All Forum Posts by: Jarrett Ferris

Hi all!

So to start, I am somewhat new to real estate investing as I have yet to close my first deal, but have been an avid consumer of all real estate investing knowledge for over a decade, and have recently decided what better time than now to really get actively involved in investing in real estate. I come to you all today for some advice. I am planning to begin a direct mailing campaign as my first leap into this business and have been doing a lot of research about direct marketing and targeted mailings, but before I begin I thought I would get some opinions from my friends at BiggerPockets.

Basically, as of right now, here is my plan for my first direct mailing campaign:

1.) Generate a list of non-owner occupied and absentee owners within a 10 mile radius of the zip code I am looking to invest in using ListSource.com.

2.) Utilize postcards as my marketing vehicle, beginning with sending out 1000 of them to my target audience per mailing to start with.

3.) Wait for the phone to ring.

4.) Analyze, inspect, negotiate, and do my first deal.

I know this is by no means a very in depth plan, but it is enough information right now to give you an idea of how I want to proceed.

As for the advice I am looking for, I wanted to know how successful some of you are when it comes to direct mailing, and if you think this would be a good marketing vehicle for a first time investor (Oh yea, I should probably say that I am planning to start my career in real estate investing by wholesaling to help generate funds to do bigger deals)? I remember reading an article on here not long ago, can't recall the title, but the main idea of the article was that with direct mailing campaigns, you can expect to receive about 5% of the amount of the initial mailing to contact you and that you will only close on about 2% of those deals. Does this sound accurate to anyone who's done their split testing? Also, I am not 100% sure what I want the message on the postcards to be, so if anyone has had good or great success with a specific message I would love to know what that message was; right now I am leaning towards: "I BUY HOUSES" along with my contact information... And finally, any tips, tricks, opinions, or any comments about this would be incredibly appreciated. 

Let me know what your thoughts are, and thank you in advance to everyone here. Cheers to a bright and wonderful future.

Hi Heather!

My name is Jarrett Ferris and I am an aspiring real estate investor in the Olympia area as well. Just wanted to drop a line and introduce myself seeing as how we are in the same area. I am currently looking at getting involved with some real estate investing meetups around the area and attending some meetings for networking and education purposes. If you know of any good meetings around locally, I would love to hear your input, or if you and your husband are interested in going to some REIA meetings, feel free to send me a message and I can let you know when somethings coming up that might be of interest to you. Hope all is well and I look forward to seeing you around BP!

Alex,

Thank you for the reply as well as the suggestions of investors in my local area, it is much appreciated! I am also looking into getting involved with some local REIA groups in my area as well as the surrounding areas to help me get started in my endeavors, so if anyone knows of some good meetings in and around the Olympia area, I am open to any suggestions. Thanks all, have a great day!

Jarrett Ferris

Hello Everyone!

My name is Jarrett and I am an aspiring real estate investor in the Olympia WA and greater Seattle area. I have joined this online community in hopes of meeting new people and gaining valuable knowledge that will help propel me in the right direction for success in this business. My main short term goals as of right now include doing my first wholesale deal, networking with like-minded investors such as yourselves and hopefully finding a seasoned investor in my local area who would be willing to either become a mentor and or team up with me in order to help shed light on the process of finding and doing my first wholesale deal. I have been slightly obsessed with real estate investing since I was about 12 years old, read all the books, did my due diligence and basically just consumed all the real estate knowledge I could find at the time and over the years. I am now 26 and ready to get my foot in the door of the real estate investing business in order to help me achieve my goal of financial independence while doing something that I have a deep passion for. To sum up a little bit, my current business plan is to get started in this business with wholesaling properties to build capital and relationships that I can utilize in the future to help transition me into rehabbing as well as buy and hold strategies with real estate to create multiple streams of residual income that can hopefully replace the steady paycheck of a 9 to 5 job, speaking of which, I am currently working as a purchasing/ sales associate for a company in the asphalt industry, so I am not new to the buying and selling of products, a skill which I believe will be a boon for me in this industry of real estate investing. I look forward to meeting and getting to know you all here on BiggerPockets. I am very excited to be here and even more excited to see what the future has in store for me!