All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Cowles

 LOL

how would you estimate repairs? Would be something you'd absolutely need  someone on the ground for? Could you go by the seller's estimation initially just to get them under contract THEN find a local contractor and/or inspector to get the hard numbers? I'm not planning on virtual wholesaling at first now but it sounds like the 'virtual' aspect of the business gets down to the essentials. 

And I'll follow up to say nor do I pay for any REI materials but that means I have to dig through a sea of info on the net sorta aimlessly at times where I imagine when you pay for books or online programs the information is packaged neatly for you to follow step by step until you're quickly on your way to getting your first deal. If bet if you were willing to cough up the $300 and follow the lessons/guidelines you'd find a lot of value especially if you're the type that's good with instructions and cooking with cook books and such. I'm not. But for those that are these programs I'd imagine get the food prepared and put in the oven and within the first few attempts yield some tasty/lucrative results.

As far Joe McCall, don't know him personally but I listen to his podcasts and he seems like a good reasonable guy who knows his  and if I were in the market for some educational materials I'd definitely give his stuff a look. And maybe he missed a step with this Facebook issue but I'd have reserved a public call out like this for more severe  and just found a way to contact him personally. 

thanks @Eric H.. I appreciate it

Thank you @Eric H.! You really serve them up a medley of mailings. Do you believe it keeps them reading or are you experimenting keeping track of each individual type's response rate?

thanks for your input @Jacob Blackett. You sound like you're doing good with it. I'll prepare for a much lower response/worthy deal rate but still it looks promising. 

If I mail to 1000 prospects and get 1% response rate, 10 calls, I'd be lucky to get a deal out of that correct?

So if then I mail out another set of letters/post cards to the same prospects and what, get another 10 calls? If I do it myself we're at about $1000 correct? On my next $1000, two more mailings we're at 40 calls total or does the percentage increase at this point?

And to really get the higher response rate do we have to go our fifth to seventh passes as its been said? Is 1% high, average? I was trying to be conservative.

Ultimately after $3500 should one have a deal that will at least cover the marketing expense? Is $3500 a good budget to start with? And do I just keep mailing the same people until they tell me to stop? And if I keep my farm area tight I might have to as prospects become limited no? Like, how many new ones pop up every 7 months for say a small 70 square mile town? Another thousand? Anyone have any ideas on these numbers? Just trying to get a good idea what to expect. 

sometimes I see an "FSBO" in CL that turns out to be being sold by an agent. Is that just tricky marketing or what?

 Yes, I see in your first response you answered my question. Thanks. I'll admit i repeated my question once, but not "over and over again".  My comprehension skills aren't the best. Ecksyooooz me!

What did you mean by that? I thought in these situations the sellers wouldn't be bargaining, successfully at least, for much more than getting out of a bad situation. I'm not too familiar with how foreclosure deals work out so I'll appreciate your response.