All Forum Posts by: Michael G.

I don't dislike your idea of taking massive action. It will work if you have a tried true and tested direct mail piece that works.

If you have already created a mail piece that produced results than I would go for it.

Like Mike said...20,000 is a huge number if you dont have the business infrastructure to handle it. It could result in massive failure if you don't definitively know your letter produces results.

I'm curious what the cost is for that campaign?

Can it be done for less than $1 per piece including postage and the mailer?

Don't pay for a buyers list.

You are just starting out and it would be a huge waste of your money when its so easy to build one for free...

When I had to fatten up my buyers list I went to my favorite realtor and had them run a report of all the short-sale and REO properties in zip code xxxxx knowing full well that the buyers of these properties will probably be cash rehab investors.

I took that report to the county clerks office and looked up the deeds for those properties which gave me the purchaser and their address. Some of those same purchasers had bought several properties for cash in the last 12 months.

I then sent them all a form letter stating that I have come across fixer properties and to call me to discuss future fixer's I may come across. These were not tire kicker's.

These were people (alot of them were listed as corporations on the deeds) who are in the game.

So when they call I collect cell phone numbers, email addresses, what type of houses they like and what price range so I have all the right info when I come across a deal.

@ Curt - I didn't lose interest...

Tom sums it up nicely...basically the whole using a realtor for wholesaling is probably not the best strategy for wholesaling.

I also don't get your point saying that many wholesalers use realtors?

Why would a realtor seek out a wholesaler knowing he's going to flip the contract to a rehabber and not buy the property?

I would think the realtor would seek out the cash buying rehabber and skip right over the wholesaler...no?

Did you mean to say rehabbers work with realtors?

I dont know many wholesalers who work with realtors on the front end of a deal unless its a short sale.

There are some other mechanics that go into that type of deal and the realtor has to be involved because the deal can't be conducted without them because the lending institutions say so.

Not sure about REO's and wholesaling.

Are you buying fixers? Is your buyer a rehabber? If yes, I dont think the rehabber is going to want to pay the realtor's commission.

Also, and I think a realtor can best answer this question but if you are buying from a seller that the Realtor has a listing with, the realtor has a fiduciary responsibility to the seller (not to you) to disclose if you are not going to be the true end buyer and intend to assign the contract.

I think the general wholesaling rule of thumb is to NOT include Realtors in the wholesaling portion of the deal.

Its been my experience that a lot of realtors think wholesaling is illegal to begin with.

Have you talked to any realtors about it?

Morris - I search every 2-3 months.

100-200 is great but the magic is in the "follow up". Chris (who started this post) can attest to this.

DO NOT get discouraged if you mail 100-200 and get no response.

Now if you mail to those 100 -200 leads, 4 different direct mail pieces and get no response....thats a problem.

Success rate I would say 2 deals per 600-700 mailings.

I know Atlanta has a lot of counties but you better be ready to compete. I would make sure you are doing follow up's because a lot of your competition won't.

-Mike

I enjoyed watching them go through the motions.

I agree with Curt. The A&E casts were more entertaining.

I watched half of it but fell asleep so maybe i missed it but they didnt factor in the holding costs or realtor costs, etc.

They showed the purch price of $63K. I think repair costs were $40k and ARV was $140k? I fell asleep right before they got the estimate to remediate the meth levels.

I DVR'd it so I'll watch it again.

Thanks Dave. That was me who e-mailed you.

I like what I'm seeing in the FreedomSoft products.

I'm 2 seconds from pulling the trigger on the silver package.

What is your professional opinion of FreedomSoft?

Is that what powers your websites?

Thanks Sherry.

I actually use Corelogic's Realquest product (Corelogic is the company, Realquest is the product) for looking up property owners names and running comps on a pay per search basis. Its very affordable (like $1.25) and most of the time I can look up what I need (owners names) without performing a full search @ no charge.

MelissaData wanted to charge me a gang of money for the same functionality.

Anyway, I just spoke with Corelogic about ordering custom list searches....specifically absentee owners with equity over 60 percent.

The 149 a month is actually 225 in my county and they want me to subscribe for a year. My currrent or even projected business volume can't justify that cost.

They have a $500 bulk plan that lets me run searches @ my leisure and I pay for what I use.

A little more affordable for me.

I use an 800 number that rings right to my cell phone that was issued to me by the same company that sold me the bandit signs.

The only drawback is that you have to send the company the zip code of every town you want to put the bandit signs in. When a prospect calls, the menu asks them to enter the zip code of the property you want to sell. Not a problem if you live in a rural area with 3 or 4 zip codes.

But in a densely populated area like NY it becomes a pain. Last I checked I was up to 15 zip codes.

Whats nice is, I dont pay monthly charges and that number belongs to me.

With the last answering service I used to use if you stop using the service you lose the number assigned to you.

Dave -

#1 - I know our regions are different geographically but in your experience does Direct Mail to Absentee owners yield results from rental preoperty owners or SFR's that are just sitting vacant?

You can PM me if you like but would you care to
disclose the cost for the Realquest leads?

#4 - Have any good suggestions for squeeze page creation?