All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Charles

I am a little north of you in Ventura County.  Here are the numbers for the 10 major cities in our county for June.  I know we're not LA, but figured some might be interested in our numbers as we are located in Southern California.

# of months inventory: 1.32
# of homes sold: 780
Average listing price: $589,337
Average Sale Price: $608,706
Percent difference between listing and sale price: 3.3%
Average price per square foot: $325.69
Average Days on Market (DOM): 62

My wife and I work full time jobs and are not always available to answer calls we receive from our marketing.  We have a decent voicemail set up, but I wonder how many leads choose not to leave a voicemail and move on to the next number they find.  I am trying to think of ways we can improve on this.  Although we do not receive a ton of calls (maybe 10 a week), I do not want to increase our marketing until we can find a way to improve on answering the calls.  Does anyone have a suggestion for either a phone answering service or virtual assistant for low volume work?  I don't think it makes sense to pay someone hourly when we don't get many calls, so are they any options to pay-per-call? I have searched the forums and found suggestions on answering services that charge monthly for a certain amount of minutes, but just wanted to see if there are any other options out there?  Thanks.

@Kristina Hess Welcome to BP. My wife and I are located in Ventura County. Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to help you grow your business. 

As for networking events, I recommend doing a search for real estate events on meetup.com. In ventura county, I recommend the Ventura county Real estate investors club and the real estate candy shop.

@Rick H.

I'm not quite sure i understand what that means.  Could you please explain? Do you mean checking to see if a name appears on multiple lists and only mailing to those?

It's been a while since i posted anything, so i figured i would do a quick update. Unfortunately, we have not started any new projects or have any hot leads. Up until recently, we were sending approximately 1000 letters a month to absentee owners and an inherited list. Our plan was to send 6 touches to each list and then stop, but after reading some of the material from direct mail experts Aaron Mazzrillo and Sharon Vornholt, we might be rethinking that strategy and continue to send touches until the house is sold. Two or three months ago, we started sending letters to probate, divorce, NOD, eviction, and bankruptcy lists and are now sending around 2000 letters a month. Prior to mailing these new lists, the only phone calls we were receiving were from telemarketers. When we actually got a real call, we would be shocked. Now that we are entering our 4th touch on the new mailers, we are actually getting some real calls. And although we have gotten any deals out of them, my wife has gotten a short sale listing that will be closing soon and also just got another listing this week. We will cross our fingers and see what happens as we continue to mail these lists.I have also been taking some training on Google Adwords and will hopefully be implementing some campaigns within the next few weeks.

@Justin R.

I believe most, if not everyone, will say that finding the deal is the most difficult part in today's market.  Unless you are an already established investor with a great lead funnel, it is not going to be easy in Southern California.  Like everyone says, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. 

Hello @Lisa Brown.  I am in Ventura County also. Please let me know if there is ever anything that i can do to help you out. 

If you subscribe to Rebogateway, divorce leads is one of the lists that come with your subscription. You would have to confirm what parts of the country it supports though.  

@Jaime Valencia

Welcome to BP.

We have put up bandit signs in Oxnard (but haven't done so in a while).  If bandit signs are something you are going to pursue, I would suggest learning the laws/rules of the city you will be targeting and either comply with them or be willing to face whatever the consequences are if you don't.

If you have any other questions about Ventura County, please feel free to send me a PM. 

@Norman Magana

Welcome to bigger pockets. My wife and I are located in Oxnard as well.  If there is ever anything we can do for you, please feel free to reach out and let me know.