All Forum Posts by: Danielle Cage

Great idea @Clay Smith.... I just don't want to anger anyone right out of the box, but I guess I can't worry about that. Any suggestions on how often I should contact them before I stop?

@Aaron Einfrank I have a designated farm area so I built out a map on listsource. Unfortunately it was determined for the county I'm in, they don't report certain information. In order to get a number worth mailing to, I had to lower my criteria. So I sent to 3br, 2+ba, 40% equity, SFR. This yielded about 350 homes.

I read over and over again that you just have to get something out, see how it goes and then adjust. So that's what I'm doing. I also do driving for dollars in my farm area and just found what looks like a foreclosure (or preforeclosure) that's not on the market yet. So I'm going to try and dig up that info.

The home is on my list that I purchased from listsource, however it's vacant.

I used yellowletters for the first mailing because I needed done right. We'll see how it goes. I think next time around I'll do handwritten letters and since the list is so small I'll do it myself.

Hi! I feel like this should go in the success stories because after dragging my feet for *months* and being interested for years, I finally sent out my first direct mail campaign last week!

Between yesterday and today I received two calls, however neither of them left a voicemail. I called them both back today and left a pleasant message... but my question is now what?

How often to I call them and how many tries? If there is no proven formula, then I'll create my own. Just wondering what the pros are doing?

Thanks!

@Alex M. Thank you for this post! It's very inspirational, especially for someone who is just getting off of the ground. The BP community cannot be beat! Posts like these and the wealth of information are just two reasons why I check in as much as possible. Good luck on future deals!

Hey @Chris Jackson! Yes, I chose the Residential: SFR selection. That high of a drop off (from 1200 down to 143) was a bit perplexing. I appreciate the offer to PM you and am going to do that as soon as I get out of work. Thanks!

@Sean OToole Got it! I will definitely switch up my message to fit the particular list I am mailing. These suggestions are great. What you said is common sense, however I think us newbies spend so much time trying to get all of our ducks in a row that we tend to overlook something so simple.

@David Dachtera I haven't used Zillow before, however I will definitely give this a try tonight. Thank you for the tip!

@Chris Jackson Not sure why the tag for your name didn't work, however I wanted to make sure you got what I wrote above. If not to reply, at least to know I appreciated your information!

@Chris Jackson @Sean OToole @Uriah D.

Wow, thank you for the great feedback! This sounds very much like what might be happening. I will add that it's not only the mortgage defaults, the same thing happens when I enter in absentee owners.

I have been playing around with the options and am finding that if I work backwards, beginning with my farm area and enter absentee owners first, I end up with 1200 results.

Once I put in SFR, without selecting bedrooms and equity, the results lower to 143. If I add in equity at 35%+, it goes down to 53. If I add in bedrooms instead of equity, the results go from 143 to 98.

I will keep playing around with it for sure... thank you very much for those words of motivation Chris!

With that said, let's say that I can't narrow it down to include motivated sellers such as the absentee owners. Would it be good enough to get a list of the majority of my preferences in my intended farm area? If I mail to that list, it should also include any motivated sellers who fit the other criteria I select. Do you think that would be too wasteful? 

If that would work, would you add any other options to the list below, considering that I am looking to purchase fix and flips?

Criteria: Location, BR, BA, Equity, Property type SFR, Home Value

I appreciate your help with this!

Danielle

Hi Everyone,

I'm putting together my direct mail list and am having a bit of trouble. My strategy is to buy, fix and flip. I'm currently using listsource to see what is available in my farm area. While the list starts at 21k results, it drops down to almost nothing when I enter in my preferences. The basic criteria I'm using is:

3+ bed
2+ ba
SFR
30+% equity

This gives me 2600 results. When I add in mortgage defaults from the last year the list drops to 5. If I instead add in absentee owners, the list drops from 2600 to 33.

Does this mean that I need to expand my search location, thereby changing my farm area? Or should I mail to my list which really then will only include high equity owners? Does anyone else do this and if so what are your results?

If sending to high equity owners is not enough, what do I need to add? I thought I understood how to create my own list until I saw the small amount of results. If I'm asking the wrong questions, please let me know. I really want to understand this and get a solid list to mail to.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated!