Is this worth my time???

Is this worth my time???

Flipper/Rehabber · Rowlett, TX · Member since 2019 · 49 posts · 31 votes

Hi all!

This is my first time posting (other than the obligatory intro post) and I'm just wondering, is it worth it?

I have been studying and listening to the podcasts for a long time and finally convinced my husband and our two best friends (our partners) to jump into real estate. The problem is that we don't have much extra money for marketing, and such. I didn't have money to buy a list, so I went to the Central Appraisal District and got my own. It took me HOURS and HOURS to sort through all the properties. I don't have money to buy and mail a ridiculous amount of postcards, so I bought stationary and I'm handwriting letters. (I know this isn't scalable but once I get a deal, I can allocate more toward marketing.) The problem is, once I whittled down the list of tax delinquencies, I'm down to less than 200 that fit my model. Is this worth it? Am I wasting my time with so few properties? I don't want to put a list, postcards, and mailings on a credit card, but I will if I have to. What would you do?

Thanks!

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Ned CareyPro Member

Moderator

Investor · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 13k+ votes

@Account Closed as you are finding out despite what the Gurus say, it does take money to do real estate. Is it possible to start with nothing, yes. Are you likely to succeed by starting with nothing, no.

The people who do succeed are the ones who persist, and continue to learn and grow.

So is it worth you time? If you persist until you succeed, yes. If you learn something from the experience you can apply later, yes. If you give up before you get anywhere, no.

See this reply in the discussion

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Jerryll Noorden
Flipper/Rehabber · Wilton, CT · Member since 2015 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
7y
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:
OK honestly, I have no idea whether anyone that says that 200 is a good list has EVER wholesaled before.
Minimum mailers sent is 3000. A good number is 5000. As an investor you need to have 2 things in place.
A system that targets motivated sellers, and a system that converts motivated sellers into leads.
Without any of these in place you are winging.
Keep in mind the average numbers for DMM is 0.5% to 5% open rate. This is OPEN RATE, this includes people that yell at you. I get it depends on the list. but .. not that much.
For 200 mailers, you will get about 20 mailers returned, and lets take 5% open rate, that is 9 people will respond. Of the 9 people probably all 9 will yell at you most likely.
I really don't mean to be mean. Just realistic.
You really need a lot more than 200 mailers to up your chances for a solid lead.

Thank you for your honesty! That is what my original question was about. I just wasn't sure if I was going to get anywhere with so few prospects. I've also taken to driving for dollars to up my chances of success. Hopefully something pans out. If not, I'll just keep chugging along!

Ohgg driving for dollars.... no no no that is blasphemy to my ears!

You are telling the wrong person. I am viciously against those strategies. Keep in mind the majority of investors fail. The majority of investors use strategies like cold calling, DMM, and door knocking... driving for dollars. See a pattern emerge?

This is me:

We certainly do not do those strategies.

All these leads are highly motivated seller leads. And they are free! I have no time to wing it. If I do effort, I better see results. I don't gamble.

I get you are just starting, but so did I. I also had no money. So I do feel your pain, fears and worries. But see that IS the reason why I didn't do these methods. I needed something I knew would work.

So I did it the SEO way. And obviously.. it works.

I thus invite you to break free from all the advice people that are (also) not successful either with their lead generation methods, and not follow the masses, especially when they are not successful, whey they themselves do not wholesale (successfully) and collect data analyse said data and draw your own conclusions.

That I think is the best way to approach this.

So if I were you, I would step back. Forget all you have seen, and unload all the stress and clear your mind.

Now, ask yourself, what the best lead generation is for you. The answer is NOT "what other people do too".

For me it was SEO, because that depended on my intelligence, on my skills. I have full control over whether I succeeded or not.

DMM is based on luck! You can be an amazing person, brilliant and smart. Yet you can only do so much . You don't have any control over your lead generation. You may think you do, but you don't!

(Otherwise the success rate wouldn't be so bad.. right?)
0 Reply
Account Closed
OP
Flipper/Rehabber · Rowlett, TX · Member since 2019 · 49 posts · 31 votes
7y
Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:
OK honestly, I have no idea whether anyone that says that 200 is a good list has EVER wholesaled before.
Minimum mailers sent is 3000. A good number is 5000. As an investor you need to have 2 things in place.
A system that targets motivated sellers, and a system that converts motivated sellers into leads.
Without any of these in place you are winging.
Keep in mind the average numbers for DMM is 0.5% to 5% open rate. This is OPEN RATE, this includes people that yell at you. I get it depends on the list. but .. not that much.
For 200 mailers, you will get about 20 mailers returned, and lets take 5% open rate, that is 9 people will respond. Of the 9 people probably all 9 will yell at you most likely.
I really don't mean to be mean. Just realistic.
You really need a lot more than 200 mailers to up your chances for a solid lead.

Thank you for your honesty! That is what my original question was about. I just wasn't sure if I was going to get anywhere with so few prospects. I've also taken to driving for dollars to up my chances of success. Hopefully something pans out. If not, I'll just keep chugging along!

Ohgg driving for dollars.... no no no that is blasphemy to my ears!

You are telling the wrong person. I am viciously against those strategies. Keep in mind the majority of investors fail. The majority of investors use strategies like cold calling, DMM, and door knocking... driving for dollars. See a pattern emerge?

This is me:

We certainly do not do those strategies.

All these leads are highly motivated seller leads. And they are free! I have no time to wing it. If I do effort, I better see results. I don't gamble.

I get you are just starting, but so did I. I also had no money. So I do feel your pain, fears and worries. But see that IS the reason why I didn't do these methods. I needed something I knew would work.

So I did it the SEO way. And obviously.. it works.

I thus invite you to break free from all the advice people that are (also) not successful either with their lead generation methods, and not follow the masses, especially when they are not successful, whey they themselves do not wholesale (successfully) and collect data analyse said data and draw your own conclusions.

That I think is the best way to approach this.

So if I were you, I would step back. Forget all you have seen, and unload all the stress and clear your mind.

Now, ask yourself, what the best lead generation is for you. The answer is NOT "what other people do too".

For me it was SEO, because that depended on my intelligence, on my skills. I have full control over whether I succeeded or not.

DMM is based on luck! You can be an amazing person, brilliant and smart. Yet you can only do so much . You don't have any control over your lead generation. You may think you do, but you don't!

(Otherwise the success rate wouldn't be so bad.. right?)

But SEO takes skill too! And I’m up against people who have money to pay people to optimize their SEO. I tried the whole blog thing and SEO was soooo hard and it took a lot of time. I don’t have years to build up my SEO ranking before I see any results. I need to get in the game NOW. SEO can’t do that!
0 Reply
Jerryll Noorden
Flipper/Rehabber · Wilton, CT · Member since 2015 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
7y
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:
OK honestly, I have no idea whether anyone that says that 200 is a good list has EVER wholesaled before.
Minimum mailers sent is 3000. A good number is 5000. As an investor you need to have 2 things in place.
A system that targets motivated sellers, and a system that converts motivated sellers into leads.
Without any of these in place you are winging.
Keep in mind the average numbers for DMM is 0.5% to 5% open rate. This is OPEN RATE, this includes people that yell at you. I get it depends on the list. but .. not that much.
For 200 mailers, you will get about 20 mailers returned, and lets take 5% open rate, that is 9 people will respond. Of the 9 people probably all 9 will yell at you most likely.
I really don't mean to be mean. Just realistic.
You really need a lot more than 200 mailers to up your chances for a solid lead.

Thank you for your honesty! That is what my original question was about. I just wasn't sure if I was going to get anywhere with so few prospects. I've also taken to driving for dollars to up my chances of success. Hopefully something pans out. If not, I'll just keep chugging along!

Ohgg driving for dollars.... no no no that is blasphemy to my ears!

You are telling the wrong person. I am viciously against those strategies. Keep in mind the majority of investors fail. The majority of investors use strategies like cold calling, DMM, and door knocking... driving for dollars. See a pattern emerge?

This is me:

We certainly do not do those strategies.

All these leads are highly motivated seller leads. And they are free! I have no time to wing it. If I do effort, I better see results. I don't gamble.

I get you are just starting, but so did I. I also had no money. So I do feel your pain, fears and worries. But see that IS the reason why I didn't do these methods. I needed something I knew would work.

So I did it the SEO way. And obviously.. it works.

I thus invite you to break free from all the advice people that are (also) not successful either with their lead generation methods, and not follow the masses, especially when they are not successful, whey they themselves do not wholesale (successfully) and collect data analyse said data and draw your own conclusions.

That I think is the best way to approach this.

So if I were you, I would step back. Forget all you have seen, and unload all the stress and clear your mind.

Now, ask yourself, what the best lead generation is for you. The answer is NOT "what other people do too".

For me it was SEO, because that depended on my intelligence, on my skills. I have full control over whether I succeeded or not.

DMM is based on luck! You can be an amazing person, brilliant and smart. Yet you can only do so much . You don't have any control over your lead generation. You may think you do, but you don't!

(Otherwise the success rate wouldn't be so bad.. right?)

But SEO takes skill too! And I’m up against people who have money to pay people to optimize their SEO. I tried the whole blog thing and SEO was soooo hard and it took a lot of time. I don’t have years to build up my SEO ranking before I see any results. I need to get in the game NOW. SEO can’t do that!

Ahhh, that is the thing. How many people you have ever seen that get results like me? None! I wouldn't worry about people that hire SEO companies. They are absolutely worthless. I am beating every single person in my market right?
Why? The bigger the company the worse their SEO is. I could show proof and date showing this but just take it from me!
Here is the thing.
If you want to be successful, sure it is easy to say I can't, and you can always say "but".
And you will be placed in the group of struggling investors struggling to make it.
I wasn't bron with my SEO skills.. I too had to face the facts and I decided to step up.
But I am not going to pretend that it is easy. I know you have a family, kids, a life...
I didn't! So I had time.
Think about doing SEO. It is the ticket to freedom!
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