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The Most In-Depth Real Estate Case Study Ever-Numero Dos

Jason Hanson
2 min read

Last week, I told you that due to “boredom” I’ve decided to buy a new primary residence and take you step-by-step through the process. You know, one of the downsides…actually I’m not sure if downsides is the right word, but one of the “things” of being a real estate investor is that buying a house certainly loses it’s excitement after a while. It’s just another commodity that makes you a lot of money. Kind of like a porn star and sex, how sex probably loses its excitement (man, sometimes I even amaze myself with my brilliant comparisons).

Drive for Dollars to Build Your Mailing List

drivingrealestate

Anyway, before I ordered my mailing lists, I decided that I would first “drive for dollars”. So last week I drove the neighborhoods where I would like to live and I wrote down all of the streets that peaked my interest. I also wrote down the number of the only “for rent” sign in the area. Once I had driven around for 45 minutes I decided to head home, even though it took me forever to figure out how to get out of the maze of neighborhoods.

When I got home I called the number on the “for rent” sign but the place was already rented out. I was disappointed because those types of properties make prefect lease option candidates.

Next, it was time to turn things over to my assistant (if you still haven’t gotten a virtual assistant do it now, they will pay for themselves many times over). So, I emailed my assistant Lisa all of the street names that I was interested in and here’s what Lisa is going to do: She will go to zillow.com. Then she will type in the address of one of the properties I wrote down. Once she clicks on the address she will be taken to a hybrid map and will get an overview of the area. From there she can search all of the streets and get the addresses of all of the properties. She will input all of the property addresses into an Excel spreadsheet.

Once she has all of the addresses in the Excel spreadsheet she will address the envelopes and my first direct mail piece will be ready to go out. So, if you’re trying to save money and don’t feel like ordering a mailing list you can start out driving for dollars.

Next week, I’m going to show you the awesome direct mail piece I’ve created. Until then, get off your butt and go make some money.

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.