All Forum Posts by: Jeff G.

@Jeremy Pace

According to this article PA is a knock-and-announce state: http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=498587

But, in practice that might not matter. Imagine if you will, someone walking up to the door and quietly knocking and getting out of the way of the battering ram without breaking their stride. The occupants simply might not have had enough time to comply or they might not have heard the knock.

@Cameron Skinner

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts this guy is unlicensed. 

@Rashard Brooks

Well, I always ask the seller first for an approximate loan balance. The other thing I do is take the number of years the seller has owned the house and divide that by 30. Most mortgages are 30 year notes. If someone has owned their home for more than 30 years chances are high they've payed off their note entirely.

The only time this won't help is if the seller has aggressively used their home as an ATM machine.

@Mike T. my goal is to draw out motivated sellers. Just by dropping anyone with less than 50% equity (as best I can) eliminates a ton of tire kickers. I used to mail directly to absentee owners without pre-scrubbing for equity percentage. Mistake. Are you scrubbing for equity too? I just filter for it on List Source. If I'm building the list some other way (e..g, I'm driving for dollars) I look it up in public records to see if the last sale date is 15 years or more in the past. If it's not, it's unlikely to be a good wholesale deal and I drop it.

@Rhonda E.--yes--I've tried live answering services in the past. It did well, but not so much better than my current methods as to justify the cost.

• I still go hang-ups. The voice mail service would forward me an mail: "hangup [telephone number]."
• I'd get people who didn't "get" the idea of an answering service and try to strong-arm the call taker into contacting me directly.
• People would hang up, call back, hang up, and then leave nasty messages to the effect of "I've tried to reach Jeff several times but he hasn't returned my call." Well, yeah, Jeff isn't psychic.
• In the end it was substantially more expensive than having a direct voice mail drop.
• In the future (e.g., when it's more than just me) I'll probably go to a hybrid approach of direct to a human during the day with an answering service for overflow/after hours.

It WAS nice to know that every call was being taken by a human. The service I used was Pat Live. I highly recommend them as a live answering service.

@Yvon N.

 I often do call the hangups back, as best I can. Often I'm simply ignored. Though, I have noticed a higher response rate to text messages than to call backs.

Speaking of, is there something like sly for mass texting?

I think answering live is great. But, as a concession to reality it just isn't possible in my case. You're right, my response rate is excellent as a percentage of my mailers. I keep my volume low and spread out over a month to ensure that I have a reasonable chance of returning all of my calls.

Sure, I could open up the throttle and send out 3000 mailers and have them hit in about 10 days. But, I'd never be able to process all the leads, even with VA assistance. I'm going to increase the size of my mailers a bit. As you can see I'm just trying to achieve an equilibrium with all of my other responsibilities.

My goal is 1 deal per month on average.

@Tim Herndon thanks for the tip!

I'd considered Slybroadcast as a way to follow up. But I wasn't sure how to accurately scrub my list of land-line calls--something I get a fair number of when I mail to 100% equity owners. You just solved that problem, thanks.

Do you have any recommendations for a VM script that converts well? How often do you personally send VM blasts? 

@Chris Stephens` I have to second @Roger Vi about doing what you can to build credit. 

I'd add two things:

Don't guess when you an know. I personally check my credit score about once a year at MyFICO.com. It costs money, about $60 for all three bureaus. But it's directly from the sources and not some 3rd party looking to sell your information to advertisers.

If you see anything inaccurate, write a challenge letter.

Don't go finance the world. Every loan officer on the planet is going to tell you to "build good debt" to replace "bad debt" or a non-existent credit history. Be careful with this advice. Wait until you've built up enough cash to (for example) buy a car and put 50% down. Then conventionally finance the rest: already having it on hand if you had to pay it off yourself.

About credit cards. BONUS 3rd thing! It's recently come to my attention that having more than a 50% balance on your cards may adversely impact your credit score. I haven't confirmed this so it may be inaccurate, but it seems worth mentioning. Personally, I pay my cards off in full every two weeks.

I've sent out my first major batch of mailers and I have no complaints about my response rate. Though, I do get a ton of hangups. I realize that the people who make it anywhere in this business are awesome with their follow-ups. Knowing this makes me want to be awesome with my follow-ups too. But, there are problems:

Problem One: This isn't my day job, it's my side job. I work a 50-80 hour weeks and then I come home and do this. I have a VA who runs my comps for me during the day, that helps a lot! When I get home I open up Podio, listen to the VM's and start calling people back. I triage, the people who leave voice mails get called back first. Hangups get VM's/texts as the night wears on.

Usually, at the end of the week there have been a about 5-10 hangups that I just wasn't able to call back because of day-job work load/wholesaler work load/sleep. I wish I could call all of my hangups back. I'm REALLY open to suggestions on how to follow-up with hangups in an automated way. What do the rest of you suggest?

Before anyone suggests it: no, I'm not going to quit my job. I love my day job. I'm wholesaling so that I can increase my income and start buying rentals as good deals come my way.

Problem Two: Okay, I've sent them a yellow letter. They've called in and.... well... they're just not a deal. They haven't told me to go pound sand or anything but they're not motivated to sell. This includes everyone I'm telephone tagging but never actually get to talk to directly or that calls in leaves a VM once and never ever responds to my return VM's/texts. What should I do now? Do I send another identical yellow letter? This seems wrong. Also, what about the "telephone tag" crowd? Do I respond differently to them?

Problem Three: Out of 720 mailers (give or take) I got about 80 calls, that's an ~11% response. All of them were pre-scrubbed for 50% equity or greater. Out of all of those calls, I've written ONE offer. I anticipate writing a second offer tomorrow. I'm clearly doing it wrong. To me that's just not acceptable.

In the case of that one offer letter I went to see a property and it was badly damaged by water and had lots of mold. I offered a low price point, he countered, I came up 5k from my low price point and then his realtor stopped calling me back. Soooo.... I sent a polite letter explaining why my number was as low as it was and then filled out a contract for my price point (complete with sign-here X and yellow highlighter) and invited him to have his realtor call me back. (She deserves her commission too. I'm not going to knowingly go behind a realtor's back.) Tomorrow isn't too different: it's a badly damaged mutifamily listed with a realtor. I expect to get it under contract at or near the price point I have in mind.

Wrapping it up

I talk to a lot of people and they just seem to want top dollar--which is their prerogative. But, two offers in 60 days (counting tomorrow) is pathetic and I know it! How can I do this differently? Do any of you send contracts with the figures filled out? Or, do you send a boilerplate offer letter? Any suggestions on how to get better at this? On balance, it looks like I'll get two deals out of this, eventually.

I have no intention of giving up. I realize that disappointment with myself and bumps along the road are all part of the learning process. I just expect more of myself. I've only just started and I'm falling in love with the industry. I'm not into doing things half-way. I really want to get good at this even with the constraints on my time. Any feedback is welcome.

@Chris Stephens`

First things first: welcome to BP!

 Given that you're still in school I'm going to assume your budget is small: Ramen noodles for dinner small. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Given that assumption what I'd advise is simple: (1) join a REIA group near you. It's typically $250+ a year to join. It's worth every penny. Don't get sucked into the hype and feel like you have to spend $4k in order to get started. But DO get everybody's business card that you can.

(2) Look on Meetup.com and see if you can meet up with real estate investors in your area. There are a LOT of BP members who've started their own mini-REIA's this way. Get more business cards and get to know people.

Once you've formed a few relationships and have your bearings ask someone if you can shadow them for a day or two to see if you'd like to do what they do. Take notes, lots and lots of notes.

You might score a side-job this way. If nothing else learn to bird dog (property scout) for wholesalers. Start with Part One of the Driving for Dollars Bible.

I hope that helps!