All Forum Posts by: Kelly P.

I do wholesaling from probate and absentee owner leads. I have a probate lead where the property's ARV is $200k but there is a $160k mortgage. Obviously the wholesale formula does not work in this situation but I wanted to know if anyone else has had a similar situation and used a creative strategy to contract and wholesale the deal.

Thanks for your input.

Blair H. - the only negative I have about Listsource is the percentage of returned mail. On my recent yellow letter mailer, 11% were returned as undeliverable. Have you had that experience?

Rick Harmon - Rick, I was simply thinking out loud, and yes, I am walking away from the deal. The PR is motivated to sell but with a mortgage of $160k on a property valued at $200k, the deal is too thin.

Kenneth E. I received a call yesterday from a probate mailing - only my third in the past 6 months! PR does not want to keep the house but at the same time hinted at getting retail. Comps are around $200k but there is a mortgage of $160k. Plus PR wants this sale to cover some of the other debts of the estate.

Because of these numbers, I don't see a wholesale deal and don't think this is a sub2 or lease option deal (which I have no experience in) because the estate wants to liquidate. What do you think of this idea: have the PR contact the lender and negotiate a full and final settlement of the loan for $100k. I offer PR $125K giving the estate $25k to pay off other debts. I have no experience with negotiating a reduced payoff so I'm just thinking out loud at this point.

Kenneth E. - I too have had no success with probates. I have been mailing to lists every month; new filings and repeat mailings. I totally understand how this strategy can produce the best motivated sellers but its just a matter of when they are ready to sell.

How do you contact your leads? I use type written professional white letters.

Thanks Gary. I concentrate only on wholesaling via absentee and probates. I am testing yellow letters to see if the higher response rate can turn into a deal. Either way, post cards or yellow letters, I am continuing to market monthly to the same list. That is where my issue is. Yes I will market continue to my current list but want to expand to get more leads. When I contacted my list provider after 3 months for an updated list, only 180 new names popped up. I think I have to tweak the criteria to get more names and would like some input on what criteria everyone uses. Thanks.

I started wholesaling in June by sending postcards to 1000 absentee owners and to probates. I closed two deals (from postcards) within 3 months but have had zero leads since. I switched to yellow letters to test that marketing strategy and have no motivated leads from those letters.

For 2013 I think I need to change up my lists. For absentee owners I use the following criteria for a 5 county area: out of state, equity of 51%>, SFR, last sale date 10 years ago or earlier. With this criteria I keep getting the same properties. I market to them each month but I need to reach new sellers. Looking for suggestions on getting new leads.

Dick - I used a list from Listsource targeting out of state owners, SFR with equity of 51%> and last sale date 2002 or earlier.

Jason - I just sent out my first yellow letter campaign (400) and received 4.5% response rate but they were not motivated sellers. It's a numbers game so I will continue to do follow-ups letters. I did postcards to a list of 1000 absentee owners for six months and had a .8% response rate, but did a deal with one of the responses.

I did my first yellow letter mailing last week, and I too used Jerry Puckett. I received a 4.5% response rate but none were motivated sellers. From what I have read about yellow letters, that is the norm. The response is better than the meager .8 rate I received from 6 months of postcards.