How do you find sellers?

Question

Bob Lachance · Answer

@Monte Blunk This would be great for youth outsource this work and have someone such as a virtual assistant handle it. You could also implement cold calling, social media and digital marketing, lead generation and sourcing for the assistant to generate business. If this is something you are interested in learning more about, feel free to drop me a message.

Ray Lai · Answer

@Monte Blunk

Most people use services because if they shop around and choose wisely, the cost of using a service isn't that far from doing it on their own but it saves a tremendous amount of time. I always recommend to a new person to try creating a mailing campaign on their own before using a service to see how much time it takes, the cost, and the response and conversion rates. Then outsource and compare. Most big players use services, but a few are so big that they bring the printing in-house. Most people are in the business to make money and focusing on one's strengths and utilizing resources wisely, rather than trying to do everything, usually creates more value per unit of your time.

Different targets have different response rates, but you need the skills to talk to those type of customers properly. You do not say the same thing to someone in pre-foreclosure as a high equity absentee owner. Most people prefer targeting absentee owners with high equity, that's the most vanilla. However, pre-foreclosures and tax delinquent, when done right, have higher response and conversion rates. End of the day though, the only way to get a deal is to help someone that is truly in distress solve a problem. You need to learn to truly listen to what they need, because most sellers will lie on the phone and ask for top dollar until educated on the cost of rehabbing their property to bring it to a realistic market value. Learning to talk to sellers is a valuable skill.

Steve Ramer · Answer

@Catalina Llanos I think this way makes a lot of sense. My concern would be the National Do Not Call registry. Do we even need to worry about that if we're trying to buy something though? I thought it was more for soliciting, but effectively investors are providing a service, which would fall into the soliciting category.

Catalina Llanos · Answer

I have several investor friends that use public data to contact owners directly and inquire about sales. This cuts out so much hassle! I have some colleagues that have done this approach and succeeded. A good resource to find ownership information and some of their contact data is Parcel Viewer, unfortunately they are only available for the state of California.