All Forum Posts by: Ethan Summers

I run a real wholesale business based in Charleston SC. I spend most of my time helping other Real Estate professionals close transactions in their respective areas. I also volunteer at a local after school program in the Charleston area!! 

@Raymond Hill I strongly suggest sending out direct mail but ive been able to boost my response rate.Have you considered farming the phone numbers on your list with skip trace tools and dialing potential sellers directly? Within my company we touch every lead a minimum of 7 times sometimes we contact up to 12 times. I have started using this technique and it has helped my direct mail gain recognition and also i have found motivated sellers through my skip tracing and cold calling efforts. What has work for me in the past is just picking a few target zip codes pulling how many cash sales are in that area then deciding if It would be a good area for me to farm numbers and start calling around to gauge motivation! I then set followup sequences inside of my CRM which notifies me when its time to give a cold lead a ring again.I've seen my response rate go from a 1-2% to around a 4-7% increase when i added cold calling along with direct mail! I hope this helps you out if you have any questions feel free to message me! 

@Ron Hayworth I try to learn as much as I possibly can in my down time. If you find yourself twiddling your thumbs connect with someone who is already very busy doing deals, and see what task you can help them out with to become more knowledgeable about real estate investing. Good luck! 

@Ozzy Sirimsi thanks glad the community can benefit from my failures/success!! Feel free to connect ! 

@Tyrone Watler Have you considered farming the phone numbers on your list with skip trace tools and dialing potential sellers directly? Within my company we touch every lead a minimum of 7 times sometimes we contact up to 12 times. I have started using this technique and it has helped my direct mail gain recognition and also i have found motivated sellers through my skip tracing and cold calling efforts. What has work for me in the past is just picking a few target zip codes pulling how many cash sales are in that area then deciding if It would be a good area for me to farm numbers and start calling around to gauge motivation! I then set followup sequences inside of my CRM which notifies me when its time to give a cold lead a ring again.I've seen my response rate go from a 1-2% to around a 4-7% increase when i added cold calling! I hope this helps you out if you have any questions feel free to message me!

@Doug Woodville thanks really appreciate the encouragement. 

Today was a interesting day Im HUGE on followup. With that being said I made contact with this potential seller August 2nd 2016 Via cold call. We never were able to agree on a price so every now and again I would give her a ring to see if we could determine a great contract price to make all parties happy. 

Finally on may 18th she gave me a ring and insisted we revisit negotiations. Keep in mind that there was about $20,000 separating myself and this particular seller in order to make the deal work. As you can see in the call log image below that i have attached I was doing the majority if not all of the calling. When she called in I was excited but not surprise because she received about 11 follow ups from me including voicemails and me actually making contact and discussing price with her. Long story short she called and ask if I were still interested in the property. I replied yes and stated that my offer hadn't changed since we previously spoke. The seller stated it was just time to part ways with the property. I came up a few thousand dollars to make her happy. I already have buyer and seller on board and im going to make a potential 7-8k net when all is said and done at next weeks closing. Not exactly a home run but its proof that constant contact and 7-12 points of contact is very important! Share similar stories in the comments below. GOOD LUCK ALL THANKS! 

@Lance Card I invest personally in South Carolina & with Boeing along with other big companies such as AUDI moving huge portions of their manufacturing to our humble state we have grown tremendously in the last few years. The time is now, however i think creating a system that you can just hand off for your brother to run may be beneficial if you'd like to know more about the South Carolina market more specifically ask away Im a native and have been here all my life. 

@Owen Dashner Lets connect shoot me a personal message. I may be able to ease your headache and pain. As well as answer any questions you may have. 

@Account Closed Some resources you can use to locate correct addresses and phone numbers are findtheseller.com, TLO, Microbilt, or Spokeo. If you plan on prioritizing your list and going after the low hanging fruit, then I would use findtheseller.com. This can get very pricy because they charge like $6 per search OUCH; however, it's a quick fix and they have a quick turnaround time. Spokeo is as about good as White Pages, but I would use them for phone numbers rather than correct addresses because they'll likely be wrong. Microbilt was the first tool I used, and it was spotty with numbers but typically gave me correct addresses. It costs about $50 per month and is good if you are doing around 20 searches per month. You'll need to contact them and go through the process of getting an account, which takes roughly 2 weeks. Lastly, if you plan on doing this consistently then I would seriously consider TLO. I've had great experience with it, and it costs roughly $250 monthly for 3600 searches annually. I've found that I get 1 out of 25 numbers are incorrect, which is roughly 90% accuracy rate on a 1000-lead list. You need to go through the process of getting an account, like Microbilt. TLO will take you about a month to get but well worth it if you do plan on making skip tracing returned letters part of your business model. I would just weigh your options and see what fits your needs. I've skip traced tens of thousands of leads so I can answer any specific questions you have. Just ask away!