Market Directly to Sellers

The Market is going Crazy – Well it is here in Denver for sure. I had a realtor friend run a search for me last Friday for 3 bedroom homes with basements located south of I-70, east of I-25 (west is even more expensive), north of Colorado Springs that are listed for less than $180,000. Guess how many turned up three, yes that’s right 3. So things are heating up, but how do I still find deals. Well here’s how….

Market directly to home owners looking for the few “motivated” sellers that will eventually bring in the paychecks. There are 3 things that I know about marketing:

1. It works. Without marketing I don’t get any leads, hence no deals, and don’t make any money. 

2. I need to be consistent. Without consistency my marketing is not effective and if I’m not effective then I don’t get any leads, no deals, no money.

3. Marketing means a lot of “trial & error.”This means it is difficult, scary, and frustrating. But I hate the alternatives worse. So, slowly, I have learned to respect marketing. 

So let’s get to the methods of marketing…

Direct Mail is our top producer and it works well with the one downside—it can be expensive. In my experience and opinion, mailing to homeowners is more about the target than the message. If I send postcards to a pre-foreclosure list how many pieces of mail do you think the homeowner gets? The answer(s) would be a metric ton, a whole bunch or a plethora. Everybody and their brother is sending mail to these folks telling them that they will buy their house. You have two choices as I see it, either offer something so special and unique in your message that your letter or postcard floats to the top of the stack or be consistent in you “repeat” mailings, thus having your mail at the top of the stack most of the time. I think it is more about having your message in front of the home owner on the day that they finally decide to find a solution to their problem. If you are going to start a direct mail campaign I would suggest multiple touches, say 3-5 times each.

Newspaper Ads is something I used to do when I first started but not so much anymore. If you target the Denver Post it could get a little (read a lot) spendy but if you target the smaller local papers it can be pretty reasonable. Something you may also want to do is call on FSBO and For Rent Ads in these same papers and perhaps you can scoop up some deals that way. This is actually a pretty good way of getting Sandwich Lease Option deals (owner financing type deals with low equity but good monthly cash flows and a nice option fee).

Referrals are great and for the most part they are the cheapest leads you can find. There are a bunch of ways to play the referral card:

• Let everyone that you come in contact with know that you buy real estate with cash and close quickly and that you are also “way good” at solving real estate related problems.
• Find other “bird-dogs” that will get the word out on your behalf and pay them a referral fee.
• Have a meet-up, workshop or build a website that trains your bird-dogs, making them more effective through education.
• Business groups, church groups, singles groups, Boy Scout & Girl Scout groups, sporting groups, networking groups…let them all know who you are and what you do. Make it clear that you pay referral fees.

Wholesalers are another great way to get paid. If you have a good buyers list or are building one then you may be in a position to find a buyer for another wholesaler’s deal and get a fee. 

Bandit Signs are stupid, they are a pain to put out, they cost money and you get the weirdest calls. They also just happen to work pretty good! Yes they are frowned upon by the local authorities, yes they are called “bandit” signs for a reason and no they don’t generate copious amounts of calls. The good thing is I am just looking for one call, the right call, the motivated seller call. I’m not going to go into the Magic of Bandit Signs as they are talked about and mentioned a million times in various training programs. 

Here is my suggestion, start marketing “directly” to home owners in some fashion be it referrals, bandit signs or cold calling the newspapers and craigslist. If you want to be successful go find the deals as you could be waiting a long time for the deals to find you.

Best of Success ~Andrea

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