All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Barredo

@P.J. Bremner Great advice. I'm going to do that.

Any suggestions on a good printer? Why a laser printer? Is it cheaper than a ink when accounting the actual cartridges of ink? I was going to buy an HP InkJet but now you got me halting. I just looked at laser printers and they have some office size ones for like $120. That's completely doable.

I'd like one that I can feed envelopes into as well. I still want to handwrite the address of the target owner but having to write the return takes up just enough time to make the process grueling. It takes me about 1 minute per envelope to write the mailing and return addresses. Stuffing them with my business card and the letter takes no time at all. Like 20 minutes to stuff 100. It's the envelope that eats up time. I thought about ordering one of those return address stamps. I thought about stickers but they're pretty expensive when you're buying thousands. Again, cost down as much as possible.

I was wondering about the post office. I have a memory of someone going into a post office and dropping a bunch of letters held together by a rubberband onto a scale and paying for that. I don't remember if they had stamps or not.

@David Dachtera Yes I wouldn't enjoy that. I am mailing absentee owners with equity in Knoxville, TN. SFR, built 60-99.....that's about it. I think it's a little too broad but we'll see. I'm also posting on Craigslist for buyers and sellers. Then there's the D4$ which I must admit I don't do enough of. I have only got about 80 names so far.

I think I'll mail this list 8 times like @P.J. Bremner suggests before I give up on it. If I don't get a call back though after the third mailing, I might get another list, zip code specific. I'm also going to get a probate list from the courthouse and start mailing it. I want to hit Tax Liens and Code Violations but I'm having a hard time finding out where to get that information. I want to do the leg work. I don't have $1200 a month to spend either. I had $1200 - period - and it was just to help me start plus get an online presence and a bunch of business cards. I also made 2 shirts with the messages "I buy houses" for out in town and "I need cash buyers" for the REIA meetings. Then I bought some stuff for the family so I spent about $700 on the business.

Any suggestions on how to get those code violations and tax lists? I don't want to pay for it unless I have to pay the city/county for it but if I can do my own legwork and get the list I'd rather do that. Until I close a deal and have a payday that I can fuel marketing and sources with, I want to go the "free" route as much as possible.

@Steve Vaughan I got you on the LOI. I have a template for something like that. It has exactly what you said, several different options for the seller to choose from, each giving them more money but taking away the "instant" payday and giving the investor more time and a lot more ROI and cashflow. I like that. I'll implement that thing when I get more seasoned. For now I just want to flip.

As far as lease options and such, I'll attempt that if a flip isn't possible and it'll be my last desperate fight for the life-raft...but only if it makes sense, of course.

@Mindy Jensen Great information. Thanks.

For my driving for dollars, I write down the address, take a few pics (if it's vacant I might peer into the windows and walk around it) then I go home and research it's history and owner information through public records. I look at last sales date and price but I don't have a criteria I am just looking to see if it has had some history of increasing in value. I split the lists up between absentee and owner occupied and mail them both. I sent them handwritten yellow letters but recently I switched to typed and printed letters with the same message but I don't sign it so I'm going to steal that idea if that's okay. I do handwrite the envelopes and include the actual names. I write about 100 a night when I can. I'm about to mail the second portion of my list from online (I split the 978 into thirds, trying to mail each third every two weeks which will bring me back to the first third in about six weeks).

I have decided that I'm going to be stricter about my mailings. Whether it's D4$ or a paid for list from a list-source.

Why do you only mail houses that haven't sold in the last 2 years? Is that for a little equity? Why not absentee?

Do you mail the same message to all of your homeowners? Would you use a different message for absentee vs occupied?

Has anyone ever cold-called? I started to and then realized a lot of the numbers I was getting from Intelius.com were disconnected and old. But now I'm thinking of cold-calling FSBO's I find on realty websites or from my D4$. If you have done some cold-calls, how did that go for you?

@P.J. Bremner I wish I had 10k to spend, I would have a lot less doubts. I had like $1200 to spend on direct mail and spent more than half of that just mailing half of it. So now I'm buying 200 stamps and mailing about that a week.

@Scott Steffek

I agree with your comment about wholesaling being "extremely difficult, time consuming and frustrating" but if it fits your personality type (meaning someone that is a self-motivator and enjoys wearing many hats) it is a lot of fun. I have days I feel like a private-eye, hunting down home-owners and there's days I feel like I'm a underdog fighter up against an undefeated world-champ without a prayer in the world.

@Ned Carey This is not related to the LOI but I want to dig into something you said.

You mentioned just sending a contract. How often have you sent contracts without seeing a property? This is why I ask:

My strategy as of now is to try to get a property under contract before I meet the seller, like on the initial call if I can. Then I can use the "inspection" clause as an out if the property is a complete waste of time. But, in order to do that I would need to email or docusign the contract. I noticed Podio has a way to send an assignment contract through them. Have you ever done this? Part of me thinks it's a good idea and the other part of me thinks that I need to go to the property and look at it before I get  a distressed seller to sign papers for possibly no reason. My worry is, however, if I already saw the property I can't use the "inspection clause" as an out so what other types of clauses can I put into a simple assignment contract if I just can't find a buyer? I know, I know, if a deal is good I'll find a buyer but let's just say for sake of argument I can't find a buyer. How do I get to just walk away and chalk up my earnest money (if any) as a loss?

@Brian Gibbons Any suggestions on where to find expired listings? Also, what do you think about 60+ days old listings on Redfin or Zillow? I've come across a bunch of FSBO SFR that are well below market value (like 50% or less of ARV) that are not being bought? I was thinking of trying to get them for a wholesale or (if the reno is minor) get them under a lease option or seller finance. They're all mostly advertised as "great investor starters" so I'm thinking they belong to retiring landlords.

@Brian Gibbons Do you really think seeing 100 properties is necessary? I mean, where does someone with a full time job find time to do that? Any suggestions? I ask seriously because I agree that us new guys need to walk properties, see what the market looks like and learn to recognize a deal when we see it but how does a guy with a full time (50 hour a week) job, an 18 month old baby and all the other stuff find time to walk 100 properties? On top of that, what are we looking for beside the type of property vs sales price (or sold price if we're walking a contracted property) and the area?

I love the rest of your advice. I just finished a training course at KnoxREIA on Lease Options and it opened up a door to another great way to gain rentals without putting up a lot of money if any.

@Steve Vaughan I love your advice man. But let me ask, why a LOI ? What are you using it for? Also, in my case I'd be wholesaling, @Dallas Martin had a question that I've been trying to get some guidance on. A lot of other wholesalers tell me that the inspection clause is a way to get out of the deal if it won't work (can't find a seller in 30 days, for example) but what if you have already gone to the property and seen it. Say I met the seller at their house, walked it, and then they signed an assignment contract? What other provisions or clauses can I put in place just incase the deal won't work? Or if I get a deal under an assignment contract and I have a 30 day clause and the 30 days run out, can I walk then? Like you said, if I have a potential deal I want to lock it up on the spot but may not have a huge buyers list since I'm starting out. Am I making sense? I hope so. If not, I'll explain.

Very true Mark. Very true. 

So, I've been at this DM Campaign for a few weeks and I'm starting to feel like I am in over my head. I have mailed out about 550 mailers and have yet to have gotten a call from one. I am posting on Cragislist every day for both buyers and sellers and I've gotten one call from a seller that didn't work out.

I still have the other half of my list to mail, so I know I haven't even hit the maximum capability of my initial push but I at least thought I'd get a call. I don't care if they were even duds, 100%, I'd at least feel like my message is falling on listening ears.

I know that my original push was going to be very slow. I don't have the money to mail 1000 people at once so I broke it into 100's, mailing the first 300 with most of my budget and mailing the rest of them a week at a time, stuffing and stamping myself (and yes, handwriting envelopes too).

I'm just having one of those moments where I feel like there's too many different angles to approach this thing, I'm moving too slowly, and I'm going to burn out before I even get in.

Any advice?

Let me start by explaining my strategy thus far.

For mailers to the original 300, I sent postcards from vistaprint about 21/2 weeks ago. Since then, I've mailed about 250 more people with typed letters stuffed into handwritten envelopes.

Additionally, I mailed about 100 houses I got on D4$. On Craigslist I am using templates I got from Investorcarrot and a real estate investment course I took through a local REIA. It is 4 aimed at buyers and 4 at sellers. I rotate them every day around 6pm so I'm at the top of the list when others are getting off of work.

That's it. Can I get some advice or at the least some cheerleaders???? I could use a pep-talk this morning.