All Forum Posts by: Clayton P.

Hey all

Got a voicemail from the local police, saying You need to stop right away the "help with foreclosure" messages (yellow letter'd pre-foreclosures with auction dates in the next month or two) yadda yadda.. I heard there was some kind of legal aspect to this kind of marketing but I didn't pay attention, I'm just learning by doing and pursuing all routes.

I'm not worried at all about this by the way, but does anybody want to fill me in on how it's illegal to mail preforeclosures saying I can help them avoid the situation?

So the question is, are there any other marketing niches that can get the cops called on me?

just spoke to listsource in detail for what I need. Was told there's no way to do what I want. Looks like I'll be doing it myself Jon.. from 40 fields, 2000 records, into 3 simple fields.

ugh. bring on the advil, this is gonna be a headache...

Now we're talking. You really know your way around the spreadsheets. Thanks alot Jon.

Now that I know its possible, I COULD buy the list like this and I don't mind putting in the time but if I'm buying a product, I should be able to get it how I want from the start - the list broker hasn't responded to my emails so I'll be on the phone with them today to settle it for sure.

well Jon that might be the hot ticket.. tomorrow when I have some breathing time I'll try to play around with that.

While we're doing screenshots, this is what I'm purchasing:

and this is what I need:

Hey guys,

I'm about to purchase a list from LS, and there's a good 15+ cells of info in their data per lead - which is great - but for my needs it makes it hard because I'll be printing both my letters and envelopes via mail merge, which means I have to have a preset order of cells at the very top of the spreadsheet, i.e. 1) homeowner name 2) mailing address 3) city state zip.. etc. The way their list is previewed, I'd have to go through 2000+ names, each with 15+ cells, and drag & rearrange into an order I can use with the mail merge. Nooo thank you.

If it was a free list, I couldn't ***** and moan, just grin and bear, but if its something I'm paying for, I want it the way I need it.

Any ideas how to do this? Both my account admin & general customer service won't respond. Or some other way to setup the mail merge by handpicking the cells? ugh. headache.

If I'm being kinda cloudy on my description here, sorry, its hard to describe I guess but if anyone has worked with any sort of mail merge software that imports from a spreadsheet, you'll probably get what I mean.

small bump

This just came over through two text messages about a minute apart haha

Hi clayton my house will never go into foreclosure. I like the way u filled in my name. Lol.

You and your partner are scammers. Is this how you meet women? Lol. Answer me or you will be reported. Lol

I like the passive-aggressive Lol'ing. Did me a favor though, time to see how to make my handwritten personalizing blend better onto my printed letters :)

thanks Roy, I see your point. Ill try to come at it from that angle. Now the trick becomes including those points and making their welfare the point of the letter, but blending in the fact I'm 110% interested I'm buying their house and that's what I'm after.

Any ideas?

I'm sending this batch to preforeclosure properties with auctions in the next 30-60 days, both high equity and low.

I'd like to keep the message a little different from my basic, no frills "I'll buy your house, close quick, etc" that goes to my absentees. What's a good message to express the benefits to these people?

Any templates or suggestions would be a huge help.

While I'm posting this, another question: Obviously, people with higher equity in their preforeclosure home obviously care about it and would like to see themselves getting OUT of the foreclosure situation, and holding the home. If I were to buy their home, sure, the foreclosure is avoided and their credit is off the chopping block, but they'd still be losing their home. Not such a huge benefit, someone might argue. Any thoughts?

some funny responses in here haha

On topic though, here's a pretty validating comment from a seller I just recieved -

"You know man, you were the only one to send us a letter that you actually took the time to sit down and hand write - so the way I see it, you take the time out of your day to write me a letter, I'll take the time out of mine to see what you're all about"

I mean, come on - talk about validation! Word for word quote there.

I'm brraaaaand new to mailing vacancy absentee owners.. That call came from one of EIGHT letters I sent out, my very first batch. If I were to never send another letter ever again, 1 out of 8 is like 12% response haha, it's cool to think about like that. But again - the very first call, from my very first batch of eight letters, I had the extremely motivated seller word for word tell me the difference a yellow letter made.

The deal didn't go through due to lack of equity, but still, the experience was awesome and only increased my drive to up the mailing

Thanks for the input everybody. Scott, I made the phone call and had to let the person down but explain the short sale being the best escape strategy in this case for them.

I sent the grandson a followup email with links to the HUD preforeclosure FAQ, short sale benefits and application, etc. and told him that I'd be his "boots on the ground" for the property, since he's in Arkansas, I'd do whatever I could since I'm local to the property, to let me know if he needs anything at all through the process and to keep me updated. I'll follow up in a couple weeks to see how they're doing.

I was pretty bummed truth be told because this would've been my first wholesale deal, and the seller motivation was just unreeeeal. It was a dream scenario. But the rest of the equation wasn't there. On to the next