BiggerPockets

Letters are in the mail and I'm in business.

Friday, July 31

Somewhere along the way I read someone state that "If you're not marketing, you're not in business." 

 Like I've said in my other blog posts, I've been reading and learning what I can for a long, long time now, without any real action. A few factors lately, like the expiration of my year long REIA membership and my continued state of poverty and unemployment, have pushed me to understand that it is time that I stop cutting bait and start fishing.

And with that, I dropped letters in the mailbox today. They went out to houses that look a bit (or more) neglected and looked like they held potential. Houses that looked a little below average for their respective neighborhood.

The letters should arrive on Monday, and I'm not 100% satisfied with my letter copy, and I'm still not entirely comfortable with what happens if, heaven forbid, the phone should ring on Monday. If that happens, I am going by Ryan Webber's advice on these boards that my goal is to find out two things: What is their level of motivation, and how much equity exists. 

In the meantime, the home phone number will be forwarded to the cell phone, and I'll be riding my bike up and down every street, neighborhood by neighborhood, jotting down addresses of properties that might have some potential, and sending more mail to those owners along with letters to NODs the day of filing.

And while I stay busy cutting bait, I'll wait for a bite from my line that it is the water now. If I get one and it gets away, I'll be left to wonder what went wrong and how to do better next time.  If no one bites, I'll look at my letter copy first. But any way I look at it, there IS a line in the water now, and while it might be a baby step, it's better than two years of talking about taking that step. So, we'll see what happens next.

The world conspiring to help me.

Tuesday, July 21

More on my beginnings of taking action and trying to do what I've wanted to do for a long time now:

 After trying to do this real estate investing thing for a long time now, I finally, after more than a year in my local REIA (spent quietly listening) and almost three years now with the interest, put an ad on the local REIA's website looking for buyer's in case I run into a good wholesale deal.

 After having some sort of assumption that there weren't too many people that would be interested, I, in a bit of desperation, put up an ad anyway. Like I've said lately, come heck or high water, I'm going to try. Perhaps try and fail, but I refuse to NOT try any longer.

 And within four hours, I had six emails and one phone call. Seven people to put on a buyers list. Perhaps more importantly than a number like that, I heard from real investors that are looking to buy that shared some insights that I had not considered before. Stuff that no amount of reading and studying alone was going to give me, like this tidbit from one email: "the more lien searches, title work, and comp work you can do the faster we can close."

Perfect! That's exactly what I needed to know before presenting an offer to this person. I can absolutely do that, no questions asked. And all I had to do was ask if anyone was interested in working with a newbie wholesaler.

I even got one regular from here at BP that responded! All in all, it makes me wonder why I didn't do something this simple about a year ago. I now feel like I almost have an obligation to provide these people that responded to me with good deals. And I sure hope I do. 

I also hope I can overcome the next obstacle as easily. 

A start.

Wednesday, July 08