BiggerPockets

Hi all,

I was trying to find some yellow letters examples and the one I found says: "My name is XX, me and my husband XX, are interested to buy your house, please contact us at ...."

I didn't like this one much. I am thinking from the seller's point of view, that a couple is interested in buying the house and he calls, he finds an investor and/or realtor. Am i making sense here?

Anyone is using the above example? any success with it? Thoughts? Other examples?

Thank y'all

Jimmy

We use that very same format that you mentioned. We get about a 21% response rate...

There is a difference between a seller who wants to sell and a seller who needs to sell.

Most of the callers will be a waste of time, however you will hit a home run every now and then.

We do a lot of marketing to expired listings, and on average we have to send 248 yellow letters to get 1 contract. It costs about 60 cents for a yellow letter,,, so I am spending about 150 bucks to get a house.. I can take that return on the 150 bucks...

Hope that helps.

Tony Severino

I wanted to give a quick reply in response to the question about the message on the yellow letter. It has been tested, tracked, and PROVEN that the "Hi, My name is Tracy. My husband Dan and I would like to $BUY$ your house at 123 Main St" is the best message for getting a high response rate.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Just go with it!! :-)

Originally posted by Tony Severino

Jimmy

We use that very same format that you mentioned. We get about a 21% response rate...

There is a difference between a seller who wants to sell and a seller who needs to sell.

Most of the callers will be a waste of time, however you will hit a home run every now and then.

We do a lot of marketing to expired listings, and on average we have to send 248 yellow letters to get 1 contract. It costs about 60 cents for a yellow letter,,, so I am spending about 150 bucks to get a house.. I can take that return on the 150 bucks...

Hope that helps.

Tony Severino

A 21% response rate is terrific! We average around 14%.

Hi I've been using a letter that is just written by one person, but do you guys seem to get a better response by including your spouse's name?

Jesse (or anyone), what is deceptive about yellow letters?

We've found a few things in our letter campaigns that seem to increase the response rate:

1. Keep the message short and sweet. Don't lie about your situation, but don't give all the details either. A simple message stating your name and that you are interested in purchasing their property will suffice (similar to what is above). This will leave them intrigued and may get them to call where you can explain the situation that you are an investor.

2. We have tested several different ways of sending...from me, from my wife, and from both of us. By a good margin the best response we get is when the letters come from my wife. I think it's probably just less intimidating for a homeowner to call a woman back than a man.

3. Hand write the letters or pay to have them hand written.

4. Hand write the envelopes or pay to have them hand written.

5. Include a return address.

6. Use decorative stamps rather than just a standard stamp.

Essentially, you are trying to build intrigue with the homeowner to get them to open the piece of mail rather than throwing it in the circular file...this is the reason for the decorative stamp, handwritten address and return address. Then you want to keep them intrigued with your vague message. All of this adds up to a better response rate and more calls.

Now, like Tony said above, most of the calls you receive will be a waste of time, but it's a numbers game, and if done consistently you will get deals.