All Forum Posts by: Dylan Barnard

Good morning Bigger Pockets!

So we are still quite new to wholesaling, and we have a story for you guys from this week. A few weeks back, we sent out mailers to around 800 expired MLS listings offering to either buy their house in cash or try my wife, Melissa, as an agent and see if we can get better results for their listing.

Well on Tuesday night, Melissa received a text on her personal number from a seller with a picture of our mailer, and much to our surprise, a digit was left off of the end of our business phone number... Our initial reaction was "crap, we just wasted like $500 on these mailers", but then we started thinking, "hey, this guy must be motivated if he looked Melissa up online and got her personal number to text instead of our business line." 

So we started a dialogue with the seller and found out he is in a time crunch and needs to get cash so he can have a down payment for another house that he is now finished building. He has to be out of the property by February 15th, so we think, alright, we can really help this guy out and make some money at the same time. The house is a 2014 build, in excellent condition, and is in a pretty good location, by Alliance Town Center in Fort Worth. We start looking through the previous listing, and he had it listed for $333k for about a month, then dropped it to $310k for about a month before taking it off the market. The property still had an active listing, but it was only for rent. Melissa runs the comps and she thinks it's worth about $312k.

Next step, we need to find out a way to get his current agent out of the equation. Melissa ends up calling the agent to discuss how we sent out a mailer on an expired listing, how his client called us because he is very motivated to sell the property, and how we really want to help out her client, but we need him to terminate the rental listing before we move forward with his client. Well, naturally, he did not like that at all. He proceeded to yell at Melissa for a good 15 - 20 minutes about how she is "stepping on his toes" and "how dare she go around him to his seller without talking to him" and about how he's gonna report her to TREC or something like that, but then she explained how we just sent out a mailer on an expired listing and only had her client's best interests in mind, there was no active listing for sale, etc.

Keep in mind, we are both still pretty new to the business, so please leave some advice in the comments on what we could have done better. We realize we might not have handled this the best way. But anyways, we proceed to offer $265k for the property and the seller ends up liking that offer and wants to take it. He also tells us that he respects the fact that we had an offer for him within 24 hours, and that he would really like to sell to us. We think, great, let's do it. All he needs to do is terminate any contract he still has with his agent and we can get this deal done quickly, like he needs. 

So a day goes by and he comes back to say that he talked to his agent and he miraculously found a buyer within 24 hours at $275k and wants us to match that offer. He was being pretty shady about it too, saying he wants us to offer $280, but then he will actually accept $275, just so he can get the agent off of his back I think. We told him the previous offer was firm and at that point, and from the conversation before with the agent, we just didn't have the best feeling about what was going on and we didn't think it was worth the potential trouble that it could turn into, and we decide to walk away. There are hopefully plenty of more deals that can go a lot smoother than this one..

What do you guys think? Did we do something wrong or what could we have done better to have made this one work out? At the end of the day, we just want to do right by people, but agents make that really difficult sometimes. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

@Angela Russo we are actually only doing form fill campaigns at the moment (I am working on a website at the moment and am actually taking a class on web development to help as well). My brother-in-law is in digital advertising, so we actually having him help us with the campaigns at the moment. 

@Elenis Camargo I can definitely get with my wife and share some of our settings with you. That would be very helpful, especially since you work in the field. I'll send you a request to connect here shortly.

@Angela Russo I'm pretty sure we've had it set to English only the whole time. I remember the last time for sure it was set to English only. 

@Max T. I agree, but we are having them fill out a contact form with their name, number, and email. And they give us legitimate information. So I just don't get why we are getting such awkward leads that don't even seem to remember what they filled out less than 24 hours before... 

Have any of you guys had success with Facebook ads? I would like to know how you do it.

 Yes, we are looking for motivated sellers with one campaign and prospects for my wife's realtor business with another. We've had more of this problem specifically with hercampaign. 

Good afternoon BP,

So my wife and I have been experimenting with Facebook ad campaigns and have gotten a few leads so far, but they have mostly been Spanish speaking and don't seem to speak English. We have specified on the ad to target only English speaking prospects, yet we will follow up and the prospect either acts like they do not know English or are confused why we are even calling in the first place. We have improved the ad to make it as idiot-proof as possible, but we are still getting pretty terrible leads. Do you guys have any tips on how to weed out a lot of the noise we are getting? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Best,

Hi Harith,

I just stumbled upon this post. How is your search going? 

My wife is working with a couple that is trying to do the same thing you are, except with a duplex. Just from working with them, I can tell you that quite a few multifamily sellers that we have encountered expect an offer without a showing. I think that's due to increased public interest in your strategy and the strength of the DFW market lately. Not all are like that, but don't be surprised if that's an expectation of someone you are trying to work with.

Second, what specific areas are you interested in, and how much work are you wanting to put into the property? We could possibly be of value to you, because we mail out to some multifamily owners and have been funneling some cash into Facebook ads as well, so we may come across something you are interested in. Also, my wife is an agent with Coldwell Banker, so if you need access to the MLS, we can help you out there too if you don't have an agent you're working with already.

Best of luck on your search, my friend. Let me know if we can be of any assistance.

Best,

That is definitely good advice from what I am learning. We aren't necessarily targeting MH leads, this one just popped up from some mailers we sent out to the expireds on the MLS.

But she does not own the property, just the mobile home. That article says we can't do it since our seller doesn't own the lot.

Good Afternoon BP,

My wife is trying to sell a well-kept mobile home in Mansfield in the DFW area. However, her broker is telling her she needs to terminate the listing because she needs a separate license since it doesn't come with the lot. 

The current owner pays lot rent of $310 per month. She also has really bad arthritis, so we want to help her out and find an agent or someone that might be able to work her. We are looking for whatever feedback we can get to help us help this lady out. 

Thanks,

Good morning BP,

My wife and I are well on our way to becoming full time in our business. I would just like to know what CRM that you guys use that makes it easiest to conduct you guys' business. I have been using Podio and I like it, but I also have tried HubSpot and it isn't as real estate friendly. Am I missing any CRMs that I can try out? Any feedback would be appreciated. 

Thanks,