All Forum Posts by: John Adrian Dobson

Hey Lydia! I'm honestly not an expert on this but I've been running them from a FB business page for over a year without any issues. Every few months I tweak some of the ads/campaigns and they get re-approved every time so I don't think there's any issues. Also most of the other investors in my area use facebook ads without issue. Bit of an anecdotal answer haha but I haven't come across problems!

Quote from @Jerryll Noorden:

Quote from @John Adrian Dobson:

Usually the biggest growth limiter for wholesaling initially is generating enough leads. Then once you get this down it's creating systems to accommodate a high volume of leads. 

As far as ROI on lead gen I've included my results over the last while below. Take in mind my numbers are market specific and relatively low compared to some of the high volume guys out there:

COST PER LEAD (Someone calls me or fills out a form on my website)

Website SEO – 53 Leads / 6 months = 9 Leads / month @ $200/month = $22/Lead

*Targeting – None/city-wide

Facebook Ads – $30-$80/Lead

*Targeting - Poor

Google Display Ads - $258/Lead

*Targeting – Average

Google Search Ads - $271/Lead

*Targeting – Average

COST PER CLOSE

12 Through Google Search ($2,640 spend) / 12 = $220 / Deal

4 Through Facebook ($9,400 spend) / 4 = $2,350 / Deal

1 Through Google Paid ($1,240 spend) / 1 = $1,240 / Deal

I've also done direct mail which is the most targeted, but it's also very expensive in my market relative to the response rate.

Anyways in summary there's been two things that have had the best ROI in my business:

1. My SEO Website for motivated sellers, it's a carrot site - designed in large part with reference to Jerryll Noorden's material

2. Getting My Real Estate License - 80% of the seller leads that would call me were retail sellers, and as a wholesaler only there was nothing I could do to help them. Getting my license and working as a hybrid investor / realtor has allowed me to convert these sellers as well. It's also been invaluable for pulling comps right away so I can talk through pricing on the phone with sellers in real time

 Someone that uses DATA to answer. Where have you been my entire life!

Send me your website in pvt. Let me look it over. It is absolutely impressive what you have done. Jump on a call with me and I will give it a looksie over and see if we can double those numbers.

Proud of you man! Awesome.

 Cheers man! Your posts on biggerpockets were a huge help in putting it together, and one of the main reasons I ended up going with Carrot and focused on SEO!

Starting out your focus should generally be on lead generation. Then you can put the rest of the systems into place once the phone is ringing and you're actually going out and meeting people. 

I've found having a niche like @Hamp Lee III mentioned is huge. For example in my market I'm interested in land & infill development, so I took a course on it that was offered by a local developer on how to do this, and started attending the meetups and Q and A's associated with this.

It became clear that there is a substantial demand for realtors that understand land development & deals in my market, people would be frequently posting on the facebook group that they couldn't find any realtors that could help them with this area.

Anything works though - the more you educate yourself on investing whether it be rent to owns, developments, flips etc if you become an expert in any of these more investors will want to work with you.

Another cool strategy is connecting with a bunch of local wholesalers and offering to provide them comps. They need comps almost continually so they can know what to offer on all the properties they're marketing for. You can offer to do this for free, but ask that when they come across seller leads that are a better fit for listing that they refer these sellers to you. 

I've been with EXP Realty for the last 2 years, and it's been generally positive. Their on-boarding mentorship program was getting an overhaul when I joined so help was pretty much non-existent but I thankfully had a great mentor who I knew prior to joining who took a lot of time teaching me, even though I was an independent agent. 

Usually the biggest growth limiter for wholesaling initially is generating enough leads. Then once you get this down it's creating systems to accommodate a high volume of leads. 

As far as ROI on lead gen I've included my results over the last while below. Take in mind my numbers are market specific and relatively low compared to some of the high volume guys out there:

COST PER LEAD (Someone calls me or fills out a form on my website)

Website SEO – 53 Leads / 6 months = 9 Leads / month @ $200/month = $22/Lead

*Targeting – None/city-wide

Facebook Ads – $30-$80/Lead

*Targeting - Poor

Google Display Ads - $258/Lead

*Targeting – Average

Google Search Ads - $271/Lead

*Targeting – Average

COST PER CLOSE

12 Through Google Search ($2,640 spend) / 12 = $220 / Deal

4 Through Facebook ($9,400 spend) / 4 = $2,350 / Deal

1 Through Google Paid ($1,240 spend) / 1 = $1,240 / Deal

I've also done direct mail which is the most targeted, but it's also very expensive in my market relative to the response rate.

Anyways in summary there's been two things that have had the best ROI in my business:

1. My SEO Website for motivated sellers, it's a carrot site - designed in large part with reference to Jerryll Noorden's material

2. Getting My Real Estate License - 80% of the seller leads that would call me were retail sellers, and as a wholesaler only there was nothing I could do to help them. Getting my license and working as a hybrid investor / realtor has allowed me to convert these sellers as well. It's also been invaluable for pulling comps right away so I can talk through pricing on the phone with sellers in real time

Fantastic question. Here's what I did, it took a bit of work to set up but every day I get seller only leads contacting me, it's completely automated, and happened totally by accident. Also I've never had to bother family members, cold call anyone, or do any other strategies that are not scalable.

Two years ago I got my realtor's license so I could get comparable sales data and close my own flip deals. Then I created a carrot website using a lot of Jerryll Noorden's techniques to rank high on search/SEO rankings for motivated sellers ie 'we buy houses' kind of terms.

Then something funny happened. Even with pictures of a nasty old house on my website, even with all of the keywords targeted directly towards motivated sellers, 80% or more of the calls I got were from sellers best suited for listing on the market with a realtor. 

I'd chat with them, explain what they could expect for an off market offer vs on market listing price and the PROS and CONS of each, and in a lot of cases once I established rapport they'd say something along the lines of 'I think listing would be the best option after all - do you know a realtor?' And I'd be like well, ya. 

From here I'm now in a position where I spend no time marketing, if I want more leads than I generate organically via website SEO I drive more traffic to the site via paid google or facebook ads and I can pretty much be as busy as I want to be.

Also no matter who calls me, I can help them. Retail seller and I'm already too busy? Refer for a referral fee. Motivated seller with a teardown? Wholesale to a builder / infill developer. Motivated seller with a home that'd make a good flip? I'll buy it and flip it. 

Because I understand both the on market and off market options I can provide more information and more comprehensive service than most realtors or direct buyers that specialize in their own niche. In addition I can be completely objective when discussing options with them because I genuinely don't care which route they go (direct sale, listing, creative strategy etc) because regardless I can help.

Anyways Trevor Mauch is the only one I've ever heard put a name to it and he calls it the hybrid realtor / investor strategy and it's been incredibly effective for me once I really learned how to implement it properly.

Quote from @Alan Taylor:

Quote from @Malik Sargent:

How or where can I find reliable and serious Cash Buyers?

Local REIA (network with whoever shows up -- a great way to find buyers), call a real estate brokerage, ask if they have agents that regularly work with investors, look for homes undergoing major renovation -- ask the contractors on site who they are working for, see if you can find who bought the property (they might be interested in buying other properties to renovate). Look for recently-renovated houses just sold on the MLS (Redfin, Zillow, Realtor.com), and look up property records to see how owned it beforehand -- maybe they are looking for another project?

Just closed a deal by calling a local real estate brokerage -- great agent, happy to work with them again. 

100% agree with this. If you make it a habit to be at these and you're a familiar face it will make things exponentially easier. Particularly for knowing who the reliable ones are. Also bird dogging your first few deals to wholesalers for a % of their fee is a great way to establish relationships with lots of the local buyers, as well as wholesalers obviously.

The other thing I have found is that putting huge amounts of time into a cash buyer list isn't where your priorities should be. If you have a good deal, the buyers will follow. Conversely if you have a bad deal it doesn't matter how big your buyers list is it's not going to matter, people won't buy it.

I completely agree with @Hamp Lee III getting my license was a massive help, and quite frankly I have no idea how some many investors get by without it. 

The biggest thing for me is the access to sold data. I can literally go through almost every flip that's happened in every neighborhood in my city and figure out what the spreads are, where the opportunity could be. 

Also when I receive calls from off market sellers I can have a good idea about what they could list for, what a direct offer would likely be, and then work through the options with them in real time. Most wholesalers I know that don't have their licenses have to wait hours before they get comps and many just go into offers blind with nothing but honestdoor or tax pricing for the house.

More motivated sellers!

Great information! I'll add another one because of all the investors here -

6. Use Your Investing Background to Your Advantage - when I have sellers reach out to me I always explain off market (investor) versus on market (realtor) sales to them as well as the pros and cons of each, and the price ranges they could probably expect for each. This, as well as knowledge of alternate exits for them depending on their situation such as Rent to Own's or seller financing, allows you to close almost everything by coming up with a tailor made solution, even if the close ends up being a referral rather than a listing.