All Forum Posts by: Andrew DeLorenzo

I've had 3 mobile home leads come across my desk in the past year and paid them no attention because its not my target market. But it seems that there are a lot of mobile home owners in need of a quick sale solution. The problem is I couldn't think of a single buyer who has ever mentioned flipping mobile homes and its not exactly a great rental if the seller is leasing the lot imo. Am I missing something? Should I be paying more attention to these leads?

@Saeed Bayani

Carrot.com, you're welcome.

I'm considering a text and hand written letters as a new marketing piece for my next DM campaign and doing this in house. Previously I've used a mail house for my postcards so this is new to me. Is there a more sophisticated/ streamlined method for postage? Do I need to purchase thousands of stamps or is there another solution? 

Thanks 

Good morning,

I've been working a lot on finding off-market deals for myself through direct mail, cold calling, and driving for dollars. It's been about 3 months of effort and a few leads have come my way but this week I think I might have a serious home-run, the trouble is its a seriously distressed hoarder home. 

The couple is seemingly in their 70s and disabled, after visiting the home I'm legitimately concerned for their health and safety and feel like its my obligation to try to help. Needless to say the couple is motivated to move and aware that the home needs an enormous amount of work, hard to tell how much with mess, and are realistic about pricing. If I were to take on this project myself it would be my first flip, the property probably needs a full gut $100k rehab with an ARV near $500k, or I could reassign the contract to someone who has more experience dealing with these types of properties. I have a 10 year construction background and feel like this is a project I could manage over the next few months but the mess is intimidating.

To those who have experience with these types of properties, who are you using to clear out the mess? How does the condition of the home effect financing? I would going conventional if I were to keep the project. What kind of unexpected problems have you run into? 

Thanks

@Carolyn Fuller

I’ve been using Zillow, I like it but it does take 5 days for money to hit your account. Does not include management functions of any sort other than a lame application, make your own for them to fill out and plan on coming up with the rest as far as communications.

Having said that..

It’s a high profile service that gets results. No shortage of tenant leads, just do your own due diligence.

If I was doing due diligence on an area I might be doing attending a showing or two on similar properties to though in which I was investing off of Zillow due to the abundance, maybe keep that in mind when your putting your time aside for showings.

So I stumbled across something last week, it didn't pan out but I'm curious what everyone thinks about it.

Mr. Smith did pretty well for himself and was able to purchase a nice home in an affluent neighborhood in Denver, unfortunately his health declined as he aged and the beautiful home was left solely to his 20 something daughter. Without the knowledge, credit, and income required to afford the cost of owning such a home, it became visibly distressed. Eventually she was forced to turn to a hard money lender and once she was unable to pay the loan back he was able force her into foreclosure over a mere $30k on a $1.5m home. I search by zip codes for foreclosures and this number caught my eye. Being that you ARE a millionaire if you live in this neighborhood I thought it was odd but possibly an opportunity so I figured I would reach out. I figured I could secure her right to cure after, pay-off the lien, file a lien of my own, go into escrow to wholesale the property, and obviously have her repay the lien upon closing. Turns out she was able to file for cure once she listed her home with a realtor, so game over for me but I'm curious if this seems plausible as a new criteria for lead gen. 

Thanks!

@Braden Smith thank you for the insight. Are absentee owners with PO Boxes as a mailing address a waste of time? I have an extremely high percentage in my lists.

How would you adjust your criteria beyond the equity aspect? Keep in mind I am mostly driving for dollars and using some generic listing services. PM welcome.

Hello everyone,

I asked a similar, more broad, question a few weeks ago without a response so I’m hoping I’ve narrowed down my concerns enough to generate a response.

I’m working on a campaign for February and I’m wondering about all of the absentee owners on my lists. It seems like anyone who has another address listed in public record qualifies as an absentee owner. This would mean any investment property would qualify and obviously not a motivated seller and I probably wouldn’t want to waste mailers on them.

Also my list has hundreds of PO Boxes, should I be concerned?

Otherwise my list is a few hundred distressed properties I obtained from driving around.

I would like to hear from those with success with direct-mail. Specifically how big of a list did you start out with and what kind of response rate is typical?

Thanks

Happy New Year!

Our 2021 goals are well under way, building capital and networking being at the top of the list. We've been peeling away at this onion over the past few weeks and fortunately a learning opportunity has appeared. It's become clear that finding off-market deals is a skill that could benefit us wildly. I'm curious if there is anyone out there that has had any success building their own motivated buyer list and what strategies they used aside from the obvious. I'm not opposed to investing in a professionally prepared list but if theres a "who" I'd be willing to put the work into becoming its the "off-market deal genie." So far I've been scouring public records and driving specific neighborhoods for dilapidated properties generating my own list. 

If this isn't something you have experience with I'd still be interested in hearing Direct Mail success rates and stories or anything regarding creative ways of finding off market deals. 

As always, looking forward to everyones input.

@Chris Freeburg the townhouse preforms better than I could ask for from a cash flow perspective, while still having a mortgage. However, Im looking to diversify my liability away from a single tenant. Also after looking into some tax strategies I have taken an interest in utilizing the 1031 to buy a multi family in order to defer the depreciation to offset our w2 income. The initial glacé at the market wasn’t promising with our low inventory so it’s something I will just be keeping my ear to the ground on until a few months before the lease term is up.