All Forum Posts by: Eric NA

I'm assuming you are referring to the outside of the envelope that gets read before they even get to your letter.

I have only done one mailing campaign but my response rate was FANTASTIC. I was also pulling my data from my assessors database. Here is what I did:

For the outside envelope, I hand wrote the names (you can easily do this if you're only doing 80) and I would simply pick one of the two names. I never used both even if it was completely obvious it was Mr. & Mrs. such and such. I think you're better off to just put Mr. Smith and leave the wife off. If she gets the letter, she'll see his name with a hand addressed envlope and think "Huh, who's writing a letter to my husband" The same holds true if you address is to the wife and leave the husband off. Bottom line, I wouldn't worry about it as much as you are. Just a pick one of the names you can see and write it down and move on. Can't tell which sex the person is? Then don't even put a "Mr./Mrs." Just skip it all together.

For the return address on the envelope, I used small 1/2" by 1" sticky labels you can print from your computer. Put my company name/PO box info on it.

For the actual letter, I just put "Dear Neighbor," at the top. At the bottom, I hand signed my name (I have a very quick and short signature).

Hope that helps.

Eric

What sources do you look to on a daily/weekly/monthly basis so that you feel caught up with what’s going on? IE what information sources do you always view so you have your finger on the pulse of the real estate market, the economy in general, and anything else that is relevant to know from a business stand point?

I'm guessing he's planning to use it as a rental but assumes he can take the tax credit.

Brett- The tax credit does not apply if you are not going to live in the home. Further, if you move out within 3 years, it must be repaid.

While I believe it's a combination of information sources that lead to someone's ultimate success, and I'm sure you would agree, BP has been extremely valuable to me. There's only so much I can pull out of reading books and buying a course that shows me how to invest using a specific strategy. Being on BP gives me the opportunity to take what I've learned and apply it to the real world by asking questions of those who have more experience.

In addition, it's very motivating when you read posts about people who ARE getting it done so that you know it's posisble and not just some fairy tale you read in a book.

Two thumbs up for BP.

To throw out an example, I have been sitting on the fence since January. I finally decided I had read enough and it was time to start taking action, so I set a date 1 month ahead of the current date and told myself, I don't care how horrible the list is, how horrible my marketing is, or how it gets done, one month from today I am going to send out 250 letters and just see what happens. I dropped the letters 2 weeks ago and have received a total of 6 calls already, 3 within the last 2 days.

Have I done a deal yet? No. But it was extremely motivating for me to send out some marketing and get to talk to sellers on the phone. I was nervous, didn't ask all the right questions, and I was no where near perfect, but I gained a lot of confidence and now I'm extremely motived moving forward that I can make it happen as long as I keep up with the marketing and follow up with people who have contacted me.

My biggest fear was that I would waste the time and money to send out 250 letters and get 0 responses. In the end I learned a lot about talking to sellers on the phone, what things I need to learn more about, and that I CAN make a deal happen if I just dig in and keep going.

More leads, more questions!

#3: Owner of commercial property (I forgot to exclude those from my mailing list, lesson learned) in a reasonably decent part of town. It's really a vacant corner lot. Owner paid cash, was going to move to OK then decided he didn't like OK. He has the property listed under his name and it's commericial. Doesn't seem motivated and I wasn't able to get out of him what he wanted for the property just got the "make me an offer" bit. So obviously this falls outside what I am looking for. Do I spend any time on this and maybe try and flip the lead over to a commercial broker in hopes of a referral fee? I have no idea how to handle it since it's commercial. I have a couple commerical contacts who are in different parts of commercial but could point me to someone who would be interested.

#4: Owner was very short on the phone and wasn't very forthcoming with the information and I sometimes had to ask the same question different ways to get an answer. Currently owns a duplex (he said it was a single family and didn't even know the address) that falls in my target area. He owns it outright but is 1 year behind paying his property tax. From the tax assessor website I show that his prop tax is $300 a year (how do you fall behind on that when you don't even have a payment!?). He also said property has been abandoned for 2 years now. My gut feeling says he is embarrased that he owes back taxes on it so that's why he was short on the phone. I think he's in a bit of a financial bind and he wants to get rid of it but I couldn't get him to give me any kind of selling price he just gave me the "make me an offer".

So being a newbie here are my questions:

1. How do I confirm how much the person owes in back taxes?

2. He mentioned on the phone that he owns the property, then mummbled something about his wife and father in law. The name he gave me for himself, does match the tax records but the tax records show:

Smith, John
C/O Smith, man/woman name

Does this mean he has the right to sell it? If not, how do I to confirm he does?

3. When I get the "just throw a number out there" response, how should I reply? I'm new so I'm not able to evaluate these things on the fly and throw something out there, I need a little research time.

Last thing, he did also mention that NOTHING works in the house. My guess it's in pretty bad shape.

update!

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93-wholesaling-forum/topics/39632-got-two-leads-help-me-dissect

I sent out my first direct mail marketing campaign. I got two calls the first day they arrived (yesterday). I felt ready but after going through both calls I think I'm behind where I need to be. These are all OOS owners.

Owner #1: Wants to sell 5 properties. Purchased in 2006. Not a single one falls into my target area (I had a targeted list that slightly overlapped a bad area). He's VERY motivated, because he just had 2 of 5 go vacant and one of those two got vandalized. Without even knowing how to perfectly get an ARV, I can tell you he owes right at what they are worth, maybe a tad more or a tad less but pretty close. I honestly don't think there's anything that can be done.He admitted on the phone he got burned when he bought them. Best bet is just to get them rented and keep trying to sell them.

Owner #2: I was happy to receive my second phone call so quickly until I found out he had 7 properties to sell!! He lived in my area for 17 years, then moved. He doesn't have a property manager but has all 7 properties currently rented. He has 5 properties grouped into a commercial loan @ 7% variable. I can see through the assessor website what he paid and calculate what he likely owes. I actually think there's a deal here to be made based on the rental amounts. These properties are also NOT in my target area and they are all very small houses (less than 1000 sq ft). I think they could be a decent deal for a landlord looking to acquire more property if the owner is willing to take a small hit when he sells (he sounded semi-motivated on the phone).

In the end, I called both owners and told them I was going to refer their information on to someone who is more familiar with the area their properties are located in. I talked with that individual today, sent them an e-mail with all the info I had and it could potentially work out to be a referral fee if one of them pans out.

So my questions now are, did I do something wrong? Should I have followed up with owner #2 and tried to working on getting some of the properties under contract? Some of them weren't that far from my target area. I was extremely overwhelmed by 7 properties, on top of the other 5, so I felt like it was a bit more than I could handle for a first deal. I did ask him if he'd be willing to break them off and sell one by one and he said yes, so that was a possibility but I don't know anything about commercial loans and how that would work so that made me nervous as well.

I feel like I can come up with a somewhat accurate ARV, but how in the world am I supposed to estimate the repair costs on 7 properties over the phone based on the descriptions? It was my understanding that I want to guess at the repair costs over the phone based on our discuss and then go look at the property and adjust accordingly once I've done an inspection. Am I off base here? I'd be looking at 7 properties in this case that may have 0 chance of working if I don't get the seller to agree on at least some basic numbers on the phone.

When you have a tenant in place, does that change my formula? If I can get a price that will satisfy the 50% rule and still cash flow, do I need to subtract additional money for repair costs?

All in all I'm happy. Sent letters Monday, two calls on Thursday and both were at least decent leads even though they didn't work out. I know most deals won't work out and I am ready for that, I just want to make sure I have everything in place when I find a seller that has what I want.

Few more questions:

1. If I fax them a purchase contract filled out and signed by myself, with "Offer shall remain open until______" at the bottom, do they simply sign and date and return to me? Would they have to go to a notary to sign to verify it was the right person and it was signed before my "acceptance until" part of the contract?

2. Once they sign I have agreed in the contract to pay them earnest money of $10. How should I send this to them that would prove I sent the earnest money making it a valid contract? Money order via certified mail?

3. Once inspection is complete, and I have a buyer in place to take over the contract, then what? Do my buyer and I simply go to a local title company and then that title company will get all the documents in order and fed-ex to a title company of the sellers choosing to complete the transaction?

of direct mail letters to OOS owners. Hand written envelopes, 250 in total. This is my first mailing so I expect an extremely low (to none) response rate. Currently working on putting together another list to start on and will be cycling back though the lists so I hit people more than once. I know most people send post cards but I wanted to try something different. I'll report back on how it goes here in a couple weeks.