All Forum Posts by: Gabriel Trieu

@April A. Hi April! Yeah, I'm new to wholesaling too but I haven't had much luck yet. From what I've been told, massive action produces massive results. So from this logic, I'm hoping that I can at least get a few deals under my belt from my efforts!

However, because I've been working primarily with pre foreclosed homes, the foreclosure market is actually getting smaller from what I've noticed so it's forced me to expand and go into other zip codes. It's not that my target market is big; it's just that I'm running out of prospects, thus I must expand into other locations.

Good luck to you April in getting some deals!

@Wayne Brooks hey Wayne, thanks for reading my post! Ah, to be honest I wasn't too sure myself. My logic followed that if the property made me money, I'd keep it but if the opportunity came around where I could make more from selling, I'd take the fast nickel over the slow dime in that sense haha.

In regards to maintenance, repairs, major replacements, vacancies, etc., the home is fairly new and is only 6 years old, seeing as it was built in 2008. The homeowner claimed the house in still in really good shape, the tenant has been good at paying rent and even proposed a lease option to buy, and the appliances were all new and installed upon creation of this property.

From this, I wouldn't imagine maintenance would be too much of a problem; neither would major replacements or repairs. Also, the tenant seemed to have a significant interest in buying the property too so that may indicate a longer duration to live in the house.

As for costs, calculations, and cash flow, here's my math:
Income - Expenses = Cash Flow/Month.
Income(Rent) - Expenses[Property Tax + Insurance + PM + Mort. + HOA + Vacancies(10% rent) + Repairs(5% rent)] = CF/M.
Income(2500) - Expenses(PITI + PM + HOA + Vacancies + Repairs) = CF/M.
Income(2500) - Expenses(1670 + 0+ 0 + 250 + 125) = CF/M. Income(2500) - Expenses(2045) = $455 CF/M.
CF/M(w/o vacancies/repairs) = $830

Cash-on-cash = Annual Net/Cash Invested.
CC = Annual Net(455)(12months)/Cash Invested(30,000)
CC = 5460/30,000 = 0.182 = 18.2% CC Return.

Looking at these numbers, the deal seems sound in putting me in the plus. And even if I were to also calculate a rough estimate of maintenance and repairs for this property using the averages of the 1% Rule and the Square Foot Rule [(3000+2100)/2 = $2550], I'd still be in the positive with a 9% (2,910/30,000) return of $2,910 (considered if held long term).

So yup, if I did purchase subject-to on this, I think I might've been able to pull it off. But then again, I'd have to figure out how I'd be paying back that 30,000 to to purchase haha. Anyways, I don't think I forgot anything, but if I did, please correct me! I wanna make sure I understand this correctly, thanks!

Update 5; 3.12.14

Good evening everyone, this is my 5th update and my report for weeks 1 and 2 (Feb.24-Mar.3) in my 3rd yellow letter campaign with me attempting to wholesale SFR's in San Diego, California.

Activity, Results, and Findings. This 3rd yellow letter campaign in the past two weeks has comprised mostly of my 2nd contact/touch to the remaining homeowners from my 2nd campaign last month along with a few new homeowners added to the list of pre foreclosed homes on the MLS in various zips in San Diego and its neighboring cities. Like before, I've sent 15 hand written yellow letters daily 5 days a week and have received a 6 phone calls total from sending 150 letters total, resulting in a 4% response rate (6/150) and a 0.0067% (1/150) potential deal rate from 1 close call.

Regarding my yellow letters, this is my 1st contact letter: "Dear ___, Hi! My name is Gabriel Trieu and I would like to $BUY$ your house at ___. Please call me at #xxx-xxx-xxxx. Sincerely, Gabe." This is my 2nd contact letter: "Dear ___, Hello again, My name is Gabriel Trieu and I wrote you last month about buying your house at ___. I know it's in pre- foreclosure but I'd like to help you save your credit and solve your problem by buying your house. Please call me at #xxx-xxx-xxxx and we'll work something out! Sincerely, Gabe."

From my 6 phone calls, I received 2 calls from curious homeowners, 1 active, 1 caller who got out of pre foreclosure, and 2 who were actually interested in selling. Surprisingly, no angry callers; only 1 really rude one here.

Caller Details. The curious callers always ask what I mean when I write, "I want to $BUY$ your house" and in response I say that I mean exactly that, following up with "so I can assume you're calling because you're interested in selling your house to me, right?" And if they say no, I respond, "So why're you calling me? If you're not interested in me buying you house, how can I help you?" If they reply yes, I respond, "Great, now before I go out there to look at the property, I have some questions I'd like to ask first. I have them on my form here and these are the same questions I ask everyone, and I read them right off my clipboard so I don't miss anything; particularly anything that may cost you more money or an opportunity. Is that okay?" And then proceed from there. However, with curious callers, they simply wanna know what's up so I tend to keep the call short to not waste time.

The active caller was pretty nice overall. They just wanted to have an offer sent to their real estate agent's email but unfortunately for me, the house was fully remodeled and being listed at retail price, thus I couldn't make a deal from it.

Finally, I had 2 callers interested in selling, 1 that I almost purchased via subject-to and 1 other homeowner who wanted to sell but very rudely wouldn't answer any of my questions (I didn't wanna work with her since she was literally being a jerk on the phone).

My 1st Attempted Subject-To Purchase. The first interested caller was trying to sell a 2,100 sqft., tenant occupied, 5-3 SFR in Spring Valley that was built in 2008. However, she was $420,000 in debt and had $30,000 included in back payments from her notice of default. Her goal was to sell the house to clear her debt and make $10,000 out of it. The thing though was that the comps and properties in her area were only selling for about 310-330; around $100,000 less than what she owed, putting her in underwater mortgage.

After talking and gathering more information, I also found her mortgage payment was $1670 impounded (PITI) and she was collecting a $2,500 monthly rent. So after taking this into consideration, I talked with my mentor and called her back proposing to purchase her property subject-to. This would mean that I would pay off her immediate $30,000 and then make her mortgage payments in exchange for title and possession of the property, seeing as the difference between the collected rent and monthly payment was +$850, thus saving her credit from being ruined and destroyed.

But here's the kicker: even after explaining this and how I could take care of her debt, pay off her mortgage, save her credit, and solve her problem fast, she then asks me, 'Will I still get $10,000' 'No, but I'm offering you debt relief now and a solution to your problem' 'Unless I get $10,000, I'm not interested.' *sigh, now it just gets me how this woman is hugely underwater, owes $420,000, I'm willing to take on a debt worth much more than her house, and I've given her the opportunity to solve her +$400,000 problem almost instantly, but she still refused my help because she wants money she can't have. So after we hung up, I sent her a thank you letter with a reminder of my subject-to purchase proposal and what it could do to help her and that was it.

Thoughts and Expectations. From the past 2 weeks, I predict that weeks 3 and 4 of this 3rd campaign will give me similar results in regard to response rate and potential successful deal rate. Touching, I also believe my response rate dropped in comparing campaign 2 to 3 simply because I've been getting more mail returns in addition to my change in letter format in my 2nd contact. Not to mention, my pre foreclosure lists from the MLS have been shrinking due to the declining number of notice of defaults in San Diego, California.

So in response, I'll be looking into researching other types of leads outside of pre foreclosures, focusing primarily on the '4 D's' (death, disease, divorce, and disaster) in the next 2 weeks in preparation for my 4th upcoming campaign in 3 weeks. In the meantime, I'll still be working with my pre foreclosures and hopefully I can land a deal very soon!

Just an interesting piece of insight, recently I started reading Gary Keller's "The Shift" and in the first section, I see a chart depicting general real estate market trends and wow, according to the graph, I started doing real estate during the worst time of the year right when the market slows and activity declines! But on the upside, the chart also depicts that the market picks up this month and gets hot til August! So for the last few months, I got a lot of practice in this Fall and Winter so I think I should be ready for the Summer!

This is all I have for now. Thank you always for reading my posts! Please leave me some comments, thoughts, constructive criticisms, and tips so that I can improve! Hopefully, I can hit my first deal soon so wish me luck and as always, I'll keep you all posted! Take care everyone and I wish you guys the best of luck in all of your business endeavors! Let's go get those deals and make that money!

Best Regards Always,
-Gabe

@Rodney Getsy thanks for the tip, Rodney! And yes, my mentor explains it, saying I want my letter to be in the homeowner's mailbox when they need me. Basically, the letter's going to be in the right place at the right time for things to happen. True and yes, I'm aware and I don't want to exclude anyone. However, in the case of hugely underwater homes and the ones I've encountered, short sales seem to be the only plausible option since there's very little to no equity I could buy from the homeowners, so there's no gain I can really make from it. Plus, the debts have been very high and selling via agency would make more money than a wholesale offer. In addition, I do not have a real estate license yet and from what I've read, a short sale takes quite a bit of real estate experience to execute. I'd like to pick these deals up but it's not feasible for me at this time, unfortunately.

And that's pretty strange; I wonder why they wouldn't reply

@Jerry W. thank you, sir! I'm doing my best to stick it out through this winter season!

@Renee Stewart haha of course! I understand this is not a get-rich-quick business but I am doing what I can to learn as much as I can and help as many people as I can!

@Josh Rich thank you so much Josh! I already added you to my buyer's list and I'll definitely let you know when I get a property under contract, thanks!

Thank you guys so much for the encouragement! I greatly appreciate it!

Update 4; 2.23.14

Good afternoon everyone, this is my 4th update and my report for Weeks 3 and 4 (Feb.9-Feb.23) in my 2nd yellow letter campaign in attempt to wholesale pre foreclosed SFR's in San Diego, California.

Recap. For weeks 1 and 2, I've sent 15 hand-written yellow letters daily (5 days a week) to homeowners in pre foreclosed SFR's using an MLS-generated list, covering 14 zip codes in San Diego County, Santee, El Cajon, Spring Valley, Lemon Grove, City Heights and Encanto. Also, rather than glue sealing my letters, I simply tucked in the flaps in order to increase open rates. From sending 150 letters and using this method, I've had a response rate of 8.67% (13/150) and a possible deal rate of 2% *read 'Update 3' for more details on my callers and numbers.

Results & Findings. In the past 2 weeks, I've sent another 150 yellow letters to 17 zip codes, covering the last zip codes of San Diego (Mid City, College West, University City, Pacific Beach, North Park, Rancho Penasquitos, Clairemont, and Linda Vista) and moving northward towards Escondido, Carlsbad, Oceanside, and San Marcos. From these areas, I've had 8 phone calls total: 2 homeowners from Active listings, 1 actually interested in selling, 2 curious callers, and 3 angry callers. From these numbers in the past 2 weeks, my response rate was 5.33% (8/150) and my possible deal rate was slightly above 0.5% (0.0067). However, I had no house appointments/visits this time unlike Weeks 1 and 2.

Call Details. From the 2 Active listing homeowners, 1 of them had a house that was fully rehabbed and remodeled to be sold at market value and the other had a rundown-looking house but trying to sell for 15% above market. The 1st homeowner was really nice and understood that I was buying properties wholesale but the 2nd homeowner was really rude and brief, saying that his house was worth $350,000 and said he'd only sell it to me for $400,000. And unless I paid him $400,000 in full, he would never sell to me. He said he had a reverse mortgage on this property too but it didn't make sense to me knowing his home was in pre foreclosure and my understanding of reverse mortgage is that it works similarly to a lease-purchase, meaning he'd have either own the property outright or have tons of equity. When I asked him questions about the conditions of his property, he wouldn't give me a straight response and just kept pressing that he'd only sell for $400,000 when he claimed his house was appraised for $350,000.

My thoughts: seeing that the house looks crappy, it's about 30 years old, original cabinets, kitchen, bathroom, fixtures, and trying to sell for 15% above market when a fully remodeled comparable home on his street sold last month for even less than his 'appraised' value, why would I buy this? Also this guy was just really rude in general and I told him I wasn't interested in buying anymore. Maybe having an angry caller that same morning might've made me slightly edgy that afternoon.

Moving on to other callers, the 1 homeowner that was actually interested in selling was in an underwater property and owed too much for a wholesale deal to be feasible. The curious callers literally just call because they want to know what I mean by "I want to $BUY$" their property. When I ask if they wanted me to buy their homes, they simply refuse and claim they just wanted to know who I am and what I do. And lastly, the angry callers, I'm starting to feel more and more indifferent every time a new one calls. Yes, I understand their situation is serious and stressful but it still doesn't give them any special rights to overreact and cuss at someone on the phone. Seriously. I just think some of these people have anger issues.

Starting this week, I'll be starting my 3rd mailing campaign, focusing on my 2nd touch/contact with remaining pre foreclosed homeowners from Week 1 and 2 of Campaign 2, along with sending letters to new pre foreclosed SFR's in more northern cities neighboring San Diego. In this 3rd campaign, I'll be splitting my 15 daily letter distribution between my 2nd contact(s) and new pre foreclosures. I'll also be using another letter format for contact 2, which includes a reminder of my 1st letter, the homeowner's pre foreclosure status, and my services in possibly being the solution to their problems (still trying to figure out how concise I can make this in my letter). I will still be using the MLS for my leads and I'll be looking into more ways I could possibly scrub my lists for higher quality leads and expanding from pre foreclosures. I'm hoping that this 2nd contact will raise my response and success rate and possibly be that 'call to action' for some of these homeowners.

This is all I have for now. Like always, thank you so much for reading my post! I'd like to get to my 1st deal soon, especially seeing that I've officially sent out 500 letters from my 1st campaign and 300 letters from this 2nd one, totaling 800 letters, in addition to my 100 bandit signs from last Nov./Oct. with nothing but a few close calls but nothing landed and closed yet. Regardless, wish me luck and best of luck to you all in your business endeavors as well! All comments, helpful tips, and constructive criticisms are always welcome! I'll keep you guys posted for this 3rd campaign! Now, let's get those deals!

Best Regards Always
-Gabe

Update 3; 2.9.14

Hey everyone, this is my 3rd update and my report for weeks 1 and 2 (Jan. 22-Feb. 8) of my 2nd yellow letter campaign regarding attempts to wholesale pre foreclosure single family residences in San Diego, California.

Recap. I've been utilizing yellow letters and an MLS-generated list comprised strictly of pre foreclosed single family homes (active's, non sale, expired's, cancelled's) in San Diego, California as my main source of leads in this 2nd yellow letter campaign. Also, I've been writing my yellow letters by hand with red Sharpies in simple letter format of 'Dear ___, Hi! My name is Gabriel Trieu and I would like to $BUY$ your house at ___. Please call me at #xxx-xxx-xxxx. Sincerely, Gabe". In addition, I kept my envelope flaps tucked in rather than glue-sealed in order to increase my open rate. And finally, my send rate is 15 letters daily, Monday through Friday, 5 days a week, totaling to 75 hand-written yellow letters sent each week.

My Results & Findings. In the past 2 weeks, I have sent a little more than 150 yellow letters and have gone through 14 zip codes, starting with the most populated areas in San Diego closest to me. The areas I've covered have been Santee, El Cajon, La Mesa, National City, Spring Valley, Mira Mesa, Lemon Grove, City Heights and Encanto. And out of 150 letters to these places, I received 13 phone calls total; 3 from people actually interested in selling, 4 from people directing me to Zillow to look at their house (assumed active listings), 2 who were just curious, and 4 angry callers who immediately began to yell and cuss for sending them mail. From these first 2 weeks in sending 150 letters, my overall response rate is 8.67% and my possible deal rate is 2%.

Elaborating on calls, of the 3 who're actually interested in selling, I found that 2 of them were largely underwater and the last, the homeowners had their house listed whilst asking for full or near market value for a home that's severely against CA building codes and is in great need of repairs. Touching on the third, me and my mentor's honest and concise description of the property: very GHETTO! The homeowners would not accept offers more than 10% below market value regardless of how terribly the fixes and repairs were needed. On the upside of things, though I couldn't lock in any successful deals from these 3, at least I got my 1st house appointment experience out of the way along with the 2 and 3.

Of the 4 calls from homeowners directing me to Zillow to view the specs on their properties, they were all extremely quick on the phone, wouldn't answer any of my questions regarding their homes, and instantly came off as rude, especially when they hung up hardly allowing me a word in. From the 2 calls of curious homeowners, they just wanted to ask what I was doing and then hung up right away too. Nothing else.

And finally, from the 4 angry callers, I had no idea people could get so upset over a yellow letter in the mail! Lots of profanity from these people; it was almost hard to believe! I understand foreclosure is highly stressful but it doesn't mean to go overreact and cuss people out on the phone, especially first thing in the morning (reminded me a little of Michael Q's angry caller)! But I guess this is just another thing to get used to.

In the next 2 weeks, I'll be continuing to use my MLS generated lists for pre foreclosed single family homes and the areas I'm checking out this week will be Clairemont, Linda Vista, Mid City, College West, North Park, Pacific Beach, Rancho Penasquitos, and University City. Even from all of these lists combined, I barely have enough names for 3 days of mailing, given my current mail rate of 15 a day. I'll be requesting the last bit of zip codes remaining in San Diego from my real estate agent friend because I'm quickly running out of areas. I highly doubt I could consistently mail at my current rate for the next 2 weeks.

But my plan after these next 2 weeks includes further research for motivated seller leads outside of pre foreclosures and possibly making my 2nd contact to my pre foreclosure lists via post cards or followup letters if they are still available, also seeing as their foreclosure dates are coming closer. I'm really hoping to pick up my first deal soon by the end of week 4 in this 2nd yellow letter mailing campaign or by the end of this month. It would be a little disappointing to not get anything from using a method that seems to help other people land at least 1 deal a month from 160 letters while I'm sending out 300. Nonetheless, I'll still be trying to consistently generate those leads even after this month transpires!

This is all I have for now! Thank you so much for reading my post and hopefully I can land my very first deal soon along with the other new real estate investors out there! All comments, helpful tips, and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Good luck to you all in your business endeavors and wish me luck! And like always, I'll keep you guys posted!

Best Regards Always
-Gabe

@Mike Jones Hey, thanks Mike! Yes, definitely, I'd love to learn more ways to make money in real estate! The strategies I'm aware of right now are wholesaling, buying subject-to, notes, fix & flips, equity partnering, house swapping, mortgage payment assignment, and buy and holds. But regardless of how many strategies I may want to use, if I can't perform the basic of basics, level 1 real estate of acquisition of any property or have a stake in it, I don't think I'll last very long. But thank you so much for the reminder; I greatly appreciate it!

@Jerry Solorzano Hi Jerry! I'm actually getting help from a real estate agent friend of mine who has access to the MLS. From the MLS, you'd have access to knowing what's listed, what's been sold, pre-foreclosed, tax history, etc. It's very helpful and that's where I'm getting my names for my current mailing campaign! So definitely, I highly suggest you find a real estate agent you can get help from! Treat them to food or coffee, tell them what you're looking for, and I'm sure they'd help you! Good luck!

@Michael Spine Haha thank you Michael! From what I've been told, you can only get massive results from taking massive action and to be successful, one must develop the correct habits of practicing the right actions consistently over a long period of time. It takes a lot of work but it'll pay off in the end! I just have to stick with the program, keep punching away, and I'll get there, I know it!

Again, thank you guys for reading my posts! It makes me happy sharing my experience and knowing that we're all supporting and helping each other become successful! Thank you so much and good luck to you all! Let's go land those deals!

Update 2, 1.24.14

Hey everyone, so I started my 2nd attempt at yellow letters but this time, my method is different from my 1st campaign, mainly in my lead quality and mailing method.

First, my list source is different. My first list was non owner occupy, in/out of state, at least 40% equity, and multi family, condos, duplexes, and single family properties built after 1960 in the areas of Santee, El Cajon, and La Mesa. My results were almost all condo owners under the impression I was purchasing properties at retail and above.

This was from adding onto my letter, 'I pay FULL price'. This was a trick another investor used and talked about during the REI expo last year in order to increase the response rate, which it did. Anyhow, I couldn't make any deals from my first list because it was too general and thus, there weren't any people calling because they were motivated or distressed.

Now, in this second attempt, I was watching instructional videos from Matt Theriault from epic pro academy, in which my list now is all pre foreclosed, single family homes from the MLS. In theory, this should give me better quality leads because these home owners are already in a 'distressed' situation, thus potentially creating motivated sellers. In addition, I'm actually hand writing all of my yellow letters and tucking in the envelope flap instead of licking and sealing them in order to boost the open rate, which in turn, should increase my response rate.

Regarding my letter, it looks like this: "Dear (home owner), Hi! My name is Gabriel Trieu and I would like to $BUY$ your property at (address). Please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Sincerely, Gabe." From Matt's instructions, he sends out 10 letters a day Monday through Thursday, for a total of 40 letters a week; 160 letters a month. He claims that he gets at least 1 deal a month from this.

As for myself, it's my 3rd day using this method and it's my plan to send out 15 letters a day Monday through Friday, totaling 75 letters week; 300 letters a month. By Matt's logic and the 1/100 rule, in theory, I more than doubled my chances for a successful deal. So far, I have sent out 45 letters and have already received 1 phone call from a curious home owner in Santee who just got out of pre foreclosure (congrats to him).

Moving on, the only concern I have with this method is that there aren't many pre foreclosures in my areas and they're quickly being drained and exhausted. After scrubbing my lists further for non sales, actives, and expired's in my criteria of pre foreclosed single family homes, I'm only pulling 10-15 names tops per zip code (already scrubbed Santee & 2 zips from El Cajon in 2 days). Thus, I'm scoping other zip codes following the freeways west and north bound on the 15 and 8 here in San Diego.

This is what I'm doing now in this 2nd attempt so hopefully, I can land my first deal very soon! Thank you so much for reading my post and wish me luck these next few weeks! I'll keep you guys updated!

Best Regards Always
-Gabe

@Erick Corte no problem, dude! Ah, I've been putting out signs in Santee, El Cajon, and La Mesa and out of 100 signs, I've only gotten 3 calls. And from this, 2 called to tell me not to put signs on their property or in front of it and 1 call from a woman in Santee saying she reported me to the city for putting a sign on her street and how she wants me to be heavily fined and punished.

The stupid thing is that the location she's talking about is a large empty dirt lot with no houses or anything on it but a few wildly growing trees and bushes. Plus, this dirt lot is about half a block away from any of the houses there and is on the outskirts of the neighborhood. Haha I simply wanted the stop sign area on the corner of this lot! She's just crazy and over reacting. The city takes down signs over the weekend anyways so it'd be a waste of time and resources for them to really do anything serious to me when there're plenty of others putting out signs too. I highly doubt anything's gonna happen.

I'm sure they're illegal but nothing's happened to me so I'm inclined to believe the regulations aren't strongly enforced (at least in the areas I've put them in).

My Opinion on Bandit Signs. Personally, from the amount I've spent on signs, the time invested to make them and put them out, the gas money spent to do this, with the knowledge that they're taken down over the weekend, and from the results I got, signs aren't worth it at all! It was a waste of money and time for me in the amount of effort invested for the results I got. I'm not doing signs again but this is because of my bad experience with them. Of course, you're free to try and maybe you might have much better luck than me!

Ah, regarding lists, it's not necessarily a bad thing if the homeowner has lots of equity. I imagine they should be able to sell their property to you pretty easily without having any real problems with liens or mortgage loans hindering the transaction. However, you do have a point that many of them don't seem distressed or highly motivated to sell, especially if they have properties they profit from. But things happen and there're property owners out there that may need to unload properties fast for quick money for whatever reason and the thing that matters then is timing, in which they have your contact with you in mind when they need your help, thus making that immediate connection between you as their solution. High equity home owners are fine but keep in mind where you get your list from.

As for myself with my first list, I'm scrapping it. I didn't 'scrub' it well enough and it's way too general so I'd be working with a mixed bag with too much uncertainty and randomness in it. And most likely, the great majority of these people aren't distressed and they want to sell for retail value and above. I leave these types of sellers to realtors and real estate agents. At the moment, I don't have the luxury of money and time to waste further on a list like this. I may use it again later but just not now.

From what I've heard on a BP podcast, your list should be your pre-screening for motivated sellers. So what I plan to do, I'm gonna be using a new list of (pre)foreclosures but also going to be using mostly the same criteria as my first list (non owner occupy in/out of state, x>40% equity, SFR). The biggest difference here (aside from excluding condos, multi and duplexes now) is that my list will be completely comprised of homeowners with an already existing predisposition towards a problem, unlike my first list which was too general. This small alteration is huge and it should greatly boost my chances of finding a distressed and motivated seller!

I hope this helps you out Erick! Best of luck in your real estate endeavors and please keep us all posted on your progress! Hopefully we'll get to our first deals very soon!

Best Regards,
-Gabe

Update 1: 1.1.14
Hey guys, it's Gabe with my first update on my experience with my first 3 weeks of real estate regarding my first batch of yellow letters and also my experience with bandit signs.

My Action & It's Results

Yellow Letters. I'll start from the week before Christmas when I sent 500 letters to my areas Santee, La Mesa, and El Cajon here in San Diego, CA to non occupy (in & out of state) owners with at least 40% equity and with multi and/or single family residences, condos, and duplexes. My letter went as follows: "Dear ___, Hi, I want to buy your property at ___. I pay FULL price! Call me now at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Please Call. Thank you, Gabriel Trieu, ph XXX-XXX-XXXX." The letters hit the day after Christmas, Dec. 26 and out of these 500 letters, I got 12 calls back. And from these, I had 2 people demanding to be taken off the mailing list, 3 people only curious about what I was doing, along with the rest of them all owning condos and wanting an offer on their property, hoping to sell for retail and above.

I was close to meeting a gentleman who was interested in my $160,000 offer on his condo in La Mesa. However, because he and his wife both owned the property, his wife refused to sell because they 'had no real need' to. I stopped receiving real estate related phone calls on Dec, 29 where the only phone call I made was a follow up to the man with the condo in La Mesa. After, I haven't received any calls since.

Bandit Signs. I started putting out my bandit signs in the beginning of November in the major entrances/exits of the neighborhoods in my areas. I put them out on consecutive Fridays at a rate of 25-30 bandit signs at a time. However, I haven't had any luck with these. This whole time, I've only received 2 phone calls from them from people telling me not to set a sign up in front or on their property. I do have one more batch of 25 that I plan to unload either this weekend or next weekend but I am not expecting anything unfortunately after getting no leads. I don't plan on putting out signs again or at least for a long time.

My Results & What I've Learned. From putting out 500 yellow letters, I've received 12 phone calls in which all but 1 caller had a condo property in mind to discuss for selling retail. For myself as a wholesaler, I think I'm going to be changing my list criteria in properties to single family residences only. Also, I need to be more specific in my list and find inherited properties, look through foreclosures, damaged properties, and divorces if I'm going to have better prospects as a wholesaler of distressed properties/home owners.
On top of this alteration, in regards to my yellow letter, I'm actually considering using postcards because yellow letters are too expensive for me to use at this time. In addition, with a diverse list, I believe I'll also be using different post cards for these different people and so if I already know that they have an inclination towards a particular problem and that they may want to solve it, I'll have a much better chance at those opportunities to help them as a wholesaler.
Looking at my own letter, using the words "I pay FULL price" will give people the impression that I will take their property at retail value, regardless of condition. I know it sounds silly but from my phone calls, this is what I've discovered. So I'll be looking into using different cards instead more tailored to my client's situation and not just have a general letter like mine and try to take a stab at this blindly.

In conclusion, I will be unloading the last of my signs and hoping for the best. As for my yellow letters, I will be switching to post cards in the meantime to help me save money. Additionally, my list needs a ton of adjustments and I need to find out more information on getting more specific lists (ie probate and inheritance, death, divorce, disaster) and formatting post cards appropriately to each situation.

These are my findings and experiences from my first yellow letter campaign and first bandit sign campaign. I'll be trying another direct mailing soon after I readjust my targets and change my tools. And hopefully, I may get that lead that'll bring me to my first deal!

Thank you so much for reading my post! All suggestions, insights, comments, and constructive feedback is greatly appreciated!