All Forum Posts by: Derek T.

@Ceasar Blackman - I did half and half. I wasnt comfortable on the phone in beginning so I liked being able to grab comps and get a little knowledge beforehand. The problem I had is that everybody assumes that I did research on their house and that's what made me mail something to them. So then when I call them and I don't have comps right off the top of my head, or can't give them a price within the first 30 seconds of a conversation, they think that I didn't do my homework and that this is all a game.

I had to think it through and to me the people that I would lose from sounding like I didn't know what I was doing was more of a chance than me losing someone from them not wanting to leave a voicemail..just my take on it

Best of luck Alex. I think I've been lucky I only have the one rude caller and then a few condescending Realtors. I'm really having to learn to get comfortable on the phone so for me the one bad call takes four good one to even out. I'm guessing when you've done enough calls you don't even remember the rude ones. .. unless they are like that Michael Quarrels voicemail example

Thank you for the words of encouragement everyone. Ive currently had 24 replies from 250 mailings. . Nothing for a sure deal yet but the results are encouraging.

@Jack E. - I used the following criteria:

Sfr

50% equity or more

Absentee owners

Within 25 miles of my house

I cast a pretty wide net.. with you using Maricopa you might want to go only with out of state absentee to keep the list manageable. .

Sorry for the long post..

I sent out my first round of yellow letters on Saturday (rather Jerry Puckett sent them out for me...great guy by the way and I recommend him to anyone looking for the YL services) and wanted to give a recap.

My listsource parameters gave me 515 properties. I mailed to half on this first batch..

1) Today was day one and I got 18 replies. I believe that is about an 8.5% response rate on the first day. I am pretty happy with this, but most of the leads so far are other investors who are absentee, have already rented the property, and aren't looking to sell that specific property beyond market value. There weren't any obviously motivated sellers (that I was able to discern that is) from my first go round.

2) I found an individual who was unwilling to rent the property I mailed about, but he holds 100+ doors of multifamily in my city and wants to meet for coffee and see what I might be willing to take off his hands...with his moving into higher end SFR he doesn't want the headache of the MF that he currently holds a large quantity of. I will see how it plays out.

3) I found two realtors that were unwilling to part with the property I mailed them on, but I did negotiate some MLS leads in exchange for kicking some leads their way. Looking to foster the relationships over the coming weeks and months to improve my pipeline.

4) So far no concrete deals on a home, but the networking the mailing provided is extremely encouraging.

So to the others reading this who are just starting out, you just have to bite the bullet, mail the letters, and wait by the phone. Mine did not quit ringing and, although none were really motivated to sell the particular property I referred to in my letter, many lead to a possible future deal and increased network. I had only one of my 15 callers talk down to me..a fellow investor... but I couldn't understand her from the beginning so her insults missed the mark.

Not sure if this helps anyone but I am willing to answer questions, give more info, and if anything just let you know the letters get the phone ringing...and in my case it wasn't nearly as intimidating as I had thought it would be...maybe your own fears are greater than reality as well.

@Shariyf Grevious - In resources under fileplace there is a word document called Lines for Yellow Papers under Recently Uploaded.

Javon-

In my personal experience that would be severely undercutting the true cost on the large majority of candidate homes. I'd be curious to know what kind of farm area and strategy was being used where that formula would work. ..I don't see it working in mine at all.

My personal experience is at least double what that amount would give you.

Curious what others think about that formula. ..

Hey Peter-

I'm not sure if that budget affords you the ability to outsource with a direct mail company that I've learned of through this site.

Might have to go the route of buying the canary yellow paper from Amazon, downloading the lined document from BP downloads, and printing them off using a handwritten font.

Apologies for not having a site as you were looking for, but if one does exist I'd like to know of it as well.

Best of luck.

Ive never used that equation. It seems to me as though it would set you up for failure if the rehab was more than strictly a paint and flooring rehab. Seems far too generalized for me.

Just my two cents..

1. Your first decision on mailings should be based on budget. How many mailings could you do repetitively for 6 months without making a deal?

2. Everyone has a different phone volume they can handle, but I would think itwould be better to break them up until you can get comfortable on the phone and in the deal making process. I might suggest 250 to 300 a week max until you can start setting up systems

3 On your list data exclude trust and commercial. I might suggest only chasing out of state absentee only at first to get the total down closer to 1000 or 1500.

4 Mailing out that many the should be multiple deals in there, but that is also based on your knowledge of options, the message on your mailings, your ability to negotiate, etc. Not sure if anyone could guarantee anything.

Hope that helps. Others who are seasoned pros might have different ideas. Good luck

Thank you for the welcome John. I think to call what happened in 2008 "turning out not so well" is a severe understatement haha. An expensive lesson it was, but a lesson was learned. The failure of that investment just made me tunnel visioned towards future success. Working hard for a different result on this second run at things.