All Forum Posts by: Travis Gosnell

My advice would not to do anything less than a 5 year balloon unless you can get a better discount. I assume that it's free and clear and if so why not giver her up to 5-8k down, principle only payments of $250/month until paid. Example offer 41k, 5k down, and $250/mo for 144 months. And contrast that offer with your most expensive offer of all cash for 25k.

Be sure not to just be a numbers guy but BUILD VALUE...harp on what this will do for her and how it will help her get to South America and solve all of her challenges. Walk through and explain the transaction costs of a normal sale and the days on market, average buyer's discount, agent commission, etc. Also explain how she has to sell with a tenant which is sometimes even more challenging.

Good luck

I want to start with saying I'm in residential real estate and this kind of fell in my lap. Here it goes...

Seller has 4600 sq. ft. metal warehouse in good area with road frontage and in good condition. He is 76, economy is making him close his business of 42 years - he is in the phase of selling off all of his equipment. He is desperate for cash and has no other assets. The property is free and clear with a 3 month old appraisal of 840k.

I usually do owner financing deals and he was very open to the idea of getting 90k down with $1,000/monthly principle only payments for 7 years. He was actually ready to sign the paperwork but I told him I would go to work on this and come up with some projected numbers on the property. I would bring in a private investor for any repairs, projected holding costs, insurance, and his cash down.

So, I have the slightest clue what to do and what to look for. I mean should I contact a few commercial real estate guys in the area and get some leasing information or sell it on terms to another buyer...and where would this buyer come from and what are the particulars typically?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this guy is seriously ready to sign but I need an exit plan or an action plan to create an exit plan.

Thanks,
Travis

If you have an assistant - have them call all of the construction companies and residential developers/handymen and set up maybe a meeting to go over your program. Just don't go to a bunch of different meetings - probably time consuming - have one dinner type meeting or something. But yeah - I wouldn't send mail or pay for advertising this - just pick up the phone or have someone dial for you.

Put them on a drip campaign - we do every 60 days for 6 hits. You see an increase in response rate after the 3rd and 4th hit. Be sure to personalize the letter - oh and yellow letters are very good for this market.

Hope this helps.

4 categories should be:

Marketing
Buying
Selling
Funding

And again I think too marketing is the key to this business and any business. Leads = deals. There are other things that go into this - sales/presentation skills - deal structuring/negotiation, etc. - but you need leads to better yourself in the other areas. Get out there and start marketing.

If you have money - then try direct mail campaigns - depressed market - you can usually get by with sending mailings out to a whole geographic area but the targeted lists work great too - but geographic marketing is blanketing a whole area with a message - costs money.

If you don't have money for marketing or much - bandit signs - networking - driving for dollars - etc.

Before starting marketing you will need to pick you area. 15-20k homes at medium price range + or - 20% (depending on your business model) but we are talking about wholesaling - so usually the fixers are in this - 20% range.

Hope this helps.

Blue has been tested to pull better response. Also, instead of just using the generic message to the market of - "I'm interested in buying your house at 123 main st." Call me at xxx-xxxx.

While this "generic" message gets a high response rate - it seems to produce a lot of C quality calls - then you have more work in call handling.

Instead, you can write a more full message which will lower the response rate but will increase the quality of the leads you will produce.

I prefer sending postcards but do send letters too in a rotation of 6 multiple hits. Postcards are cost effective and very easily on click2mail.com.

Example:

Dear (their name),

My company is interested in buying your property located at 123 main street. We buy several houses each month and we're looking to buy more in this area. Should you have any interest in selling quickly and easily at a fair price, please call us at______. To hear more on how we can buy your house "as is" on the date of your choice, call our 24 recorded message line at________.

If you're not interested in selling this property now, please keep this card for future reference.

Sincerely,
Tom Jones, President
We Buy Homes, Inc.
Website

This is an example of a postcard that you can create on click2mail.com and get them printed and sent through usps through this website. Be sure to always add your name and address to the mailing to make sure it went out and is correct when doing any mailing. This is very easy to do and cost effective - can be outsourced as well to an assistant very easily.

Hope this helps - will work with almost any list - merge the fields that are necessary - name and address.

I have been pulling list in the mls of cash sales in my area within the last 6 months that have remarks of reo, rehab, fixer, etc. I initially was going to cold call the list, but am having trouble pulling all of the numbers. So, I am going to mail out to these people.

My question is what should I say and how should I word the postcard? Should I just make a property flier or what? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I am in an area where the foreclosure list has to be pulled manually, so I thought it would be a good idea to add this to my marketing campaign. Does anyone know of any cheap list providers that offer the pre-notices like this?

Thanks in advance.

Well I don't focus on them either, I thought you did by the content in your message. Yes, I live in San Marcos and focus on wholesaling. So, you guys are just focusing on buying defaulted paper? I target fixers all over north county and in Fallbrook so let me know what we can work out. Looking forward to it.

Travis

there are a few good ones in spartanburg,sc ....but there should be a grip of them in Charlotte which would be near you. Search the site for links to the rei clubs. Good Luck!