Journey of a wholesaling wife and husband team...

[Pablo Mendez]

2018, a new year and a new journey for myself and my wife Amy. We have a long term goal of owning rental properties. Over the past year we have been lurking on biggerpockets and reading real estate books. This year we have the goal to jump into the market and learn hands on. This is our Wholesaling Journey... 

We live in St. Tammany parish, Louisiana which is 30 minutes North of New Orleans. We will focus in the Mandeville, Covington, Madisonville and Hammond areas. The average home price ranges from $200K to $250K depending on the city. 

Spent one month of preparation during December, researching wholesale specific information and laying out our goals and game plan. Attended two local REA meetings where we met some great people that got us pumped and excited about really starting. At the beginning of January we began with our action plan. Decided to focus on Direct Mail. Received sample materials from a few direct mail businesses and narrowed down who we wanted to work with. After a few different conference calls, we felt most comfortable with New Refined Images LLC, a direct mail one stop shop in Texas.

Amy and I then came up with our business name... Amy Buys Houses Northshore.  Aren't we so original ;-) Then we filed papers and opened our wholesaling LLC with the state. Pretty simple process using Louisiana's online GeauxBiz.com site and affordable at $140 if you do it yourself. We then ordered business cards.

The next week, we searched for the names of all the Tittle companies in our area and started calling to find a wholesale friendly company. Many had not heard of wholesaling and it was not until over 10 calls when we found one we loved. A small husband and wife team, he is the attorney and she does the tittle searches etc. +30 years experience with tittle work. Mrs. Kathy spent 45 minutes in her office talking with us, teaching us and going over what we have planed. Loved it. 

We reached out to investors we met at the REA meetings and started our buyers list. Small right now with 11 investors but most of them are true full time investors. Some do fix and flips and two buy properties for buy and hold. 

Then decided to use Google Voice for our business phone number. Got that all set up and 5 or 6 tries later we ended up with what we think is a good voicemail greeting... 

Spoke with the Direct Mail company about the game plan. We went over the criteria for the mailing list properties and committed on doing 900 letters per month for six solid months. They suggested we split the mailings in batches. The plan is to mail 300 each per week for the first 3 weeks of the month and have a mailing off week at the end to help us catch up and work the leads. Our first mailing was scheduled for Saturday 20th. They sent over the direct mail letter sample. We made a few changes, mainly that Amy is the lead person in this business. Quick turn around time and we accepted the changes and agreed to start printing. The cost to send the 5400 letters over the 6 months was right at $6,000 and that included the mailing list. We are going with white letter envelopes and small yellow letters, computer printed and first class postage. Here is one they sent straight to us. 

The week before the first mail campaign, we started practicing talking on the phone with leads. I would call Amy and role play being a seller. It was great practice and helped us start to be comfortable on the phone. 

And lastly, today we met with the realtor who helped us purchase our private residence six months ago. Explained to her what we are doing and that any retail leads that we can not help, we will send to her if the sellers are agreeably to that. We understand there are laws against realtors paying for referrals but we dont want monetary payment for those leads. Our thinking is that helping the seller in finding a way to get their house sold will help our reputation and brand. 

This past Saturday the first batch of mailers went out and the call rate so far we feel has been great. No solid deals yet, but the calls are coming in. It seems the letters are working well at getting people to call in. During the first two days we have received 14 calls:

1- Was an investor who recently sold the property to the city to build a round about, property is on a prime courner. He does buy real estate and we added him to our buyers list :-)

2- Very polite older man with a super custom house, "we are gonna live in this house forever, will never sale it, it's our forever home. We  even put silver lining in our AC vents to help kill bacteria" - Was fun talking with him. Took him off the list. 

3-Missed call, didnt leave voicemail. Will call every day for the first two weeks. 

4-Again a missed call who didnt leave any information. 

5-A guy who when we said we are local investors got turned off by that. Said he only wants to sell his home to a family and hung up. Got the vive that he is a for sale by owner. Will continue to mail to him encase his situation changes and we can help him and make a deal happen. 

6-Asked to be taken off the list. 

7- Older guy called and left a voicemail "Yes, amy, this is Edward *****. I had gotten a note from you and Pablo about a building. I want to have moved off of a piece of property at **** west 21st Avenue in Covington. I do not want to sell the land underneath it. I want to sell the building on top of it if you're interested in that give me a ring back at 985-966-****. Thank you."  We drove to the property, it is a brick house with a concrete foundation. Trying to find a ballpark figure on the cost to move it to see if this is even worth doing, could be $75,000 to move it. 

8- Was a 76 year old tired landlord. Owns a townhouse that is in move in ready retail shape. Said she is going to list it with an agent next week but would consider selling to an investor for $5K less. Working on comps and will call her back tomorrow. 

9- Again, another investor. Said he is a builder and the home is currently being built. This was a curved ball and we were not sure how to respond. We will call back tomorrow to clarify if he wants to sell it as is. Maybe he ran out of funds to finish the build?

10- Out of state caller, owner financed local property 5 years ago. The person living there now who owns the home has a balloon payment due next year. Caller does not think the buyer will be able to make the balloon payment. Pleasant caller. (Update: spoke with investor tonight at REA meeting. What we have here is a guy with a note that wants to get out of it. Need to find investor who buys notes.)

11-Take off list

12-Guy caller, is not interested in selling, but said his son will be selling soon, sounds like a retail sale. Will likely send it to real estate agent. 

13-Lady caller said not interested in selling at this time. Will keep her on the mailing list. 

14-Take off the list. 

For the first two days of calls, we are super excited. While we don't have a solid deal working, we've had lots of practice talking on the phone and have two potential something we are going to pursue, the note buy and the townhouse. Very surprised by the amount of calls so far, 14 from 300 mailers. 

Several of the calls were from high end homes that are likely in retail ready condition. These feel like wasted mailers since these people are very unlikely to want to sell at a discount. Perhaps on the next list we should limit the top price of homes to something like 50% above the average home price. 

We are not going a hard pressure sales tactic; It is not our style. Instead, will just talk with people and try to help with whatever issue they are having with their home. Maybe we can make a deal work, if not will try to get them in contact with someone who can. Kind of hard to put into words the approach we want to have. 

Amy and I will share this biggerpockets account and from time to time will give updates during our Wholesaling Journey...