Buy-and-Hold Rental Investor · Santa Fe, NM · Member since 2015 · 438 posts · 352 votes
Curious how many are doing direct mail. We are getting some success that way, as I described in another thread. The people who respond are over 70 and looking to retire. I make sure they get some kind of LOI/offer within 72 hours. Paying no commission and seller financing options seem to resonate with these folks.
I just wish I'd been doing direct mail all along instead of just looking at broker's listings.
Rental Property Investor · Doylestown, PA · Member since 2008 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
10y
Hi Marc- What list source do you use to find apartment building owners? I've used ListSource.com for direct mailings on single families but wasn't sure if they'd be good for large multi unit (beyond tri's and quads).
Investor · North Richland Hills, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
10y
I've sent two rounds of mail targeting long time owners. 40 or so people. I got two phone calls but nothing definite. They were fishing for price and had inflated expectations. I even called a few people from my list and got "I will never sell" response from those owners.
Buy-and-Hold Rental Investor · Santa Fe, NM · Member since 2015 · 438 posts · 352 votes
10y
@Salvatore Lentini - I went to the county planning office and had them download me a copy of their database, where there was a category for multifamily. Then we sorted by square footage or tax value. Then we inspected them on Google Maps. Finally, we drove by tons of them and decided what we would want to own and what we didn't. (I have two Millennial partners with more time than I do.) Then we ordered Listsource, but they weren't able to turn up any leads we didn't have. And they didn't have the county's multifamiliy breakdown, so we had to run the reports as Residential and use square footage to come up with the same list. (Success with Listsource really depends on the county where the property is listed. They admit that.)
I've sent two rounds of mail targeting long time owners. 40 or so people. I got two phone calls but nothing definite. They were fishing for price and had inflated expectations. I even called a few people from my list and got "I will never sell" response from those owners.
Hey Nick. All I can say is, do it every quarter, and change it each time. One month, go corporate. The next quarter, go folksy/personal. Another time, send an article with a post-it note. Another, a post card with a hand-written message. Someone is ALWAYS looking to retire. The other thing is increase the size of your list. 40 isn't too many. Expand your market reach?
Buy-and-Hold Rental Investor · Santa Fe, NM · Member since 2015 · 438 posts · 352 votes
10y
So, since I started this discussion a few hours ago, I got ANOTHER lead...the best one yet, for an 80-unit. Will carry a note...in fact, won't sell it without carrying a note. HARD TO FIND.
Buy & Hold Owner · Redlands, CA · Member since 2015 · 5k+ posts · 2k+ votes
10y
I get tons of such solicitation, frequently from public records and I can see there's no effort whatsoever to validate the data as being appropriate - - thus they all go directing into the circular file.
Big turnoff to be marketing with inaccuracies and then begging to get the listing.
Realtor · Sequim WA & Port Angeles, WA · Member since 2016 · 164 posts · 78 votes
10y
I think it's a good idea. of course you are going to annoy some people but you already know that. The older people I have spoken to from DM have stated that they don't want to deal with flippers, Realtors etc. so the folksy route might be a good one to try, especially if you are in a rural area. If you are in a military area, go patriotic, football area, go football theme etc. Personally can't stand the article with post it note but some people might go for that.
Investor · North Richland Hills, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
10y
@Marc C., what salutation do you use in your mailings is the property is owned by an LLC?
I can dig up the people behind that LLC in most cases but I wonder how they perceive a personal salutation and a statement that I think they are a real owner of this property. Also, who to address if there are more than one owner or manager of that LLC?
@Marc C., what salutation do you use in your mailings is the property is owned by an LLC?
I can dig up the people behind that LLC in most cases but I wonder how they perceive a personal salutation and a statement that I think they are a real owner of this property. Also, who to address if there are more than one owner or manager of that LLC?
LLC's have been trickiest for us. So far, we have only mailed to the Registered Agent if we can verify that the Registered Address is a home. If there is a mailing address for the LLC and it is not an office, we will mail to that. If it's an office building, we don't bother. We tried subscribing to TLO.com from TransUnion, but found that, for my state, there wasn't any info there about companies that we couldn't get from the state and county web sites. It excels at getting info on people, however. For example, skip tracing and background checks (not employment or tenant, as they disallow that.)
Since I last posted, I've received another lead. He's a little overpriced, but again, old guy looking to retire. Hopefully, one of these will work out. I might be looking to wholesale those I can't take down. Or be a passive investor.
Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2014 · 103 posts · 11 votes
9y
I would also be interested to hear what everyone is using for DM types, sizes of properties they're targeting, etc. I am looking to start my own campaign for smaller <50 unit properties
Hvac · North Haven, CT · Member since 2015 · 298 posts · 79 votes
9y
I plan on sending out DMs as well. Once a owner calls me back. What type of questions should we ask? How would we know if its a good deal. I saw a post of someone locking in a LOI within 72 hours? Sounds to me like they're locking in any price the negotiating from there?
Investor · North Richland Hills, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
You ask for financials. If they refuse to provide any, they are not ready to sell. At a minimum, they should tell you their annual collections and physical vacancy. That's enough information to do a quick analysis.
CCIM · Des Moines, IA · Member since 2014 · 341 posts · 170 votes
9y
I sent out a DM piece a few months back, not really expecting to get much of a response. More of a piece to get my name out there.
I built a list of 540 owners of >20 units. We only received 4 calls, but we are about to close on a 52 unit and we are in negotiations on an 86 unit and a 202 unit. The other was a 20 unit and he hasn't returned calls for a while.
Overall I'd say it was a very successful mailing and just ordered my second piece to go out to the same group.
I've done a lot of wholesaling of SFR and I typically get a much better call rate, but never get anywhere close to a possible 75% call to purchase ratio.
Specialist · Roanoke, TX · Member since 2015 · 96 posts · 36 votes
9y
@Chase Keller Congrats that sounds awesome, smart to begin to get your name out there get them familiar with you. Direct mail seems to be a hit or a miss. Do you get most of your leads from direct mail? Do you target "motivated sellers". I'm starting to see that targeting mom and pop apartments with older owners seems like a wise choice.
I've been a wholesaler for a couple years, so I've been doing direct mail for a while. I knew that multifamily was going to be completely different than what I've been doing with single family. But I believe in DM, so I had to try it.
The deal flow for multifamily is much slower than what I'm used to. Most of the deals that I've looked at came from either cold calling the owners, or off-market deals brought by another realtor. I work exclusively with one realtor that does a ton of work drumming up deals in different ways. I did the DM myself, but the calls still go through her.
I'm certainly targeting the older owners, but more so the properties that are in worse condition than the neighborhood. I love the value-add/repositioning type of property. I've actually hired a guy to begin driving the entire market, looking for potential deals.
Specialist · Roanoke, TX · Member since 2015 · 96 posts · 36 votes
9y
@Chase Keller One thing i've heard is a good way to get realtors on your team is to create a list of Apartments that meet your criteria, the owners address and phone number meet up with the realtor let them know you already have a pre vetted list of leads submit those to the agent then once they get a deal you accept, pay there commission plus some so it becomes a win win.. Is that a wise way to approach agents?
CCIM · Des Moines, IA · Member since 2014 · 341 posts · 170 votes
9y
@Leah Bonner That's not a bad way to do it at all! I did something similar. I found a realtor that didn't have too much experience in the MF world, but had a work ethic and drive that I don't see often. I drove around, sometimes with her, sometimes not and found the buildings that I was interested in. I gave her access to my CoStar so she could begin calling owners directly.
I now work with her exclusively. Anything brought to me gets sent to her and everything that is brought to her, she sends to me first. It's worked out really well so far. I'm looking at a deal that the owner refuses to pay a commission, she's still working the deal and I'll pay her commission myself if it goes through.
Not saying that's the only way to do it, but it's certainly worked in my case.