All Forum Posts by: Greg S.

Thanks Chris Cox, I will try revising the letter with that line removed.

Rick Harmon, it's definitely a learning process but I'm picking it up, slow and steady. At this point I have trained myself to consistently hit the questions "Why are you selling?", "What do you think it's worth", and "What do you need to get for the property?" I like your suggestion of "What do you want to see happen?", probably squeezed in somewhere between my last two questions.

Ibrahim S
The seller from CO ended up being a bust. It was a textbook example of me not asking the right questions. When I originally asked if there was a mortgage, he said "Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with anything." He gave a few indications of motivation (damage from Hurricane Sandy, tenants were uncooperative) so I didn't ask any other financial questions. I ended up making an offer of $55k assuming a large scale rehab on the inside, but he wasn't interested. I eventually found out he was way upside down and my price didn't even come close.

Regarding the listings...the last time I tried to explain this, I did a very poor job of it, and some forum members seemed to think my wife's license was invalid. A while back she worked as a salesperson for Ryan Homes, which required her to get her real estate license. She left that job 7 years ago, but kept her license hung at a local broker as a referral agent. I believe that in order to list homes, she would have to go through additional training since it has been too long since she was active as a listing agent. Regardless, she works long hours at her current job, and is not interested in taking on any listings. Hopefully I explained it correctly this time!

"To be honest with you, I would give it away"

Today I spoke to my first truly motivated seller. He went through a divorce a few years back and moved down to South Carolina. He rented the house he owned in NJ, but with the amount the property management company takes every month, he can't afford it. He said it was either going to sell it or lose it to foreclosure, and would give it away if he could

Unfortunately, he owes $180k on the mortgage, and that's about all the house is worth. I'm not interested in pursuing short sales, so there's no deal there for me. I'm either going to refer it to my realtor to see if she can list it as a short sale, or refer it to another investor who specializes in lease options. I'm leaning towards the latter, since the seller said the mortgage was assumable, and it at least helps me network.

I'm going to call him back tonight and get a bit more information on the financials before I call any investors with it.

January Recap

Leads mailed: 620
Calls received: 42

Money Spent: $424
Postage: $280
Ink: $51.28
Envelopes: $5.35
Paper: $35.28
PO Box: $52

Cost per call: $10.09

1/29/13 - Finished putting together the mailers for my additional mailing. These 75 yellow letters (and envelopes) were printed with red ink instead of black. I'll be comparing my response rate to see how it compares. Next week I will try blue ink.

1/30/13 - Wednesdays are rough. All of my free periods during the school day are taken up by additional classes I teach (HSPA Review and SAT Prep). On top of that, I teach an SAT class for 3 hours on Wednesday nights. ...I have to pad that marketing budget somehow. I also received one call from an OOSO couple who is not interested in selling.

1/31/13 - More calls started coming in from Monday's mailing. I received 4 calls, but 1 didn't leave a message and hasn't picked up on my call backs. All 3 sellers wanted market value or above.

2/1/13 - Today brought the most calls I have ever received in one day (7). I got in touch with all of them. Five either weren't interested or wanted too much. One wanted too much, but could be a candidate for a listing referral in a few months (it's leased until June). Another was occupied by a 92 year old woman in bad health. I spoke to her daughter, who would be looking to sell it quickly if anything were to happen with the mother. I plan to follow up with her.

Deshone,
Thanks so much. That is one of the most helpful posts I've received, and it's certainly one I'll be referencing many times. I really appreciate it!

Good luck, Brandon!

Also...I'm up to 32 calls on 422 mailings, or a response rate of around 7.5%. Not bad, but not great. My goal is to hit 100 total calls before February ends.

I slacked off a bit this past week with keeping track of my daily progress. I'll be sure to get back into the routine this week since I'm able to hold myself accountable when I keep a record of what I do every day.

This week, I mailed out 90 letters, comprising of about 30 to out of state owners and 60 to probates. I only received 4 calls, so it was kind of a light week.

I've been working on a referring a lead to a realtor, since my wife is a referral agent and that can be a way to get some additional cash. This week, I referred 3 potential deals. One didn't really go anywhere, another is way upside down but they are going to hopefully pursue a short sale, and the third is being contacted tomorrow. Hopefully these will start to pan out in order to offset my marketing costs.

I also put a lot of time into trying to find a list of code violations in the towns in my area. Unfortunately, I've been told that while the information is public record, I need to request info on a specific property. A list of all the properties doesn't exist, according to the people I spoke with.

1/27/13 - Put together 125 mailings to out of state owners that will be mailed out tomorrow and Tuesday. This is the second town I'm mailing to. I just finished the first town last week, which (along with probates) made up my first 4 weeks of mailings. I'm mailing the entire town in one batch, and plan to mail an adjacent small town later in the week. I'd like to send 200 mailings this week, which is more than I've ever done before.

1/28/13 - Mailed about half of the mailings I put together yesterday, with the other half going in the mail tomorrow. I also printed out letters and envelopes for another 75 to be mailed on Wednesday.

1/13/13 - Put together a batch of Probate mailings (50). I put a business card in each letter this time. I'm interested in seeing if this increases my response rate.

1/14/13 - Called back a few people who contacted me. One of them seemed fairly motivated. He lives in Colorado and hasn't been back to NJ in 7 years. He said he is "very interested" in selling his property. It currently needs a new roof, but he doesn't know the state of repairs aside from that since he hasn't seen the property in so long. I will be driving by it this week and giving him a call back.

1/15/13 - Put together a batch of 50 out of state owner mailings. Also did a bit more research on finding Eviction data for my area. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck.

1/16/13 - Took the day off for my wife's birthday

1/17/13 - Put together a postcard on Click2Mail to send to new probate listings. This was a small batch of about 15 sellers, so I'm not sure it will produce any calls.

1/18/13 - Rented a PO Box at the local post office. It was $26 for 6 months. Up to this point, I haven't been putting a return address on my mailings. One was required for my Click2Mail mailings, and I didn't want to use my actual address. I'm hoping this will bump up my response rate on my yellow letters as well, but we'll see.

1/19/13 - I called back a few leads I had received, including the seller in Colorado mentioned above. He moved out of NJ 7 years ago and hasn't seen the house since then. It is currently rented, but incurred some damage to the roof and pool during Hurricane Sandy. He wouldn't give me a number as to what he wanted, and I'm still not very good at pressing that point. I ended up giving a ballpark offer over the phone of $55k, which he turned down. I ended up referring it to a realtor I work with, who let me know that she spoke with him and he is way upside down. They are going to attempt a short sale, so hopefully she will be able to help him. This was a textbook example of me not asking enough questions.

1/20/13 - Put together about 90 letters to be mailed out tomorrow. As I mentioned, these have a return address (for the first time), so I'm curious to see if it affects the response rate.

Things to work on:

I've mentioned this previously, but I don't ask nearly enough questions when I'm on the phone. I have a whole list of questions on my 'Seller Information Sheet', but I routinely only fill out about 10 or 20% of it. I really need to work on asking those questions even though it makes me feel awkward.