All Forum Posts by: Amanda Fox

I CANNOT FIND the answer to these basic question on BP (I'm sure I'm just not looking in the right spot - Aahh!) HERE IS MY DIRECT MAIL CAMPAIGN PLAN. 6 mailers (at least) to a targeted list of approx 500 properties (vacant and distressed found by driving neighborhoods once a week eventually growing to 500) once a month for 6 monthes, scrub the list, keep sending mailers to the remaining and add new properties to get back up to 500.

OK, my 4 QUESTIONS are: Should I send a mix of "handwritten" personal letters (definitely not yellow letter since everyone else seems to be doing this - hah. Planning to send a small folded white sheet with blue "handwriting" (I turned my handwriting into a font) writing in a small envelope) and postcards (planning oversized) in my 6 step campaign?? If yes, should my personal letter seem like it is from a different person than my postcard and not have my business name?? Should I write a different message in each personal letter and each postcard or should it be the same message?? Does anyone have suggestions for my marketing campaign?? THANK YOU!!!

Daniel Hornsby how did you turn your handwriting into a font?? I would like to do the same!

Mike Hurney, I love the enthusiasm! I am definitely planning to do it and will let you all know! I am drawing the line at t-shirts, though, John Thedford. I just can't do it!!

Kenneth Estes my husband is a real estate broker but we are moving full time into investing. We have spent our time until now trying to buy properties on the MLS and are just now moving into marketing. Our business is just becoming something very different than I imagined, but it is so important to me/us to make it work that I will do anything, including cheezy car advertising!

Has anybody used a car wrap or a magnet sign for their cars for advertising "We Buy Houses for Cash..." Does anyone else feel like they've sold their souls to the cheezy marketing devil out of desperation??

Thank you Jesse Rivera! Great advice! I know, you all have been HUGELY helpful!!

Rick Harmon Really good points! We haven't consistently been looking since we have two small kids and my husband has a fulltime pilot career. And we have only been looking at listed MLS properties. Good find, though, and isn't Santa Cruz beautiful?! I really like your point about needing to "un-learn" some things. We haven't yet worked with sellers and I think we are pretty personable intuitive people (hopefully, we'll see), but we definitely get ourselves confused overanalyzing every little thing and have a hard time backing up and looking at the obvious decision (like spending the past year analyzing every little way we could work the MLS, when we should have spent a month and started implementing other strategies). Anyway, it sounds like you buy a lot of houses long distance and we long term would really like to do the same. Have you run into any issues not being able to be onsite, or had a hard time finding reliable contractors or realtors? And how were you able to (if you're comfortable telling me :) ) find an unlisted property in Santa Cruz if you were long distance and didn't have a network of people set up in Santa Cruz to tell you about the house??

EVERYONE, how did you do your very 1st deal?? Did you use a lower profit margin? Was the MLS a better resource at the time? Did you buy at auction?

K. Marie Poe Thanks so much for the advice! My husband has some experience negotiating preforeclosures, but it will still be a pretty steep learning curve for us. We have decided that he will look for temporary, part time work until we are more financially stable. I always thought in this business it would be more difficult to find the money than the properties, but man was I ever wrong!! Mike H. my husband agrees that new construction is definitely something to think seriously about in the long term.

We just had a business meeting and determined to finally let go of the MLS, since we have spent the last year reviewing thousands of properties, putting in dozens of offers and falling out of escrow half a dozen times. Our plan, tell me what you think, everyone, is to prioritize in order: bandit signs, car wrapping, targeting distressed homes through door hangers and direct mailing, and starting a referral program ($3K referral fee if we close a deal on a house that was recommended to us). We plan to unleash all of these pretty much at the same time when we move.