All Forum Posts by: Uyenchi Ho

It's all happening so fast!

Less than 2 weeks ago I sent out my first batch of letters to potential cash buyers.  As of now I have about 15 buyers who've responded to my letter and asked me to put them on my list.

On Friday (that's 2 business days ago!) I sent out my first batch of letters to potential motivated sellers.  I've just received my first call from an owner who wants to sell his property.  He lives in a different city and was planning to list a rental property it with an agent, but received my letter and decided to that he's prefer to sell it to an investor for all cash.

I've made an appointment to tour the property this weekend.  I'm very excited and even more nervous.  

Any advice on what to do - and especially what not to do - on a first deal would be greatly appreciated.  Also, any personal stories of your first deal would also be great.  How you felt, what you did right, what did you do wrong.  Looking to share experiences.

Thanks everyone!!!

Uyenchi

@Jerry Puckett Thank you for your response.  I've looked into Click2Mail and use them for 2 of my recent mailings (totally about 3000 pieces).  Now I have about 150 pieces to specific individuals whose names I got off the Notices of Default section of our local newspaper.  I've been trying to use Click2Mail for these as well, and my experience has been more than frustrating.  So now I'm looking to switch vendor and is looking into yours.  What is your timeline to get out letters.  I like that Click2Mail has next day mailing.  If I upload my letters to your service tonight (Sunday night), would they be mailed Monday or Tuesday?  And what is the cost?  Thank you.

@Johnson H.   No problem.  Thank you for addressing my question.  For me, Friday nights are a sacred time with the family - the streak has not been broken for more than 5 years, so I'm reluctant to break it now.  Maybe when the kids are older and are too cool to hang out with their parents, then my Fridays will free up.  Until then... I'll see about sneaking out whenever I can.

Have fun tonight!

Hello!

Are these meet-ups always on a Friday?  I've been wanting to attend one of these for so long but can never make a Friday meeting.  Any other days would be so great!  Although I will still do my best to finally attend one to meet my fellow investors.

Take care everyone!

Thank you, @Paul Crawson , I will look more into Click2Mail.  My logo is the standard letterhead size.  I will work with a Click2Mail rep to see about making my letters work.

@Brandon Foken, the reason I'm mailing to so many prospect cash buyers is that I am trying to create my buyers list.  I bought a software that gives me names and addresses of cash buyers based on my specifications (Santa Clara County, bought multiple properties in cash in the past 4 months, etc.), and about 1,000 names came up.  So I plan to mail to those folks hoping that in that pool, a few will respond.  Since I understand (and I can be totally wrong) that once I have my buyers list, I won't need to mail to them as often as I would the sellers, so I don't mind spending more money at the beginning building my list.

As for reaching motivated sellers, I want to start small (probate and NOD's) and expand from there.

If you have a better and more effective strategy, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have.

Thanks!

Hello BP brothers and sisters!

I have yet another question I'm hoping to be answered by the collective knowledge and experience from the many investors in BP.

So I have a list of potential cash buyers in my area (over 1000) which I plan to mail out once a month. I also have a list of appx. 50 potential motivated sellers (properties in probate) that I plan to mail out every Friday, and another list of b/w 50 - 100 potential sellers that I plan to mail out once a month (recipients of NOD.)

Because my letters are individualized (in the body of the letters I mention their property address), I need to have all my letters be prepared by me - using mail merge, of course.  I've spent the last week researching different direct mailing companies that will print and mail for me (Click2mail, Printforless, etc.), and I have not found one that fits my need.  When I uploaded my letters with Click2Mail, which many investors seem to favor, the recipient's name and address overlap my logo.  Also, it does not let me have personalized content in the body of the letters.

Has anyone encountered this issue, and if so, have you found a direct mail company that allows you to upload all thousands of your letters with personalized content and print and mail for you? 

Any advice and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.  As always, thank you.

Uyenchi

@Mark Pedroza, yes, I get my notices from San Jose Post-Record, but also from www.capublicnotice.com for all notices not posted on the SJ Post-Record.  On this site, you can do a one-click search for notices for all counties and publications (except for SJ Post-Record), which is great - but you do have to shift through all other irrelevant notices.

Thank you for the advice regarding looking at the estate of decedent section in the Petition for Probate form.  I will look into that.

Thank you, @Dave Metsker , for your suggestion.  I will definitely do that.  I need to start building a relationship with a tittle company anyway, so it's really good to know that I can access all this information from them.  Thanks again.

Hello!  This question for all the probate experts out there.  So I've accumulated a stack of recent Notices of Administration with the name of the deceased and the petitioner's attorney's name and address.  I know that it is best if I can determine if the estate has real property; unfortunately, my county tax assessor's office does not allow me to pull up property/tax information using the owner's name.  I can only do so using the property address and/or APN.  

Do you encounter this problem in your area, and if so, how do you go about finding out if the deceased owned any real property?  And if your approach is go to the court to pull the files, which document do you look for to see if the estate has real property?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

I've just purchased the 2 systems - both Finding Cash Buyers Now and Finding Motivated Sellers.  (If you buy both, you get a bundle discount.)  Once I start using them, I will update my reply and let you know if they are useful. I know that I can develop my own manual system of finding sellers and buyers, but if these 2 software actually do what I hope they will, it should save me a considerable amount of time, and time for me is very valuable, since I am working a full-time day job (unrelated to real estate) as well as trying to keep 2 toddlers healthy and happy - my other full-time job.  

So stay tuned!