All Forum Posts by: Jeremy T.

Did I miss the part where it says that we can't do both?

Dividend income gleaned from the stock exchange is nothing to sneeze at. Yes, I know, taxes.

Liquidity is another reason to diversify into stocks. One can liquidate a multi-million dollar portfolio in seconds without detecting a blip in the market. Real estate transactions are measured in geologic time by comparison. If you need liquidity, you'll be calling a trusty BP affiliate and agreeing to sell them your property for nickels on the dollar.

This is 'Murica people, we can do both!

Who are you marketing to?

Provided you are looking for "motivated sellers", bad things that happen to people that would motivate them to part with a property at a deep discount are not typically dictated by variables like “time of year".  

Granted, this is just speculation on my part. Maybe everyone has good luck in November and December.

@Daniel Lupoli

"Safe" fiscally or "safe" as in "not dangerous"?

Let's say you owned a property in your target market and were starting to feel some motivation to sell your property (i.e., you need the equity, right now).  Every day you head to your mailbox and are greeted by a new round of "yellow letters".   My guess is that most of these letters (from different people, mind you) say the exact same thing.  This is especially true if you are using a carbon copy of a letter offered by a service.  Would you call the number on your letter, when your letter looks just like every other letter you have thrown into the garbage?  

The food court analogy by @Aaron Mazzrillo is apt.  You don't have to reinvent the wheel here, but if you are going to go to the effort of compiling and scrubbing this data, why not develop a marketing piece that is going to make them think twice before throwing it into the garbage (since that is where 95% of your effort is likely going, even on the best campaigns)?

This is purely speculative, but I imagine to generate a reliable pipeline of leads in a market like Austin using only a generic mailer, the amount of mail one would need to send is likely on several orders of magnitude greater than 500.

It's not such a big deal until the water is rising quickly and you are cursing the day you chose to take the advice of an internet message board instead of purchasing the flood insurance and your years of cash flow are about to go poof...or glurg glurg...as it were.

The FEMA maps are based on probabilities, not on the anecdotal evidence of elderly citizens or even if a flood has historically occurred in a certain time frame. 100 year flood = 1% chance of that area being flooded. 500 year flood = 0.2% chance of that area being flooded.

As with any insurance you can forego it and save a few bucks and you win!!...until you need it.

A few questions/comments:

Where do the address and postage go?

Where is your headline?  If someone is sorting their mail over the garbage can, what will compel 5-10% of them enough to not immediately throw it away?

Think about adding more 'emotive words' to your copy.

Remember, the key to direct response marketing: introduce the problem-> agitate the prospect -> provide a solution

That said, I think this is a simple and easy marketing piece for a single round of marketing.  What do you plan on following up with?  Hitting prospects consistently with this same message will likely get you results, but I believe your response and conversions will improve dramatically by using different kinds of mail pieces with the same, but 'different' message.

@Crystal Chang

You might want to check out this thread.

Why not?  The goal of marketing is to elicit a certain response from a targeted audience, no?  I can see where the logistics of an entire negotiation are impractical over email/text, but for an initial response/screening, why not give people several options?

Classic troll behavior in this thread, Karen nails all of the Greatest Hits:

- Comes looking for help, starts by belittling a polarizing group of people (realtors) in hopes to drum up support for her cause

- deflects any and all blame or responsibility for her situation

- quickly realizes that everyone is not on her side

- offers support and kindness to those who agree with her plight

- constructive criticism or actual actionable advice is met with personal insults, threats of physical violence, and questioning of one's political affiliation

- ironically insults the intelligence and/or grammatical shortcomings of 'detractors' in several overly wordy, poorly written, and grammatically unsound posts.

- mystical tales of connections with untold wealth and previous successes rendering the opinions/advice of her detractors moot.

- continues to be blinded by how her attitude and behavior are the primary cog in this.

Me:

@Duncan Henricks

No offense taken with your criticism of the map.  I'm just passing along information that provides an overall perspective on parts of town that, regardless of your first-hand experiences, are traditionally not very good parts of town.  It was created by a c-d user who lives and spends a lot of time in those parts of town.  I appreciate your commentary.

That said, your tenor does shift gears a bit as your post goes on.  Look man, I understand your desire to change the perspective on those parts of town.  I grew up here and would like nothing more than to see the blighted neighborhoods turn around and revitalize from the inside out.  I believe that there are far more good people than bad, and that the unsavory actions of a few sully the positive efforts of many.  Nevertheless, investing is about risk management.  I believe my risk as an investor is much higher on Frankstown Ave than in Brighton Heights (for example).

The fact remains: Pittsburgh City Schools are, by far, the worst in the area.  As such, I do not believe that people of affluence will start inhabiting these "legacy communities" en masse just because of some new "urban paradigm".  The problems here run deep and are systemic and fundamental in nature.  If your aim is to change that, I applaud you and wish you nothing but the best in your efforts.  If you are just trying to make a few bucks cash-flow, then I'm sticking with my risk-management parameters set forth in the previous paragraph.