5 Marketing Methods That Beat Bandit Signs

Bandit signs are the plastic message boards you see planted along roadsides across America. Some real estate wholesalers love them.

They’re cheap to make and put up, which makes them tempting. You can spend as little as $2 to get your name and number displayed for hundreds to see as they drive by — and you can spend even less if you manage to staple your sign to a pole somewhere.

Compared to most other business marketing methods, bandit signs bring wholesalers a lot of attention per dollar. From my general research, it takes about 650 signs to land a deal. But they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.

The Pitfalls of Bandit Signs

There’s a reason they’re called “bandits.” The public views these signs as marketing outlaws: shifty, cheap, disruptive. More than that, they’re restricted in many communities and can get taken down by city workers almost as fast as they’re put up. The city of Fort Worth, Texas, actually charges $500 per violation.

The signs are also annoying for the people who dwell in the places where people post them. They crop up on private properties, often without owners’ consent, and take over the appearance of a neighborhood. In several communities, residents are banding together against bandit signs.

In short, these signs don’t help your credibility as an investor; they hurt it. Think about the message you’re sending about your business by putting them up, especially if they’re restricted in your area. If you’re willing to break the law to get a deal, why should a seller or customer believe that you’re trustworthy?

5 Ways to Abandon Bandit Signs and Maximize ROI

Bandit signs aren’t necessary to market your business well. The good news is that you, as a real estate investor, have a number of better ways to reach people. These five marketing methods will generate better leads than bandit signs and impact your credibility and ROI in the ways you want:

1. Drive for dollars. Create your own collection of distressed properties by building a team of trusted drivers to seek out properties with selling potential. Creating your own list gives you the best ROI opportunities. And while most investors buy their lists online, doing the work with a personal touch can set you up for more success more quickly.

When you find suitable properties, get in touch with the sellers. If the house is run-down, the seller will eventually need to either sink a bunch of money into it in order to make a sale or sell it to somebody who will take over the project. When the seller is ready to make that decision, he or she will already be thinking of you.

2. Use your website to build credibility. On top of driving around to find distressed properties, you should also be driving traffic to your website. Use a company like Carrot to set yourself up with a website quickly; then start running Google Ads back to the site to drive traffic.

A bandit sign may attract thousands of eyeballs, but the likelihood of any of these eyeballs looking twice is slim to none. It doesn’t exactly work in your favor that passersby are going to be distracted and possibly distrustful. With a website, people are preselecting themselves — they’re already Googling “I need to sell my house!” and being ushered to your site as a result.

3. Scour old MLS listings. In real estate, MLS listings can be full of deals for the patient investor, especially if you’re looking at property records that are over 200 days old. These listings are frustrating for sellers, and if you contact them directly, they’re often willing to negotiate the price. I’ve made some great deals that started as old listings.

4. Cold call. Cold calling may be an old-fashioned method of contacting sellers, but it beats bombarding their driveways with bandit signs. If you buy a list online, the most effective way to reach those property owners is to call them on the phone. That way, you don’t have to wait for the mail to arrive or for them to reach their own conclusions about who to call themselves.

Top tip: Use ListSource to get a list of high equity absentee owners in your area. Use REIRail to skip trace them. Then use Mojo Dialer to get on the phone with them.

5. Knock on doors. Explore neighborhoods yourself and make connections with sellers face to face. Start by zeroing in on a community that was built in the ’60s or ’70s and hasn’t been updated since. You’ll likely find a great foundation there.

Then knock on doors and ask whether people are interested in selling their homes. It’s as simple as that. It works because people know that their home isn’t at its peak value. To sell it themselves, they’d need to spend thousands updating it. So if they’re thinking about moving, they might consider selling to you at a discount.

Bandit signs are old news. They’re a nuisance, and homeowners hate them; by associating your business with them, you make yourself the enemy. Try these other methods to generate attention and watch both your business and your reputation grow.