Does our personal letter STAND OUT?
Would you open our envelope (picture in comments) and read our letter? How can we make it stronger? What type of follow up would you send? How soon after the original letters?
We've read a lot about "yellow letters" and applied those tips to our first one. Do you have any constructive feedback on how to make our appeal stronger and/or our next steps? (Feel free to share links to past forum posts about this topic that we may have missed in our search. There's a LOT going back to 2010!)
MORE ABOUT US: My fiance and I are starting our journey to financial freedom by buying our 1st home this year. We want to stay in the foothills outside of Denver, which is a very competitive market even during this pandemic. We're rabidly consuming BP content -- podcasts, books, webinars, videos, blogs, & forum posts -- and other real estate investment educational resources to learn as much as we can. Our general plan is to buy a fixer-upper that we'll flip to use that equity on our first investment property and another personal residence...and REPEAT.
MORE ABOUT THIS TACTIC: Driving for Dollars is 1 of the strategies that we're using to find off-market deals. (I can explain more about our short- and long-term goals, realtor, reno plans, and financing, but that's all off-topic for the purpose of this post.) Ideally, we'd like to find a house with elderly owners who want to move but haven't made updates so we can add instant value (like an additional bathroom & kitchen remodel). We're driving around looking for homes where the lawn isn't maintained and/or the outside of the house needs maintenance (like damaged siding or chipping paint), but no serious structural/foundation issues. Then we research the owners on our county website. Our criterion are homes that were last sold for <$150K at least 15 years ago, whether the owners live in the home or not.
We appreciate your help to make our letter and approach better. Also, we'd love to connect with other investors -- especially flippers & wholesalers -- in the Denver market to learn more.
How does our letter look? Most Popular Reply
I'd shave, include a picture, and talk about being handy and not afraid of a project instead of working in construction. The social perception of a bearded construction worker is a rough and tumble and you want to be perceived as the sweet kids that we want to sell our house to. Handwritten is a nice touch which is what every investor will think as they throw it out. I'd look for MLS listings that drop off and reach out to those people, as non investor owners are your best chance.
@Jaron Smith wrote a killer letter when he bought his house, you should ask him for a copy.