All Forum Posts by: Ken Nyczaj

Anyone have experience Wholesaling from Tired Landlord to another Investor on multiple properties? Just curious to see how your process went, looks like there will be skin in the game for the next Investor.

@Tae C. Call your local county and ask to speak to the treasurer. If you listen to BP Podcast #39 with @Seth Williams, it is about land, but he has some great tips about finding these delinquent lists that helped me find exactly what I was looking for.

The Clerk gave me the run-around for two weeks, and then I just asked to speak to her supervisor, which sure enough was the Treasurer.

I'm having some success with my DM campaign and I came across a tired landlord who has multiple properties he is looking to sell off that are all right next to each other, he essentially owns the neighborhood corner- 3 SF, 1 MF Triplex. After looking at the county tax assessor, he got most of these properties at a deep discount, so it seems he may have a lot of equity. Three reasons why I'd rather not seek these properties as investments:

1) A few too many miles outside my sphere I'd like to invest.

2) He asked specifically if I'd be ok with inherited tenants. For my first Buy and Hold, I'd rather not, but maybe depending on his current lease and if any missed rent.

3) Probably one of the uglier streets in this very small city. Not terrible, I drove by at day and night, and the only real problem is some homes aren't well kept.

I'm thinking of wholesaling this group of properties. This county in Maryland does not have a tenant right of first refusal provision, which to my knowledge means he does not have to offer the sale of the property to the tenants.

My question is, what am I getting myself into trying to wholesale a set of properties? My DM campaign has led me to other investors that are looking for properties in this county. I know the basic steps of wholesaling, but doing multiple properties at once seems a little intimidating. Advice Appreciated. Thank you

@Lawrence Bacon

To find Tax Delinquent owners ask for the Treasurer of your local county, the clerks gave me the run-around for awhile until I listened to a BP Podcast that gave me this tip. These are not properties going into tax sale, but rather those who are behind on their taxes.

Create an excel spreadsheet that is compatible with Microsoft Office mail merge. YouTube how to do a mail merge and it will show you how to set up your spreadsheet.

@Jerry Puckett Weekends are precious, especially in the summer when it's fishing and crabbing season!

@Jerry Puckett @Ola Dantis

I'd say it took 5 hours on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday to finalize this campaign. My lists were already compiled before then. These 8 hours were spent printing letters, fixing paper jams, mail merge to printing envelopes, stuff envelopes and then putting the stamp on.

Opportunity cost (what did I miss out on) due to my current experience level is not much- I don't have many connections yet, my team members are usually busy on Saturday/ sunday mornings, I don't have a buyers or sellers list yet. On a Saturday at 3am-8am before most people get up, I honestly can say all that was lost was sleep, which is fine with me.

That being said, yes I do realize I need to outsource this. I was in a time crunch to keep my second campaign 4 weeks after my first and didn't want to wait learn more about DM companies. Now before the next campaign I do have the time to research a good DM company I'd like to work with.

Like I hear repeatedly on Biggerpockets, learning from actual experience is valuable. I have learned that printing, stuffing and stamping my own letters is not something I want to continue to do, but when it came to taking action, action was taken.

Jerry is right though, I'm looking to make DM easier and shell over the extra couple hundred dollars. I'll be researching companies extensively before the next campaign. Thank you all.

@Rachel H. will do Rachel. Thanks for the reply. My full time job is in account selling which is relationship selling really, so I figured direct mail may be right up my alley.

@Jorge De Jesus @Victor Noriega thanks for the support and advice.

@Jerry Puckett you’re right about factoring in what is my time worth. It’s certainly worth more than fighting with my printer all day on a Saturday when I could be out networking or strategizing with my business partners. The next go around I will definitely be outsourcing, I just need to do some more research and find the right company.

@Henri Meli yes all my addressees are local, unless they are absentee landlords. I’m not yet comfortable doing deals outside 30 miles from my house. It makes sense to me to invest near neighborhoods , school systems, retail/ resteraunts that I know. Plus why do deals far away when there could be deals in your back yard.

As for the message- if it’s the first mailer then a generic message saying I’m interested in buying houses in the area. I’m not addressing the homeowner with “Dear....” nor am I addressing the actual property location. The second message would just be a follow up to the first. “Hi I sent you a letter last month..:: haven’t heard back....” stuff like that. Generic messages so it’s less invasive, maybe it works maybe not, it’s too early to tell.

Back again and with more action- today 400 letters will start being delivered by USPS. Here is how I went about this campaign:

Stepped up from 200 to 400 yellow letters with red ink and pastel blue envelopes to distressed or high equity owners in my farm area. Specifically distressed owners are- recently gone through eviction in past six months, tax delinquent, absentee landlords, some driving for dollars houses with a noticed defect of their property.

I'm still doing all the work myself- Printing out hand written font on a 5 x 7 yellow letter, printing same hand written font on envelope with mail merging from an excel spreadsheet, and stuffing each envelope plus putting the stamp on. Definitely took a whole weekend working about half days- roughly 4 hours each day. The main problem was my printer kept having a paper jam, I'm suspecting I need to use a higher lb paper and it won't happen.

Costs- per entire mail piece it is costing 63 cents.

If I can solve the paper jam I may do one more campaign myself and then start to outsource it. It seems to get a decent rate from another yellow letters supplier your order must be around 1,000 units, and I haven't seen the option to send out a tiny a1 invitation envelope from any sources. I really like this style since it definitely is unique to the opener in a stack of mail, it looks like a baby shower invitation.

Regardless of the results, I'll be back again in 4-6 weeks for round 3. There are really no deals on the MLS, and I haven't found a wholesaler to work with so for a while I'll be doing direct mail. Being a new company, my partners and I are not willing to buy foreclosures that are site unseen, and most likely our bank won't loan on the first property that's a foreclosure that needs a lot of work. Thanks for reading. Questions appreciated.