Case Study #1- 3/2/2 Flip: Lead Generation

Case studies are one of my favorite ways to learn in real estate, they provide not only invaluable information but real world examples. For this reason I feel the need to document some of my closings with the rest of the BP community. I feel it would be a great way to give back and help others along on their journey.

Lead Generation: Lets begin where every potential deal first originates. In my business I send out a large volume of post cards every month. For reasons I will not get into in this post, I prefer post cards to yellow letter. Around this time every year I begin generating a list. In fact I am producing my list for 2014 right now as I type this.

To help target and filter the list as much as possible I select properties that have a deed date of 15+ years as a rough approximation of equity. In addition, you should look for certain number of bed baths garage (preferably 3/2/2) and a square footage range you are after.

Once you know the houses have equity its time to look for some "red flags". Common ones include absentee owners, probates and code violations. This particular lead came from my absentee owners list. Looking back over my records, they had already received mail from me FOUR TIMES before they decided to call.

I will go ahead and share my super secret magic bullet that brought me this lead. Just kidding, there are no magic bullets in this business. This is actually one of my older post cards before I decided to more heavily incorporate branding. However, in this case the daughter of the home owners decided to contact me late at night via the contact form on my website http://www.feltusfamilyhomes.com/. It is important to have conveniences such as this in place and allow multiple avenues for people to contact you. Obviously she didn't want to call me at 10:30 PM on a Saturday; however, sending a mail through a contact form she had no problems with.

Situation: At one time this house had been beautiful, but it was still in a very desirable subdivision. The house was a 3/2/2 brick exterior and over 2,000 sq ft.The daughter of the parents who owned the house had contacted me. However, the only living parent left had dementia and had to live in an assisted living center. These problems had been ongoing and it had only been recently the home owner had left to a facility. As a result, during the many years when the owners health declined, the house had not been taken care of resulting in multiple repair issues.

Appointment: When I go on an appointment of then the property itself is the last thing on my mind. I make it a point to build a relationship as best as possible. I talk to them about anything, what it was like living at the house as a kid, pets etc. I very rarely bring up the house itself.

Contract & Closing: As you will discover once you do this enough, not everything goes as planned during closing. Several title issues sprung up unexpectedly. It turns out the other parent who had since passed was still on title. As a result there was no will to go through the probate process. When there is no probated will you must get both heirship affidavits (people who have an interest in the property) AND disinterested parties (people who have no interest in the property but knew the home owners for example a family friend, neighbor etc.)

We ended up having to amend the contract to push closing further out as a result but everything ended up working out just fine.

Let me know if you have any questions or anything you would like to see in particular for future blog posts.