All Forum Posts by: Christopher R.

Hi. From what I've been hearing and reading, direct mailing to motivated sellers work because I'm "solving their problems". This means I can help them by buying cash, closing fast, etc.

In YellowLetters.com, a lot of their pre-made postcards even have the word "CASH" displayed very prominently.

But it seems to me that I'm less useful to a motivated seller if I'm using conventional mortgage because I'm not able to close in a couple of weeks and I won't be able to pay them cash, I need to have the property inspected, etc.

But since I don't have any investment properties yet, I could use conventional mortgages for my first 8 or so properties. With the interest from conventional mortgage being lower than other loan sources, it seems like a no brainer to use it for my first deals. 

But this leads me to the question: Am I not as "useful" to a motivated seller because I'll go through a conventional mortgage instead of offering them "cash"?

Hi! It seems like it is very hard to find properties that will cash flow for buy and hold investing in my area. So I'm looking into using direct mail to get deals. I will probably start with absentee owners and maybe do probate.

Because of my current situation, I do not feel inclined to rehab a property. I would much rather get a property that is move in ready.

My questions is, will I get such move in ready properties from an absentee direct mail campaign or are good deals only to be had by rehabbing the properties myself?

I mean, why would an owner of a move in ready property sell his house directly to me at a significant discount instead of selling it on the MLS?

Hi! I know this is an old post by @Melodee Lucido but I wonder if anyone has had an experience with her Marketing Magic program. 

I was listening to Sharon Vornholt's Podcast and she interviewed Kathy.

To be honest with you, I'm very tempted. It seem's like you'll get the exact letters and very specific criteria as far as lists. It seems like in her interview with Sharon, she was also mentioning something about having sellers screen themselves for her and even send her pictures of properties.

I know that there seems to be an anti-guru, anti-course sentiment here. $1,200 is a lot of money but I could easily lose that much by not doing a direct mail campaign properly or by not getting a great deal when I buy.

Any thoughts?

@Annette Hibbler 

I have a few questions for you:

• What is NOD?
• Where do you find pre-forclosures and NOD?
• How do you contact those directly? Are you referring to direct mail?

@Chris Martin You strike me as being very successful at what you do. As you said, you don't buy from the Maximum Listing Service. If you don't, what are the top two ways that you get your deals? 

@Annette Hibbler - Thanks for the tip!

Hi. I'm totally new to real estate investing but at least I have an affinity for it. But marketing? It actually scares me. I'm the type of person that will throw junk mail into the trash can without reading it. The irony is, I'm thinking of starting a direct mail campaign for absentee owners in the Raleigh, NC area. I want to buy properties so I can use it for rental. I will most likely use traditional mortgage (with 20% down) to buy their properties. 

But I don't know where to start. I am hoping people can send me ideas of what to write. I hope people can respond like this for example:

MEDIUM: Large Postcard

TEXT: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

or

MEDIUM: Typed letter on white paper and white envelope

TEXT: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Thank you so much in advance! I'm not sure if Triangle Area based investors will feel comfortable sending their "secret sauce" to me but I hope investors from other states can help a newbie out. 

@Annette Hibbler 

Thanks for this article. Very informative. 

So how do you search for deals then? It seems like foreclosures are a big headache. And it is very hard to find 1% deals in my area. 

@Ned Carey I like the idea of the spreadsheet. It does make sense to me to budget for these things because they do not last forever and at some point, they will break.

But how do you figure out if a house that you just looked at will need a $4000 roof vs a $6000 roof? I'm sure with experience, you will just learn about these things. But how about newbies like us who are analyzing properties so we can do our first purchase. How do we know what amount to put for roofs and windows and floors when we are doing our CapEx?

@Andrew S. 

@Chris Martin 

From my few weeks of studying the Raleigh-Cary-Apex market, the best I'm seeing from properties listed at the MLS is 0.8%.

I'm starting to feel that to get a 1+ percent deal in a good neighborhood, I have to go outside of the MLS. Is this true?

Should I look at the ugliest/neglected house in a nice neighborhood and rehab it? Is this a good way? How about yellow letters? Pre-forclosures? Buy from wholesalers?