All Forum Posts by: Michael G.

Sorry Willie. I didn't see your post until today. 30 - 45 days should not be an issue.

This is the reason why I personally have built a buyers list of qualified buyers who can close with cash in 10-15 days (its never really that short between sorting out title issues, sending contracts back and forth, etc.)

I feel comfortable telling the seller that although the contract says 30-45 days we can more than likely wrap the deal up in 10 - 15 business days barring any unforeseen circumstances.

@ Tommy - I took a look at the cost of those leads. 25 leads a month for $150? I'll go to the county clerks office and get 25 leads for 25 cents a page plus the cost of gas to and from. 100 leads for 300 bucks a month? A bit much for my slender marketing budget my friend.

I do know a rehab investor that tells me he spends 5k a month on marketing. Ends up a few times we are looking at some of the same leads, except he paid top dollar for his.

Why would LA not be a viable geographic location to wholesale houses?

Wholesalers typically wholesale the type of properties that their farm area dictates right?

I cant speak for the virtual wholesaler because i dont do that.

However, if you wholesale SFR's then that's your niche. If you wholesale rentals than than that's your niche.

I hate to state the obvious but SFR's and rentals are 2 different animals with 2 different end buyers.

Mixing the 2 when it comes to wholesaling is like mixing apples and oranges...no?

I may be wrong but I dont think of LA as a market to wholesale rentals. Conversely, I think of it ideally as a SFR marketplace for the wholesaler who wants to flip SFR deals to rehabbers of single family homes.

Considering that the home values are some of the highest in the country, it only seems logical that the wholesaler paydays would be SWEET if a wholesaler found some deals with equity. Kind of like the NY market if you ask me.

Speaking to Tommy's original question.

I am very fond of direct mail to the administrators of probate properties. This is where most of my business is done.

Bandit Signs - affordable guerilla marketing tactic but garners a lot of calls from tire kickers, retail buyers with unrealistic ideas, etc.

Newspaper ads - I was running a penny saver ad a while back and it started to get very costly because I was told I cant test an ad for 2 weeks. Its gotta run at least a month. The longer the better.

Craigslist - I havent done that in a awhile either and am wondering myself if I should include it in my marketing strategy.

Radio - Never tried it and you know what? I dont hear anyone else doing it in my neck of the woods. I'm not sure if that means its cost prohibitive or my competitors are not savvy enough to ad it to their marketing campaigns? Ive heard you can pay for only the ads that you receive calls from. Sounds like its worth looking into.

At the end of the day I want the phone ringing off the hook with qualified wholesale leads(what wholesaler doesnt?) but the only way to do that is with great marketing.

My next wholesaling check should be coming in a few days and i'm thinking of spending about $1500 bucks on marketing.

I'm looking @ buying some leads from CoreLogic that will allow me to target divorcees and absentee owners. I'd like to try direct mail campaigns to those specific groups to see what the response is but again its not cheap. I think it was $500 for unlimited leads for the year but don't quote me.

So thats $500. Looking @ about $350 for 100 bandits and stakes for a total of 850 bucks.

Not sure where to spend the rest.

@ William - When I go to the courthouse I start with the last 3 months of probate records. So for instance, I'll search from 7/14 - 10/1. The main thing I check to see is if the record of the estate shows that it has real estate. There will be a few with plenty of other assests and no real estate.

Once Ive confirmed the estate owns real estate I print the page in the probate record with the administrators name and address so i can send them a letter. I dont really waste my time with any of the estates that have no letters of administration yet. My success has been with estates that have 1 or 2 heirs. After I gather my "list", I do a quick google search to see if the ones I'm really hot for are on the MLS already. I dont do MLS listings so it helps me sort out the best qualified leads to send letters to. I would check them all but its a huge time hog so I don't.

I also will drive a property if its close by just to see if its vacant and/or rundown. Anyway, after I send the letters sometimes I will get a call a week later. Sometimes after a week or so I will look up the administrators phone number and call them basically saying "I'm just following up on the letter I sent and wanted to know if you had any questions". That call is a) not really a cold call because they received my letter b) I'm not going for the hard sell...i'm just "following up".

Ive had 1 or 2 people call me about sending letters too close to the date of death but thats out of hundreds of letters i sent.

The answer to the assignment question is yes you can assign the contracts if that's what you are asking.

The trick is getting in front of the administrator, establishing rapport and getting them to a price that makes sense for everybody. I've learned to ask the admins if they are working with anyone else. Ive been in a situation where I think i'm the only offer on the table because the administrator called me and at the 11th hour they say well some other guy offered me 10K more.

Good luck.

@ Travis - Most of the probate properties i come across are owned free and clear but some suprisingly do have mortgages and the administrators never hide that fact but i always ask anyway. Yes. A title search would reveal a recorded mortgage before closing.

Stinson - Duly noted. Thank you for the explanation. I can appreciate the play by play on that deal.

I dont ever want to be closed minded to new ideas and approaches so i will accept that wholesaling can be done without a buyers list.

Thaks also for mentioning the 50/50 split.

I think that bringing a solid deal to the table is a forgone conclusion for any wholesaler worth his or her salt.

I know Ive miscalculated repairs on my fair share of houses but hey...you live and you learn.

I think the take away here...@ least for me is that there is more than one way to skin a cat...or do deal.

So if you guys had $300-$500 to spend on marketing what other form of marketing would you spend it on in place of Bandit Signs?

I cant uderstand how someone who wholesaled 0 deals has an opinion on how many buyers should be on a buyers list?

Darren - Let me tell you about a deal I ran into last week. I went to my favorite cash buyer on a deal and he said he was already looking @ the same deal. So what does that mean to me? 1 buyer limits my buying resources. So if he's working the deal already does he need me? Do I just give him the deal or do I go find someone else on my list. Do you think I didnt call another cash buyer? Of course I did.

Ive had cash buyers say they are not in the market right now they need to sell some inventory first. So i move on to the next one.

Lastly lets remember we are talking about BUILDING A BUYERS LIST.

Ultimately you will probably have 2 deep pocket cash buyers you can go to anytime but you need to establish the list to find out who those people are no?

I can imagine having only 2 buyers on my list when I first started and they both say I'm not interested right now.

I must have missed the boat on this "not having to build a buyers list - find the deals and the buyers will find you " strategy.

Obviously it must work since so many people ascribe to it but I would love to hear of an example of when it did. IE. Wholesaler found a great deal and had according to some on this post zero buyers to wholesale the deal to.

I would really like to hear the play by play on that one.

Darren - Find and ask the rehabbers that you are going to work with. They will be the best people to ask since that's who you will be doing business with. Ask your favorite realtor to pull a report on properties that sold for cash. Take that report down to the county clerks office and see who bought those houses. That will tell you who the "real deal" investors are in your neck of the woods. Ask them what type of houses they like and where they like to buy them. I think ONE of the main things that rehabbers look for is a DEAl like Carl mentioned.

Part time

Hi Guys,

I focus almost exclusively on probates and I need to market to a different market segment to increase deal flow.

I'm looking for a good list source to market to a specific group of property owners.

a) Owners who have a mailing address different that the property address in a specific zip code

b) Owners who own their property free and clear.

I'm looking for good, fresh lead sources that are affordable.

I havent bought leads for quite some time and need to know who I can go to and who to stay away from.

Are you wholesalers actively buying lists out there?

Also - as a value add let me know what lists seem to work best for your wholsaling business.

-Mike

I've NEVER met a wholesaler who said they don't need a buyers list.

Who does that?

@ Mubasher -The topic reads "before you start wholesaling". I'm not suggesting that you don't find deals. I'm suggesting that putting deals under contract before you have a buyer in place is a recipe for disaster.

Good deals dont sit around waiting for you to cherry pick them. The fast movers make the money. If a deal falls in my lap five minutes from now, i'm on the phone with my cash buyer 60 seconds after that to see if they have interest.

What am I going to tell the seller? This might take a while because i need you to wait around until for a few days to a few weeks until I find a qualified buyer to buy your property OR I can close in 10 days?

I have 2 deep pocket home run cash investors that i can wholesale any good deal to, hands down. I then have another solid 5 that i can goto if for some reason those 2 can't perform. (highly unlikely). Another 4 after that if those five can't perform. I would have to exhaust all those resources before I tell my seller I can't close.

In a perfect world Mubasher finds a deal today and posts it on craigslist and other free advertising sites and the next day he has a buyer.

In the real world he finds deal today posts it on craigslist. Gets some tire kickers that he has to qualify. 2 3 4 days go by. He may or may not have a buyer.

He has now lost valuable days and is inching steadily toward breach of contract for non-performance.

So please tell me if all you "zero buyers needed for a buyers list" advocates are suggesting that he go to contract on a property without having a buyer in place?

A very high level overview on the mechanics of a wholesale deal are a)build a buyers list b) find a deal c) wholesale the deal.