in this current market.

I am just wondering, as a first time marketer to absentees, is it typical that most responses are non motivated looking for top dollar (aka agents) do the motivated sellers only surface after multiple mailings?

[Terry Maher]

I have been mailing to absentee owners for about four months now, a total of about 2300 mail pieces.  We made about 150 offers and closed one deal.  Not great numbers. We are continuing to mail around 1500 pieces every 6 weeks or so, many to the same owners we have already mailed to, as I have read and heard the same thing, that you need to touch them at least 4-5 times.  Motivation requires a change in your life situation, and that may not happen over a period of just a few months.

But the majority of the offers we made were in nicer suburbs with good ARV's, most had no mortgage and had good long term tenants and good cash flow. So there was no distress, no urgency and no life circumstance that was forcing them to sell. We have begun to cull the nicer suburbs and focus more on middle class areas where the motivation might be higher. And the fact that prices are rising is another reason that owners/sellers believe they can do better with an agent. And many of them may be right. But consistency and persistence are very important.