All Forum Posts by: Braden C.

@Isaac El Cold calling is the current "trend" that is being pushed by the gurus. The owners probably get calls several times a week and they're just sick of it, so I wouldn't take it personal. They might have motivation to sell but don't want to deal with another cold call. Sounds like a great opportunity to be creative and get the sellers attention another way. 

@Christopher G. Two really important things with direct mail, consistency and professionalism. 

Consistency- Direct mail isn't a short term plan, it can take several "touches" before a potential seller will even call you. Don't expect to send out a few hundred letters and land a deal (although of course it COULD happen). You have to stay consistent, don't take weeks off from mailing unless you absolutely have to. 

Professionalism- We're in a pretty competitive market and I can't tell you how many times sellers are surprised we answer the phone or follow-up with them. They'll tell us they had a stack of letters and the majority of people didn't return voicemails, flat out didn't show up to appointments, and they called a lot of disconnected phone numbers. If you're professional, you give yourself an advantage over your competition. 

Always keep these two important things in mind and you'll be a lot more likely to have success. Good luck! 

@Dylan Barrett Not sure if you meant you're less focussed on the target audience in regards to this discussion or in general, but the target audience is very important. Letters are a numbers game, the more targeted your list, the more likely you're going to be to get a deal. On the flip side, as your list becomes more targeted the number of potential sellers will go down so it's much harder to scale. Finding the right balance is something that can take some time but is very important.  

The biggest thing with direct mail is consistency and follow-up. SOOOOO many people send out some letters and think the deals are just going to flow in. They don't answer their phones, return calls, or setup systems to follow-up with potential sellers. After one round of mail they become frustrated and give up. I can't stress this enough, if you're going to do direct mail then you need to have a very well thought out plan in place for handling the incoming leads. 

To answer your question about where to begin, if I was starting all over again I would first be setting up a strong SEO website and driving for dollars to find deals. Both are pretty cheap and both produce results. Once you have a few deals under your belt and some cash to spend on your marketing, you could introduce PPC and direct mail. 

Good luck! 

We've continued mailing and added a message within our letter letting people know that we're still buying even given the current situation. We have seen a VERY slight decrease in call volume but a large increase in motivation from sellers. The challenge is getting inside occupied properties, we're asking for pictures and videos and then making our offer.  

@Justin Ignacio REAL wholesale deals are tough to find, your property criteria is obviously going to limit you quite a bit. If you have a real deal, someone will buy it even in the current pandemic. COVID has certainly caused challenges with wholesaling because owners and/or tenants don't want people in their house right now, rightfully so. We've been having the owner or the tenants send us pictures and videos and so far it's worked fine. We're also mailing heavy to vacant properties right now since it avoids any need for contact. 

You're 100% correct regarding a buyers list, if you have a deal it will be very easy to find a buyer. 

Good luck!   

I've always had our office address on my letters, and in ten years only twice has someone actually walked in. With that being said, I am certain many people have googled our address to verify we're actually a business. Look into virtual offices, they allow you to use their address for a small monthly fee. You could also talk with any business owners you know and ask them to use their address. 

Double posted. 

Bandit signs are usually illegal in any municipality so it could've just been a government employee who took them down. If you keep putting them out, they might eventually fine you. If you're just starting and on a limited budget, I'd spend your time driving for dollars. Good luck! 

Congratulations on getting a nice deal done. Those old letter calls are always a nice surprise! I had one last month from almost six years ago. We didn't get the deal but it still shows that people really do hold on to things. 

@Marquis Williams I usually set my criteria when building the list, before purchasing it, and then mail to the entire list. I don't narrow the list down after I've already purchased it. You won't find very many motivated sellers on the list you purchased, if any. To find motivated sellers, I would use the following criteria in listsource, absentee owned, owned for 8+ years, 60-100% equity, and remember to remove duplicates. This is going to give you a rather large list so you can add more filters based on your budget to narrow it down further. 

I wouldn't spend money mailing to find buyers. The easy part is finding buyers, finding great deals on properties is the hard part and where you should focus the majority of your energy. Once you put out a few really good deals, buyers will be calling you all the time asking to be added to your list. On the flip side, if you start putting out bad deals, you'll have a hard time with potential buyers even wasting their time looking at your deals. Good deals will sell quickly by advertising on free sites like craigslist or facebook, you can also pitch them at local REIA meetings.

Since you've already spent the money on the list you have, you can use it as a tool for determining what potential buyers are willing to pay in certain neighborhoods. You could take the excel spreadsheet and sort the data by the owners name. Look for people or companies that own multiple properties and do some digging on what they own and how much they paid. Once you find a property in the same area, you have the data of what a potential buyer would be willing to pay and you can take the deal to them. Obviously you won't know the condition the property was in when they bought it so try and do a little digging to get as much information as possible. 

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have anymore questions.