Are there any online tools or resources that can be used to drill down wholesale target markets?

Question

Does anyone know of any resources or online tools that can be used to better drill down and target the right areas/neighborhoods to market in?

Sharon Vornholt · Answer

Randall -

I think this is a personal decision, but in general bread an butter homes are easy to sell.  I primarily work with absentee owners and probates. For my absentee owner lists I use an ARV of about $50K - $200K since I am only paying a percentage of that. (I use this ARV for probates too).

You have to be careful going up to that $150-200K ARV in my area, because that puts the house outside of the parameters for a house that will cash flow for a landlord. I have rehabbers that sell retail on my list so I'm ok doing that.

For absentee owners I look for 50% equity, I leave out bad areas and war zones (zip codes), and I only mail to out of state people that have homes here. Ky is not that big so if you were inTexas for instance that is a big state, you might include anyone further away than 3 hours or so.

But good bread and butter homes are always easy to sell.

Randall Gillette · Answer

Sharon Vornholt@ this is very helpful Sharon. very much so. Do you have any feedback on what criteria I should select for my lead list? Im working on this now but if you have a checklist of what you typically  use for your leads it would be helpful. thank you again. very helpful.

Sharon Vornholt · Answer

Brandon Turner- Well I don't know about that, but I will give it a shot.

Companies like listsource are great for targeting criteria you are suggesting Randall. You can really nail down areas if you are interested in specific neighborhoods and zip codes. You can filter in equity, arv of house and all other sorts of things. They have access to all records that are considered public record. I have never gotten a divorce list but that info is in the public records.

If you want to do a postcard mailing, the company I use can also sell you a list. You can email me.

I think that your best bet is to buy a targeted list. You have to pay for it, but the list can be used mulltiple times for your campaigns.

You can go into listsource's website and play around (free) by putting in parameters to get a count of prospects. I will tell you this; they have to plug in some things like equity themselves. They will also run a list for you (free) and tell you how many prospects you have for each criteria you select (if you have more than one). You can get the price for that list and get it then if you want.

I hope this helps guys.
Sharon

Brandon Turner · Answer

Hmmm - not too sure. Maybe Sharon Vornholt has a better idea? She is the direct mail queen :)

Randall Gillette · Answer

Brandon, thanks for the reply.  so direct mailings I'm up to speed on all the traditional forms of marketing. What I am referring to is online tools For example realty trac seems to be a good one for gathering data on foreclosures etc. I may even be able to leverage it for locating markets for wholesaling as well but I haven't looked at it close enough yet. they only have a 1 week free trial which is "easy" to forget to cancel. So anyway. My bread an butter is homes when in perfect to near perfect condition will resale for between 75-150'g's So it got me thinking perhaps there is a source out there  that can essentially target the neighborhoods etc. So for example I can take a profile of a highly motivated seller say a divorcee-- maybe I can find a stat that shows me say a divorce rate for a specific city-- If its high then I could target that area for my marketing however,  I want to find the homes in the bread and butter areas of that town.  So really I guess all I would need to  do is consolidate the areas of that town/city and then run some comps. Hmmm maybe I just answered my own question.. at any rate that should give you an idea--- something that would more efficiently help me to target market.  I want to do a combo of shot gun and target. The goal is to find the part of the lake with the most and largest fish to increase the cast/cash to catch ratio. thanks for any feedback and help you can offer. I appreciate it.

Brandon Turner · Answer

Hey Randall Gillette - I don't, but maybe I could get some clarification and bump your question a bit.

Are you referring to finding the right type of "motivated sellers" - like lists? I'm not the best direct mail person, but maybe I can point you in the right direction with some more info.