Craigslist or paid list?

Everyone knows that leads are everything in this business.  But no one knows what works best.  For us, so far anyway (knock on wood), it has been scouring through the Craigslist ads for homes for sale.  You can even narrow it down by such things as "needs work" or "handyman special," or something along those lines if your search comes up so many it would cut into your beauty sleep to get through them all.  We have also downloaded some catchy clipart from the web and posted our own ads:  "We buy houses, ugly or not" or "Tired of terrible tennants?" and we have gotten all our leads so far just by Craigslist.  Of those 10 or so leads (all within 7 days mind you) we will have 2 under contract by the end of this week and hopefully 4 more by the next.  Not to mention by calling on these properties we met a few other investors that are helping us acquire properties and we are helping one of them to sell his.  Remember that you must keep reposting every so often.  Use the same ad or make a completely new one, but you have to be consistent.

On the other hand, there are plenty of reputable online lead systems as well, with no work on your part, well until you get an active lead. But please remember that there are also plenty of others who are not so reputable, so if you decide to go this route, make sure you do your research.  Look for independent reviews, on other websites, not theirs.  But since posting to Craigslist and searching through Craigslist is free, give it a shot. What do you have to lose?  Worst case scenario, you don't get any leads from it and have to try other marketing systems, but at least you got some free advertisement!