Marketing Machines, Spec Houses, Flipping & Wholesaling

Blog BiggerPockets Real Estate PodcastMarketing Machines, Spec Houses, Flipping & Wholesaling | Podcast

While most investors think of real estate investing as buying an ugly property and making it look good, today we sit down with an investor who runs a highly successful investing business that focuses heavily on investing in new home building, along with wholesaling and flipping as well. Tucker Merrihew, the owner of TTM Development Co in Portland, Oregon, shares a ton of great advice on creating a sustainable and automatic lead funnel, as well as numerous tips on a variety of investing techniques.

Read the transcript for episode 22 with Tucker Merrihew here

In This Show, We Cover

How a “failed personality test” led to real estate investing
The early mistakes that caused major problems for Tucker
Do condos make good investments?
How to build a marketing machine
Direct mail “shock marketing“
Why knocking down houses might make you money
Tucker’s online marketing strategy
The financial benefits of spec building
Tips for finding and working with great contractors
Finding deals when the MLS is too competitive

Listen to The Show on iTunes (Preferred Method!)

Click here to listen on iTunes.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Links from the Show

Every Door Direct Mail
BP Podcast 010 : Flipping Houses 101 with J Scott
Tucker’s Lead Generating Website

Books Mentioned In The Show:

Donald Trump Books
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

Tweetable Topics:

“There’s motivation in weird places sometimes.” (Click to Tweet)

“When investing in real estate, you’ve got to have a website.” (Click to Tweet)

“To be successful in real estate investing, you gotta build momentum.” (Click to Tweet)

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Get in Touch with Tucker

Tucker’s BiggerPockets Profile
Tucker’s Company Website: www.TTMDevelopmentCompany.com
Tucker’s Facebook Page: www.Facebook.com/TuckerMerrihew
Tucker’s “Lead generating direct mail post cards” below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/bpradio/BP_Podcast_022_-_Building_a_Marketing_Machine_and_Investing_in_New_Construction_with_Tucker_Merrihew.mp3

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By BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

Real strategies that work for real people seeking to build wealth through real estate investments. Co-hosted by Brandon Turner and David Greene, this podcast provides actionable advice from investo...
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33 Replies

Alex Antonuk

Replied over 6 years ago

Hi Tucker, Thank you for the Podcast. There was a lot of great information you provided. Also, I wanted to let you know that I checked out your website and you have great quality choices in your rehabs. My question is you mentioned you stage all your homes, but your photo gallery only shows decore items, no furniture at all, do you not use furniture to stage your homes? I am asking because the decore and accent pieces help pop the photos, and I prefer to see homes w/o furniture, but most staged homes have furniture as well. So I was just wondering if your type of staging helps you in selling your homes faster vs using furniture as well?

Ryan Lundquist

Replied over 6 years ago

Enjoyed this one. I agree about momentum too. When you stop marketing your business, it starts to die.

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks, as always, for listening, Ryan!

Tucker Merrihew

Replied over 6 years ago

Hey Alex- Check out the nicer homes on our “sold projects” page and you will see that we fully stage all of the higher end homes that we have done. I agree that fully staging houses really helps sell them faster and for quite a bit more $$…..especially in the higher end market that we mainly operate in. Also thanks for listening and I’m glad you like the podcast.

Paul Grgurich

Replied over 6 years ago

Another excellent podcast gentleman – Tucker that was really some great information! Its really cool listening to somthing that is so down to earth, you’re a natural. As a nubie sucking up all the information as much as possible its really great to listen to ya’ll! I am more and more excited about getting out there every time I listen to you guys!! Thanks!!!

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks for listening, Paul! I’m glad we can inspire you. Keep listening, keep learning, keep planning, and then make it happen. Reply Report comment

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks for listening, Paul! I’m glad we can inspire you. Keep listening, keep learning, keep planning, and then make it happen.

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks for listening, Paul! I’m glad we can inspire you. Keep listening, keep learning, keep planning, and then make it happen. Reply Report comment

Sabrina Carapa

Replied over 6 years ago

Great Podcast! Thank you for the step by step ideas!

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

I’m glad you enjoyed it, Sabrina!

ali

Replied over 6 years ago

I appreciate these podcasts so much. I often find myself spinning my wheels and not really knowing what to do next. You and your guests help to keep me plugging along. Love it! Thanks!

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Ali – Keep on listening and thanks for the feedback. I’m glad to have you as a fan!

Jeff S

Replied over 6 years ago

Saw Tucker at our local REIA and was impressed with the presentation. High quality much like this podcast. Learned a lot. Would have liked to hear a little about the company that has the RE license and how you can be a wholesaler and have a company with an agent. This has been a topic onto itself at BP. Fellow Portlander, Jeff

Tucker Merrihew

Replied over 6 years ago

@Jeff – I’m glad you like both my REI presentation last year and this podcast episode. The way we have the in house real estate company set up is like this: I am part owner of TTM Realty which is a net branch office and DBA (doing business as) under the umbrella of another Real Estate Brokerage company. Also this company is a separate entity from our Real Estate Development company. I then have an agent for TTM Realty that works in our office that lists and sells all of our projects, which gives us complete control of the sales process. We disclose everything to all the sellers we come in contact with, so its been a great system for us, not only for keeping our sales costs down but also being able to control the process with our systems.

Russell

Replied over 6 years ago

Tremendously inspiring podcast, Tucker’s business sounds like a force of nature. Happy for your success and to the dynamic duo: Great choice fellas

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks Russell! I agree — he is definitely a force of nature…

Tucker Merrihew

Replied over 6 years ago

@Russell – I’m glad you enjoyed the podcast episode and thanks for the kind words.

Jay Kaltenbach

Replied over 6 years ago

Great podcast and great info from Tucker……I really like the podcasts and listen to them all the time on my way to and from my “day job”. I will continue to listen to them as it helps keep me motivated, as a newbie, to get out there and make real estate investing work.

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks Jay and make sure to stay motivated! Also be sure to join us on the BiggerPockets Forums where you’ll meet colleagues and engage with mentors to help you out with any of your questions.

Melodee Lucido

Replied over 6 years ago

WOW Tucker you are like the Super Investor!! The interview blew my mind to the point that I ALMOST couldn’t relate. BUT I can relate because our path unfolds in front of us as we TAKE ACTION. We don’t always know where we will end up. So I was amused at the magic of your story. One thing I was wondering—verrry much—-about is the in house person doing the letters for you. I am entertaining this myself. However, I don’t know the costs involved. I would provide the names and addresses and then they would simply fill it all in and highlight certain phrases in the mailing, stamp and mail. Being of the ocd type I am a perfectionist in my mailings and am not totally sold on the automated direct mail systems out there (please don’t take offense my great fellow BPers here that work in that industry). My returns have been very good—even before I totally knew what I was doing. I just have a knack for direct mail. Is this something you would like to share here? Thank you so much Josh, Brandon and Tucker for another inspiring hour and some giggles : >

Tucker Merrihew

Replied over 6 years ago

Melodee – Thanks for listening to the podcast episode…..I wouldn’t say I am a super investor, but rather just a guy who gets up everyday and tries to make my business better and more profitable. If you treat your real estate business like a real business you WILL get results and your business will grow right in front of your eyes. The biggest problem I see with people is that they don’t treat it like a full time business, so they loose momentum and fizzle out. As for direct mail I would suggest you hire someone for around $10/hour and get them writing yellow letter and hand addressing printed letter envelopes for you ASAP! This action in itself will grow your business much more than you would ever think. The reason is because it forces you to act as a business owner who is working on your business instead of in it doing $10/hour tasks. In addition your volume of direct mail will increased dramatically which in itself will increase your deal flow as long as you can handle processing all the additional leads that come in. Just remember you have to constantly push yourself past being comfortable in order to grow…..and good is good enough when it comes to getting direct mail out the door!

Ben Leybovich

Replied over 6 years ago

Good stuff Guys. Tucker – good stuff! NEVER BUY A CONDO as buy and hold 🙂

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

Thanks Ben.

Eddie Allard

Replied over 6 years ago

Good Job guys. I picked up a lot of good tips.

Dhane

Replied over 6 years ago

Great show guys! It’s a breathe of fresh air knowing that I’m not out here alone as a beginner. Thanks for being a pillar of support!

Taylor Jennings

Replied over 6 years ago

This is one of my favorite podcasts. Tucker is full of the information I’ve been looking for! I found the REI I want to model myself after. /up top

Joshua Dorkin

Replied over 6 years ago

I’m glad you enjoyed it, Taylor.

Michelle Cobbs Investor from Copiague, New York

Replied over 4 years ago

Great Show, very interesting. Thanks Guys. Michelle

Anthony Benjamin from Carolina, PR

Replied over 4 years ago

When the App will be available for the Android platform?

Jonathan Krompegal Specialist from Cromwell, CT

Replied about 4 years ago

Great Podcast!! I love how you hammer consistency. To many people quit after a month or two thinking that it’s not working (i.e. advertising/marketing, flipping, wholesaling..etc) Consistency is key.

Nir Wittenberg Investor from Highlands Ranch, Colorado

Replied over 3 years ago

Loved the show guys. Tucker, you’re a natural!!! It seems that the link to the transcript is broken. Would love to get a hold of it.

Julie Marquez Investor from Seattle, WA

Replied over 3 years ago

I need to know how big George is! You should place him next to a tiny house on your post cards! I am browsing your website, and you have some gorgeous homes in your portfolio. We used to have Street of Dreams in Seattle, but it stopped a while ago. I loved going as a kid. Have you done any ADUs? I’ve been looking into them to add value to properties, and I see a lot referenced to Portland and their ADU friend laws. Great podcast, too!

Raheem Akers from Philadelphia, PA

Replied about 1 year ago

Did anyone notice that there is no show 21?? With that said, I did enjoy this episode and got a lot of good information about building a house from scratch.

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