All Forum Posts by: Ana G.

Baltazar, the first round of mailers that I sent with the offers in them I just hired a VA to put it in the mailing list next to the address so that it could be mail merged when you do the mailing using FindCompsNow. Easy peasy.

But now that I know it cost me $70 and three days for the VA to do it that time for 1k names, I just used the listsource criteria of current estimated value. It's like .02 cents extra for each name. I know a lot of people say don't use estimated values but most times it's really not that far from what the true ARV is. Also, if it's ever a super far number, you can always change your offer on the phone.

I've found that people who positively respond to that offer mail peice, their expectations have been set on our offer price being low and if they accept or negotiate the price, its usually not far from that low number so you're starting off on the perfect wholesaling foot.

I'll post a little update as soon as I respond to all these responses lol. I've been gone for a while.

 Patlive was AMAZING when I had them. They're super professional and the information is clearly written and they always pick up in a timely fashion and it makes YOUR BUSINESS look more professional and credible. They pretty much just answer your calls and get the basic info from the seller like if they want to be removed from the list or get the address and number and asking price etc so you can call back your sellers prepared with an offer.

Actually my first deal when I went to meet the seller with my cash buyer to show the property, my seller was raving to my cash buyer about how surprised she was that I'm so young because everything seemed so professional (I'm 24 now and definitely look it).

I actually just recently cancelled their service because my bill came out to $550 for this past month and I was not willing to spend that much for answering my phone. I'm going to hire someone from Odesk to take my calls for $3/hour. Much cheaper and I can train them to eventually start returning calls from hang ups and making follow up calls.

Also, findcompsnow is good to see who the cash buyers are that purchased in the neighborhood because I recently noticed that the estimated value they gave was the exact same as Zillow. But still those cash buyer addresses were darn good.

 Thanks Donald! I agree. I think Karma is a VERY real thing. The universe works in some really mysterious ways.

I actually thought very long and hard about getting my license (thought about it for a couple of months) and I realized that if I want to continue doing wholesaling the way that I am, I won't be able to do it with a license. Reason being is that I planned on listing all my houses under contract on the MLS to increase exposure BUT if you have your license, you're more susceptible to getting fined or having your license revoked because of Net Listings. Also, one of the top dogs in this industry Sean Terry doesn't have his license and he's been in the game for a looooong time. I think that says a lot.

My mom actually has her license and recently when I was unable to sell a property in time (it was clearly priced way too high but I learned a tough lesson because of it) I called a realtor in that area since it's so far from me and she agreed to give my mom a referral fee if she sold it. That way I get 75% of the fee and my mom gets her 25% of the fee. Works well so far!

Also, I'm currently in Joe McCalls course for lease option wholesaling. I almost returned it because it's SO confusing but it does have some nice tidbits in there. Not sure yet but I might still return it. It truly is very confusing. His videos aren't edited so he has different steps and instructions all over the place. He has multiple contracts for different things. He contradicts himself in many many videos. It just doesn't seem well organized and how am I supposed to organize his course for him so that I can understand it?! Also it's like $400. But hey it's the only thing out these right now about wholesaling lease options so I guess I can't complain too much.

 Thanks Garret! I'm still in the early stages so a more accurate test on the wording to increase postcard responses will probably be better known in a year after more consistent tests are done.

Glad to see it works for you!

 Bandit sign postcards are postcards that are made from the same material as a typical bandit sign which makes people notice them which in theory should increase your response rate. I got them sent from Michael Quarles yellowletters.com. Go to the site and you'll see it there.

Well in my first month I spent about $2,500 and had officially made $22,500 (10,050 & 12,000). Both my deals closed now and my JV partners buyer backed out at the last minute and I found a new cash buyer that same day.

I have been tracking my ROI with Podio and so far I've had a very positive return.

What I would have done differently was began hiring people IMMEDIATELY when I started like hiring someone to post to CL daily and start training someone to return calls, keep Podio leads updated every day, and send out marketing peices. I know some mentors and coaches say that you shouldn't hire until you have a big enough business because they say you'll be throwing money away but honestly it would've made me A LOT more money. When you first start out and you have a deal that you're trying to sell, you kind of ignore all your other leads and marketing tasks because you're so focused on that one lead and then you realize after you finally sell that deal that you had all these other people to follow up with (call for updates and see if they're ready to sell yet or call people who didn't pick up the phone but left information with the call service).

This business is A LOT of work and it's very hard to stay disciplined and stick to your schedule when you're being pulled in so many different directions. Having help is the ONLY way I'm gonna get my sanity back and not feel guilty for going out and hanging out with friends because I know that the business is still being kept up in a timely fashion.

Thanks Nikki!

 Sorry for the late response everyone! I've been so busy with life lately that I let my business kind of stall for a while but I'm back and ready to ATTACK!

The listsource criteria got me a lot of results (which is really good) so I only bought one thousand names.

Also, I set up a follow up system with the steps that I learned from a bigger pockets post. I send the people who deny my offer a follow up letter in the mail automatically using lob.com and podio and zapier. It's SOOOO easy to implement if you follow the steps in the post. I think if you search BP for the "7 intuitive tools to streamline your wholesaling business" and it will pop up.