BiggerPockets

Just three calls today, but one was very promising. I plan to make an offer tomorrow.

It's been a long day. I drove from Dallas to Austin in the morning to meet with an architect. Then I looked at a bunch of houses for design ideas for a new construction project. Then after 4pm I took a call live from the mailing. Motivated seller with a property that fits all my criteria very well. Went to look at it and it is a fit. Hopefully I'll get it under contract tomorrow.

I made a written offer around 3pm, but no response yet.

Just 2 or 3 new calls today.

Originally posted by Ram Gonzales:
How are you finding the quality of the calls to be?

Most are not motivated. My expectation is that about 1 in 20 has very good potential. I'm a different kind of buyer than most wholesalers, though. I have specific criteria for a certain family I am moving to the area, so I want more than a wholesale price. At the same time, I will take one that has a low drag $10k assignment fee.

Originally posted by Ram Gonzales:
So do you direct the calls to an answering service or answer them yourself?

I use a Google Voice number that rings my cell phone. I try to answer live, but most calls go to a custom voice mail message. Maybe 30-40% leave a message.

Originally posted by @K. Marie Poe:
Poe Wrote:

Shari Posey How about properties without NODs? The property I was writing about has no NOD, same as many short sales that close in my area. IMO, negative equity plus one more distress (you pick) is better than NOD.

K. Marie Poe this is very interesting to me. Mostly because in January I am going to start a plan for some sort of marketing to potential short sales ie NOD or 30-60-90. I am interested in some of the marketing strategies you have tried; for example, have you mailed to negative equity and out of area?

Poe wrote--How about properties without NODs? The property I was writing about has no NOD, same as many short sales that close in my area. IMO, negative equity plus one more distress (you pick) is better than NOD. (I don't know how to use quote.)

There are some duplexes in my town that I liked like to buy and I wrote the owners whose property was overgrown, etc. but got no reply. I would say, my letter writing efforts have been disjointed. I have also tried door knocking distressed-looking homes and NODs without results. All my short sales have been referrals. Maybe it's just bad letters. Any ideas? Also, where are you getting your lists?

Here's what it looks like, though the copy is slightly different on this one:

Originally posted by Sam Craven:
Thanks for taking the time to track your direct mail Jon, definitely helpful to compare response rates.

We are sending about 3k letters a month right now and have patlive numbers that go to a relatively lengthy message asking for name address and return number. I use a google voice number to return the calls. Your statistic that only 30-40% of callers leave a message has me worried as I have NO way to capture hang up calls with patlive.... VERY informative.

Google Voice will capture hang ups.

3K a month will keep you busy!

I've got verbal agreement after an offer and counter-offer. Very close!

Under contract! I now have a fully executed contract at $95k. Tax appraisal is $146k. We should close in 10-14 days.

The plan is to move my Dallas based GC and family into this Austin home so he can work on our projects there full time. This is a step in the direction of development and new home construction on a bigger scale.

I'd say this was a highly effective yellow letter campaign in that we found and contracted what we wanted in 10 days. And I spent little personal time, maybe 7 hours.

Shout out to Jerry Puckett, who ran the mailing for me.

Now I need to figure out when to mail the remaining 600 letters that are ready to go