All Forum Posts by: Ryan Young

Would love to read it Josh!

Hi Dean Letfus, I just sent my first mailing out at the beginning of this month so I don't have much to add with regards to my cost per deal. I'm not sure that it will end up being the best way to get leads, however being pretty new I figure the more calls I can generate the better. I plan on using direct mail as well as bandit signs and craigslist to maximize my chances of getting leads.

Having more deals than you can handle sounds like a great problem to have! Where do most of your deals tend to come from?

Thanks Jerry Puckett for the response, for my list I used listsource by the way. Great suggestion on dropping the last sale date filter, I will do that.

One more question with regard to follow up, I understand many times people will not call until after the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th mailing. How do you typically space these mailings out? How many days between contact usually?

I'm just starting to market for motivated sellers and I have a question regarding the amount of people and areas I should target with my direct mail campaign. Here is what I have done so far:

Mailed first 100 yellow letters to absentee owners with 40-100% equity, 3 br sfr, with last sale date of more than 7 years ago.
Received 5 calls so far - 1 from a listing agent, other 4 not really looking to sell.

In my county there is 3-4 cities that have alot of investor activity and many buyers, these are the locations I used when compiling my list so through my filters I only came up with 200 houses. With my marketing budget I would like to send around 150-200 letters per week. I feel like I should be sending more letters and reaching more people to get my phone ringing.

How do you guys determine the size of the net you cast, so to speak? Do you think it is better to expand my areas and send to surrounding cities, such as going by zip codes, or maybe loosen my filters and just search for any absentee owners? Or maybe target a different list in addition to the absentee owners I have already sent to? Just looking for ideas to reach more potential sellers, any help is appreciated!

Thanks Ned Carey and Robert Adams for your responses.

I have read a lot of posts about weather to build your buyers list or find deals first and it seems pretty split. I have a few buyers contact info and a list of others to call now. In the meantime, I just put bandit signs out for the first time this weekend and sent my first round of yellow letters to absentee owners last week. I've had 6 calls total, but none were very motivated to sell.

What you said Robert about focusing on getting deals makes sense. If it truely is a deal, I am hoping I can market the crap out of it and build my buyers list that way.

Having access to the MLS, it seems one of the best ways to build a buyers list with proven cash buyers is to pull up the recent REO cash sales in my target area and check the names and addresses of the new owners. Many of these seem to be out of state buyers and LLC's.

My question is, without having a specific property under contract what would be the best way to approach these buyers? Should I track down phone numbers and try calling them? Maybe send a letter or postcard asking them to call or goto a website and be added to my buyers list?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the welcome!

Theodore B., would love to talk. I'm located in Oakland County, just north of Detroit.

Hi everyone,

My name is Ryan, I'm from the metro Detroit area and I have been lurking around this site for a while reading as much of the awesome content as I can.

I became attracted to real estate a few years ago due to the wealth and freedom it could eventually provide for my family, not to mention I hate the thought of working for someone else my entire life and having my income limited by my job title. My long term goals are to rehab properties and to build a rental portfolio, but for now I am focused on wholesaling to get some deals under my belt and build some cash reserves.

I recently got my license and have spent a lot of time learning my market, I'm looking forward to networking and getting involved in the forums as much as I can.