All Forum Posts by: Cole Hoffmann

Have you ever dealt with an inground pool left vacant?

We're looking into a potential flip property that has been vacant for a few years. The location is great with a large inground pool in the backyard. Everything checks out but I'd like to hear about potential pool costs if you've dealt with a similar situation.

It's been sitting without a cover for what appears to be a few years but looks recoverable with some TLC. Would you be more willing to repair or remove the pool in this area and why?

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

Originally posted by @Jonathan Greene:

A website is a complement to a wholesale business only and not an inbound source. Email lists that send properties only still run wholesaling inbound attraction in my opinion. Anything besides deals coming from wholesalers via email will get unsubscribed from and marked SPAM. What kind of budget do you have? Effective personal letters with info about your company and targeted to that type of seller are more inbound effective with little cost. If you have marketing budget, radio works very well for bigger time wholesalers, but you have to also be a buyer. Here's the thing, if you are a wholesaler and can't close any of the deals yourself, marketing money spent is hard to rationalize without a really good and honest pitch.

 I think you got it reversed my dude.

Inbound is where people find you. Outbound is where you go after leads.

Then ... I of course wholeheartedly disagree with your statement that a website is not an inbound source.

"Effective personal letters with info about your company and targeted to that type of seller are more inbound effective with little cost."

Dude, what the EF?!  I KNOW you know better than that man!! I know you have seen my posts plenty of times proving that statement 100% wrong.

... know this... I don't do opinions, I do FACTS. It is a fact that your statement is wrong. 

Here is the proof. Keep in mind ... it is not about WHO is right or wrong.. it is about what INFORMATION is right or wrong. So don't be offended please! You are still a cool dude.. just your info provided is not very accurate.

All these leads are inbound.. meaning I don't find them, they find me. I don't lift a finger, don't spend a cent (you can tell by noticing how many of these leads are not even opened yet. If I were to pay for them, believe me they would be opened). This also doesn't include the many phone calls we are getting from the number on our website.

A website is by far the best way for leads PERIOD, both for inbound and outbound. 

My competitors send mailers, letters, DMM, bandit signs PPC TV ads, and WE GET THEIR LEADS!

Do you realize what this means? I don't think any of you do!

People see their ads, their PPC, and IF they are truly motivated, they WILL do research to see what it is about who they are if they are real and if there are reviews...

what do they find?

They find ME ranking #0 and #1 on Google for pretty much any and all keywords that matter:

Like So:

What this means is that we have discovered a way to get inbound leads 100% free from Outbound efforts of my competitors.

Not only do I get my OWN inbound leads, I also get the outbound leads from my competitors that now transform to inbound leads for us!

See how big deal this is?

There you have it.

Get a website, make it credible, work on SEO, while you work on SEO and that is the recipe for inbound marketing success! 

There Is NOTHING Better! PERIOD!

And anyone challenging this, I ask to walk the walk instead of talk a good talk. Show me PROOF!! None of that: "my friend has a friend that knows my sister that is also know my friend that had a pet fly that landed on this guy's corn cereal that then got sick and went tot he doctor and that doctor is the neighbor of someone that saw a guy on tv that got more leads with an other method!"

@Jerryll Noorden I really appreciate this input. It seems like you utilize your website in a way I'm hoping to work towards. Of course I will continue my other marketing channels but showing up as the #1 google buyer seems as powerful as anything.

Do you have any SEO articles/videos you'd recommend as I begin learning the ropes? I know there's unlimited info on this but if there's something in particular that stuck with you, I'd love to see it.

Are you also running website ads as well to increase visitors or just focused on remaining as the primary google source and the leads come organically from there?

@Anthony Caruso thank you for your response. 

What's your conversion rate to get website visitors from email marketing? What form of marketing have you found to drive the most people to your website and what kind of followup do you do with these visitors?

Thanks @Jonathan Greene - we've done a few postcard campaigns (nothing too personal) with company info and got our 2 biggest deals from this. Completely understand about being 'just' a wholesaler with no buying capabilities, however we've purchased about as many properties as wholesaled at this point. These marketing efforts are to open up opportunites for ourselves (through creative financing and low purchase price) as we build company cred and capital and have funding more available. Until we're able to purchase properties in more volume, I'd like to keep the focus on finding the deals and testing different strategies that work for others. I know there is still alot of work to do with my marketing systems. 

We stopped mailers after getting caught up with a couple of projects... something we'll get back to asap. 

Hi Biggerpockets!

On the journey to find our own properties, my partner and I began wholesaling deals that weren't in our budget, area, etc. Almost all of our marketing is outbound... which worked well for the first year but we believe it's time to open up avenues of inbound marketing. Phone calls and mailers have been our focus.

Which inbound marketing technique would you reccomend? How effective is a website (actively updated) in the wholesaling industry? How has email marketing worked for you?

These are suburban counties outside of Philadelphia. It's not really an area with bandit signs hanging although that's what I hear to try a lot.

Looking foward to hearing some ideas. Thanks!

@John L Desimone I am looking to spend 200k and under including rehab costs. I'd like to purchase low and rehab so I can cash out refi and hold the property for cashflow. I am not as focused on a particular area for this first property, I'm more focused on getting the right deal for this strategy.

@CJ Koch thank you for the response - I'm relatively familiar with all of these areas (I've been looking at Brewerytown recently) and will keep them in mind moving forward. 

I'm hoping to connect with an agent in the area to discuss more about what I'm looking for and a few financing options for my first property. If there's an agent around the Philadelphia area I'd love to touch base asap. 

Hello 

I am looking to purchase my first rental property in the next few months and would like to hear about any ideas of where to search in Philadelphia or any of the surrounding areas - ideally no further than 30 miles from the city. 

I am most interested in the brrrr strategy and would like to explore the option of a multi family property. 

If anyone has first-hand experience in these markets, would you recommend looking at any particular area with the brrrr strategy (and possible multi fam) in mind? What is a safe closing costs percentage to use in this area when looking at a deal? 

Any other related information would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you