Tuesday, January 12
The first round of mail has hit, and the calls are coming in. A lot of them! It can be a bit overwhelming, but I suppose this is a good problem to have. Nothing that smells like a deal yet. The overwhelming fact that I see reiterated time and time again in the wholesaling forum is that successful wholesalers are successful because they find home-run deals. Not good deals, not great deals, but smack your mama and sh*t your pants fantastic deals. I understand this, so I am playing the waiting game now. It's only a matter of time.
As a side note, I spend way too much time in the wholesaling forum. I am taking Ryan Webber's (genius) advice and gradually reading the entire thing. (It's becoming a bit of an addiction.) I don't post a whole lot because it seems like whenever a question comes up, it is quickly answered with continued reading. Ryan is right: the wealth of knowledge in there is absolutely priceless.
Anyway, the reason most of my leads will not work for me is due to an acute and severe lack of equity. I expected this going in, but something occurred to me today while speaking to another seller who is upside down in their house: someone probably wants these leads for short sales. I know nothing about short sales, but I'm sure there is someone out there who would appreciate all these qualified leads. I'm going to do some searching in the short sale forum for someone in my area, but in the meantime if any of you guys and gals know of any short sale experts in Tennessee, shoot me a PM.
Thats it for now, more to come...
Happiness and Success
Until Next Time
-Mike
Monday, January 04
Welcome everyone!! I am so grateful to Joshua Dorkin and everyone here at BP for creating a space for positive, like minded people to share ideas. Here in my little corner of the BP universe, I will be chronicling the creation of my business from the ground up.
I try not to dwell in the past, but as I am new here, I think a bit of back story is in order. I graduated college a few years ago with a degree in audio engineering, and I have been working in that field ever since. I'm not really sure how I developed an interest in real estate, but once I got bitten by the bug, I haven't looked back. I've always been passionate about achieving financial independence, and I know that RE is a proven strategy for long term wealth building. I guess it was hearing about the housing market in the last couple of years that got me thinking: 'With all this devalued property out there, smart people are going to get very rich during this recession' I want to be one of the smart people!
So on to the present (the only time that matters): I am knee deep in the process of building a REI business focused on wholesaling. Here for the scrutiny of this great community is my plan in (very) broad strokes:
I will be using direct mail to market to both sellers and buyers using marketing pieces culled from of a couple of the gurus' materials. I have tested these pieces and found them to be highly effective. The mail will direct sellers to a hotline with a recorded message, and buyers to a hotline and a lead capture website. (I am looking into SEO and internet marketing in general, to make the buyers and sellers site generate leads instead of just capturing them, but that's for another post). In addition, I will be placing bandit signs for both buyers and sellers.
Seller leads that fit the criteria will get a cash offer and 'terms' offer (lease option/sub2). My primary exit strategy will be assignment to cash buyers.
So that's it for now--I should have the websites up and the voicemail system running today so the first round of mail will be going out tomorrow. I'll update when I have leads coming in!
