Wholesaling During Holiday Season?

Question

Is now a bad time to try to start wholesaling houses?  I would think it would be hard to get a seller to sell their house before or during the holiday season regardless of how motivated they were.  Also would REO's be just the opposite as the banks are trying to unload these properties off their books?  But on the other hand do buyers buy during this season?  Thoughts?

Jerry Puckett · Answer

Hi Anthony,
Most motivated sellers I 've worked with over the last year did not occupy the home they wanted to sell. Of those 30% were trying to pay 2 mortgages, 60% were disgruntled landlords and 10% were houses in probate.

My buyers list is made up of investors, who are also not looking to occupy. It seems they like to make money year round and are more interested in the spread than the calendar.

At any rate, don't quit your day job just yet. You can wholesale part time until you've learned the ropes. As they say "plan your work, then work your plan".

Chris T. · Answer

Sheesh, where are you buying postcards???
You might want to check out vistaprint!

Luis Leon · Answer

Can be tricky.  Was out driving for dollars the other day and what I thought was a possibility, ended up being a very creative homeowner decorating for halloween.

Steve Babiak · Answer

Consider also the location of your signs (if they are allowed) - traffic near shopping areas is usually quite congested near the holidays, and that slower traffic makes the signs easier to be noticed and read.

Chris T. · Answer

It depends on how much money you have budgeted for marketing.  If you only have $2,500 and you use it all on a marketing campaign in December with no results then you will be out of money.  If you have more then that to work with then you may want to give it a go just to get the wheels turning.  I would recommend marketing materials that are either free, cheap or semi-permanent during the winter.  Direct mail is expensive and you only get one crack at it.  Bandit signs mounted on poles will likely stick around a bit longer.  Craigslist ads are free and so are phone calls.

Bill Gulley · Answer

The RE sales market is cyclical within the year, depending where you are. You can study the market trend at the Board of Realtors Office of at any Realtor's Office.

For those that have four seasons and snow, you would think it would be as you suggested, but December is really a decent month. Remember that when you look at closed sales, the deals were made about 30 days prior. If you buy at the end of Nov, you can take a couple months for rehab, a month to market, that puts you in Feb. being on the market, usually a sloew month.

But another factor, construction guys are usually out of work in the winter, so getting good help at lower prices might be a viable option, will there be enough work to do that you can save the interest expense of carrying the property through the winter?

People do sell and move in the winter. The 2 weeks before Christmas are usually dead, and January, but it pickes up again, at least here.

The key is seeing how much work there is, how long it will take, then do some backward palnning from the time your market starts moving. You can sometimes contract for a longer period too, saying you'll give the seller another month or allow them to remain in possession after the sale, if you could feel good about that. If you allow possesssion, get rent cash in hand, paid out of closing, as any reduction in the sale price won't save you much at all at the table.

Joel Owens · Answer

Targeted marketing ALWAYS out pulls BLANKET marketing. It has been scientifically proven again and again over the years.

With any marketing you have the CONTROL which is your current piece you are using.You start off small and track the numbers of calls,appointments,contracts,and closings.

You will get hard data from this.Then tweak your offer some more.Once you are getting amazing returns you can scale this up to a larger level.

The biggest mistake investors make is trying a marketing message and a medium on a massive scale without even knowing it it performs yet. You need to keep testing and tracking the numbers all the time as you will get calls,e-mails,texts etc. right away and then you will get residual contacts weeks to months later.

As far as wholesaling you need to define who you are wholesaling to?? Investor for quick cash,whole tailing it just making small improvements like carpet and paint and selling,or a full rehab to sell at the retail level.

Each will have their own margins of profit and expected time lines for making that profit.

If you buy correctly you can move any property.They key is buying at the correct price.A great source is local and regional banks,national banks,and the FDIC.

Remember that anything pre-1978 you will get hit with the  new EPA renovation rules regarding lead based paint and it can get very expensive.Never deviate from your low pricing.You don't want a bad decision to end up being a rental that will haunt you for years to come.

I would rather have my money sitting on the sidelines then to buy into a bad or marginal deal.

Chris T. · Answer

Postcard stamps are .28, total cost of production plus postage is .44 and I get my leads free but I can't tell you how!

Kenneth Lee · Answer

Its still around $1 per postcard once you throw in postage and whatever you've paid for your leads, even if you have a sure fire way of gathering your own leads, still comes out to the same price, and you still have only 1 chance to grab the sellers attention.  This is just my opinion as a new wholesaler trying to save a buck.

.26cent for postcard + .44cent for postage = .70cents you still have to buy your LEADS.

Even if you had a yellow letter campaign put together, the cheapest i've found was $1.49 all inclusive (cheapyellowletters.com)..........ONE SHOT.

By the way......guys, by no means am I saying, direct mail isn't a good marketing tool.  But as a beginner(like myself) if you dont know the exact science behind DMM, you could potentially lose a lot of money marketing to the wrong ONE PERSON.   One shot!!!  Hope you have a Micheal Jordan jump shot type lead sheet( that would be awesome by the way).

I could be wrong, this is just my perception/opinion.  Somebody let me know if so......im here to learn.

Kenneth Lee

Kenneth Lee · Answer

Great Advice!!!  Bandit signs in the right spots can last for MONTHS  at a time. Its like Chris said, direct mail is expensive, and for $1.50 you only get ONE SHOT!! So they better be some good leads.  Where as with bandit signs,((which are around the same price $1.50)) if its in the right spot, it will stay up AT LEAST over the weekend.....i'll take my chances with 500 drivers per day seeing my sign, for 4 days= 2000 views per week= 8,000 views per month........eventually with consistency, you'll get a deal.  I'm soo green/newbie.......but I have an eye for good advice, Thanks Chris :cool:

Wholesaling During Holiday Season?

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