All Forum Posts by: Todd Hutcheson

28 ways to build a buyers list

1. Craigslist.com - You look in 3 different places on Craigslist. First you check Housing, "real estate for sale" in your city and look for the We buy Houses, Sell home in 5 days, and Stop foreclosure ads. While there, check out anyone who is offering creative financing or lease options as they are likely to be investors (Or one of the ten smart agents ) Second, you check the Real Estate Services and look for same ads as already mentioned. Third, and this is one of the best where you don't get all the people from your REIA club, you call the Housing apts/housing and look for homes for rent and ask them if they are interested in acquiring property at a huge discount.
2. check the archives for your city name where people are talking about deals in your city or looking for partners. Next, click on their name and it will give you their email address. Many on [REMOVED] use false email addresses since it gets scraped a lot. If this happens, just google their name and city in google to try and get their phone number or email address.
3. The search engines, Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com - Type in sell (your city) home fast and also We buy Houses in (your city). The first two ads (usually highlighted in a light color) and the entire list on the right are paying to be there. Some are national services that generate leads. Navigate the sites (don't click on these as it just costs them money, retype their url ) to see if they give you the local affiliate or if not then fill out the form and see who contacts you. All the other ads are local people who have taken the time to build a website and get ranked. Usually, these are serious buyers
4. Facebook - Type in real estate investor in the search box. It will bring you anyone in your area first who has this as their job. Obviously, you need to have an account and get a few friends that are real estate investors in your city. Then check on their friends information to see if they are also investors. Eventually people will try to friend you that are real estate investors. You can figure this out because the system tells you how many mutual friends you have with their name and picture. When you request someone to be a friend or they request you, send along a message asking them to get on your list.
5. Twitter - very similar to Facebook except you can build your own background. Make sure if you do this, you put a place where you capture email addresses. Again follow some prominent national and local real estate investors and see who is following them and check them out to see if they live in your area. Try to build a list of followers and follow a number of people. It is like friends on facebook. If you tweet interesting information, people will appreciate it and retweet your content and this will bring you more followers who you can try and convert to your list.
6. BiggerPockets.com - they have local groups. People have their website addresses in their signatures many times and also their city. Again search the site for your city name. See who is talking about things. You can also post things here looking for partners or money. Also, go to the Networking button, and half way down, there is a drop down box for searching for investors in your state. Most pictures that show up also have their city included.
7. Local REIA websites - For instance Manareia.com for Bradenton and SuncoastReia.com for the Tampa Bay area. You might also google (your city) real estate association, club, investors meeting. Once on the site many have their board of directors and how to contact them. Many also have newsletters where wholesalers and mentors advertise. Some might even have a member section.

For the rest of the list go to:
[LINK REMOVED, please place in signature]

I got a lead on a deal at my website, that was in Bradenton where I did not have an affiliate. The seller wanted $10,000 for a fire damaged house that was block and in a gated, golf course community. I put it under contract with 10 days to close and no buyers list. I had to find buyers over the internet. In the end I had four people fighting over the deal.

I assigned the contract for $8000 (someone later offered me 30K). Everyone was happy, buyer, me and seller.

I have a fire damaged house in Bradenton that is worth $275 when finished that needs a complete rehab from top to bottom. I am selling for only $19,800.

If interested in the wholesale deal I am assigning, please email [EMAIL REMOVED] with your contact information.

I would change one thing if you do not have access to the mls.

I go down to the courthouse once a week and look at all the new recorded deeds. If the mailing address does not match the physical address, they become a target.

I then call them and ask if they are interested in being on my buyers list. I also send them a postcard asking them to go to my web site and sign up for my wholesale buyers list.

These are real players who are buying today. Not someone who just went to a seminar.

Make sure you have an enticing headline and great p.s.

These two elements and the first sentence are what you should test. My suggestion would be change 50 out of 250 each time. If the test pulls better, then mail 125 and 125. If the test still does better, then it is your main mailing now and the testing starts over.
You might also want to test copy on the outer envelope of using a invitation style envelope.
The last thing that might increase your response rate dramatically is by mailing to absentee owners farther away. Someone in Seattle is more likely to want to get rid of a home in South Florida than someone in North Florida.
Finally, there is a great organization where you live that I am a member of, FDMA, the Florida Direct Marketing Association. It meets in Ft Lauderdale. This month we had a great speaker on copy writing.

Nothing down for the Nineties by Robert Allen and Quick Turn by Ron Legrand.

Allen book is great for getting creative and Legrand book is very inspiring.

I would NOT recommend you buy either of their boot camps or materials, too expensive.

But the Books are great

Guess, it had to have the http.
Thanks for alerting me to it.

Please check out the new redesign of http://www.ibuyhomes.com and give me your opinions and thoughts. Also let me know if you see any bugs.

Thanks in advance.
Todd Hutcheson

Here are a few things I think are important when setting up a web site.

1. Always put your phone number on first line of your description tag. Many, many people us the internet as a phone lookup service. So make it easy for them to contact you by placing a phone number and hopefully an 800 prominently above the fold.

2. Register your domain for the full ten years.

3. When getting a domain, always buy the home and house version. For instance, if you like JoeBuysHomes, do not buy unless you can get JoeBuysHouses.com as well. Then point the homes site to the houses site. More people search for the word house than home.

4. Make your web site at least 5 pages.

5. Make it easy to read, use good fonts like Verdana. Don't do a reverse unless it is really big font.

6. Concentrate most of your efforts on getting good links to your site. Don't use a link like ibuyhomes.com. Very few people are looking for ibuyhomes.com so use Phrases like Sell home fast Orlando as your link words.

7. Change some copy on your site at least once a month.

8. Don't buy a gurus web site. None of them rank worth a hoot since they all have the same copy and get penalized. They also don't give a way to communicate with you other than filling out the form.

9. Check out the competition regularly to see who is moving up or down in the search engine rankings. I have a google alert set up with unique phrases on my site to tell me when someone has copied my site. I have had to threaten two local people who came to my class and then went home and copied my site.

10. Participate in forums such as this to learn new tricks. You may just may meet a mentor, a partner or someone to sell to.

One bit of advice for anyone planning on using the word home in the domain name. Do not buy a domain name if both the home an house version are not taken.

I get quite a few leads from checking competitors who advertise and only have one domain. I buy the other and point to my site.

For instance, if you liked MikeBuysHomes.com, do not buy if MikeBuysHouses.com is unavailable.