All Forum Posts by: Mark Perrill

I have access to a list of debtors who declared BK.  The house was protected by the BK initially but the court is going to remove the house from the protection of the BK.  Before I spend time and money marketing to this list, I would like to map out some plausible problems they have that I can solve.

Here is what I have so far.  Is there some big "pain" point I am missing?

• They can control when the move instead of letting the sheriff throw them out
• I could try to set up an "us versus them" about the 'greedy bank.'  Don't want to let the !@#$ 'greedy bank' take your house.  Sell it to me instead.
• Some moving money
• Avoid a foreclosure on the credit report--but still have a BK.  So their credit is wrecked anyway.

That's about it.  Maybe I don't know enough about the process.  Is there a compelling reason a person going through this process would rather sell to me on a short sale or a sub 2 instead of living for free until the foreclosure process plays out?

@Debra Leeson I too have tried to do a little skip tracing.  Based upon a post I found here on BP, I used U.S. Search.com  The price is right. You can get a report for about $1.50.  But I have yet to track someone down based upon that search.  Get what you pay for?

You can also type this into Google to find some different BP posts on skip tracing:

biggerpockets.com:skip tracing 

 I like it better than the search box at the top of the page.  

@Kevin Page thanks for your input.  I know you replied once before to this thread too.  In truth, I have more time than money for marketing right now.  I would rather use the $175 for more direct mail pieces.  But I can probably implement the rest of the strategy and substitute my own market report that I put together each month.

This will be an interesting learning experience for me--cracking the marketing mix that makes me successful in real estate investing.  Of course, I really want immediate gratification--results NOW!  But alas, that isn't how it works, at least not for me.

@Antonio Coleman Hold on just a minute.  I never said I was going to spam anyone.  However, maybe I should have been a little more explicit in my original post. What I really want to know is, is anyone using email as a follow up method? If so, how are you doing it?

Antonio you know what I'm doing because we traded PMs about it.  But if I gave the impression I advocate spamming anyone that's not true.  I don't advocate that at all.

I'm going to change the script my call service uses to answer incoming calls that I generate from my direct mail campaigns.  I'm going to add "email address" to the items that the operators collect.

Here is my question.  Does anyone on BP use a prospect's email address to stay in touch? The classic Internet marketing technique is to send out a mass, once a month email with some (presumably) useful tidbits to keep your name top of mind so that when they are ready to, in our case, sell their house, they call you.  

If you don't do this, how do you follow up? How often?

Does anyone have a letter they send to property owners who owe taxes they would be willing to share?

What about door knocking these owners?  Anyone have some experience to share along those lines?

Update:  I wasn't sure how many calls I would get off this campaign.  So I had it mailed in two batches.  The first batch mailed about 10 days ago and the calls have started.  Here are my results to date.

375 letters generated 6 calls (or a 1.6% response rate).  I was hoping for better and I still may get some calls off of the first drop. 1.6% seems a little low for yellow letters doesn't it?

Of those 6 calls, 3 were "take me off the list."  Two have potential.  I've looked at one and going to see the other tomorrow.  The 3rd will go to long term follow up.

I've read about how some BP'ers are shocked when direct mail recipients are rude, nasty, or otherwise irrational about receiving a letter in the mail.  One of my "take me off the list" people was a woman with 15 properties.  She alternately demanded I buy all 15 properties as a package and "pay top dollar" vs. telling me receiving my mail was "annoying."

I considered having some fun and asking her how much she paid?  Did she pay top dollar for her properties?  If she didn't, why should I?  Alas, my better angels won out.  I was absolutely polite and agreeable and took her off the list without being snarky.  

Chris K has the best advice.  Market for a deal yourself.  However, if you really want to work with a RE agent, you are overlooking a great resource.  It's right under your nose.

Go to the top of the Bigger Pockets page you're on right now, click the 'Network' tab, and click 'Find Members.'  In the Atlanta market, I have more than 40 pages of members, many of whom are RE agents who specifically want to work with investors.

Jon thanks for your encouragement. I picked a zip code north of Atlanta.  After some filters on the data (40% equity, more than 5 years at the residence) I had just a shade over the 750 names I ended up mailing to.

According to City Data, the zip I picked has 52% renters. List source thinks ~25% are non owner occupied.  Kind of the same thing...or is it?  

Anyway, it seemed like a good place to market for deals.  If I can wholesale it I will.  But I will let the deal drive the exit strategy somewhat. Not a buy and hold guy though.  

I have a 40+ year experienced investor to help me along.  If I can find the deal, he will help me bring it to market.

Thanks @Will Pritchett.  I don't know who gets the credit, but someone once asked rhetorically, "what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"  

That's part of what is forcing me out of my comfort zone.  If I persist, if I am intentional, I will achieve my goal.  In this case, find motivated sellers & get a deal.