All Forum Posts by: Amanda Fox

@Anson Young Thanks so much for the heads up, congratulations btw, those are amazing results!!!

@Karen Margrave Thanks so much for the background! I spent all morning looking for things that Karen Rittenhouse and Sharon Vornholt and others have written, but I can tell there are a lot more nuggets I need to dig up!

We have worked so hard for so long at this business with 0 results, I think now when we get hit we get hit harder and it's a little harder to get up again. But you guys seriously are helping a ton, we have to keep believing that we will get there (so long as we continue to make smart, creative decisions)!

@Bryan L. I LOVE your bluntness - hah!! We just moved to Denver from CA where my husband was a corporate pilot who was gone ALL THE TIME. We do not have any income currently outside of real estate investing and will need to replace a full income with the investing, not half. We are very sensitive at living a full life and valuing time with our kids, etc. so I think I'd rather go big, get there and decide it's bigger than we need than go small, not really get there and have to have my husband go back to flying and missing his kids grow up.

Oh, and the other big oh, is I REALLY love flipping real estate. I worked for several years rehabbing commercial properties and it was awesome. And I'm obsessed with outsourcing and growing a big business that doesn't need me to be there 24/7 to run it. I really do think our head and our hearts are in the right spot with our philosophy, but I always appreciate a good gut check - thank you!!!

@Sharon Vornholt I don't think the tagging worked, so here goes again: Thank you for your comments!! The original 600 that we have sent 1 mailer to is an absentee, high equity list. We have been contemplating pairing down that list by taking steps to make it more valuable addresses (driving to look at them, doing further research), and eliminating a bunch of those. We only have a max of 1200 addresses total that we can afford to mail to, and we would supplement that paired down list with other higher value addresses (drive for dollars, probate or inheritance maybe). If we can only mail to 1200 addresses total, wouldn't it be better if they are 1200 really good addresses? But would you suggest we just keep mailing to that same general list and not pair it down?

@Anson Young Tell me if I'm prying too much, but are your MLS deals buy and hold? Do you follow the 70% x ARV rule? Are you networking with realtors? Your comment threw me for a loop since we were working the MLS for a long time and didn't yield anything. We must be doing something really wrong. :)

@Sharon Vornholt Thank you for your comments!! The original 600 that we have sent 1 mailer to is an absentee, high equity list. We have been contemplating pairing down that list by taking steps to make it more valuable addresses (driving to look at them, doing further research), and eliminating a bunch of those. We only have a max of 1200 addresses total that we can afford to mail to, and we would supplement that paired down list with other higher value addresses (drive for dollars, probate or inheritance maybe). If we can only mail to 1200 addresses total, wouldn't it be better if they are 1200 really good addresses? But would you suggest we just keep mailing to that same general list and not pair it down?

@Mark Ferguson Thank you so much for your comments, good to come back down to earth every once in a while!!

I really can't say enough how much we appreciate the input and encouragement!!!

@Karen Margrave Thank you so much for your response and bringing some other folks in!! We are completely new to marketing, I have spent a ton of time on BP over the last 3-4 mos soaking up as much info as possible. We actually just moved to Denver. We had been looking for investment properties on the MLS for 2 years in San Jose. Denver is active, but not nearly as much as San Jose. On the MLS in Denver (which we have completely stopped looking at) there were 2-3 other offers (we put in 4 offers), 25% of offers all cash, offers accepted within 5-7 days. Direct Mail competition 7 other investor letters approx. to absentees, no other bandit signs seen (cities very actively shutting down), large pool of houses overall.

I mainly need general direction advice, I feel pretty confident in researching how to implement different strategies well, but had a general marketing plan that now seems to be struggling and moving much slower than anticipated. Maybe this is normal? THANKS AGAIN!!!

Ok, I'll try to make this concise. My marketing budget is $1500/mo. Our original plan was: bandit signs, direct mail to absentees and drive for dollars, email blasts, and network with wholesalers. We are a couple months into our marketing and here are our results. DIRECT MAIL: 1 mailer sent to 600 absentees, 1% call response rate, 0 leads. BANDIT SIGNS: I HATE THEM. My conscience has won out, but I have 500 signs that we bought before my conscience got loud enough, I contacted all the cities in our area, determined we could (still gray area) post signs in ground on Fri, remove on Sun. That approach, not surprisingly is not super effective. 1 call/30 signs.

Mail is not more effective, I think, because there are 7 other investors mailing to many of the same addresses (we asked one of the callers). It's actually a really good response, probably, given that competition.

So... here are my questions: 1. can I be a successful investor without bandit signs? 2. Am I wise to dig in deeper with direct mail, continue to mail to the 600, work harder/do more research to obtain more motivated seller lists, ramp up majorly our drive for dollar strategy. 3. What are your thoughts about replacing bandits with 1 large billboard in a very busy location. 4. What would you do, philosophically and practically if you were me.

Our goal, btw, is to be a large investment business, not small, flipping and wholesaling 5-10 properties/month SFR and MFR. We (my hubs and I) have limited experience on the flipping side and extensive experience on the real estate side. Please help, we're floundering!

I would have thought Santa Cruz would be really anti-bandit sign, but I saw the same bandit sign every day for like 6 months right in the middle of town. We just moved to CO, so whole different area now.

@Dev Horn thank you for all the amazing information, that was so helpful! What is remnant inventory??

We have been quoted a price of $1000 for 4-5 city posters (6'x12' not illuminated) by a local Denver company. Posters would move around to different poster locations, and it is more cost effective to have them move around. Have also been thinking about posting an ad in craigslist for people who drive around the denver metro area extensively for their business to have a magnet advertising our business on their vehicle.

Having second thoughts about bandit signs. Anybody tried using billboards?