All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Hey guys,

One of my goals for 2014 as an agent is to start marketing to more affluent prospective investors interested in buying real estate. A lot of professionals are very happy with 6-7% returns because they like the safety and tax advantages. They would make perfect additions to a buyers' list / future investment partners.

I've been debating the best way to do this. Keep in mind there is no REI groups here (that's another story)

1) Buying lists from people subscribed to Money / Kipplinger / trade magazines (ie dentists, accountants)

2) Shotgun approach mailers to affluent neighborhoods

3) ???

Any insight, strategies or ideas would be appreciated.

Hi Jim,

My goal like yours is to focus on investment properties (progressing towards bigger commercial projects) however if you want to do this full time, I would recommend also working on the "traditional" methods.

Here's why:

1) Time: unless you're doing it part time, there is just not that much you can do with a small pool of homes such as investment properties. There is just no way to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week marketing to such a small pool of homes without running out of things to do.

2) In Connecticut the prices are pretty high from what I've seen, but as a whole, investment properties are usually on the low end side. The average house price around here is 170k while a lot of the leads I get from investment type properties are in the 50-100k range. I enjoy it however realistically selling a home for 170k is a better use of time than selling a home for 50k. In your case in CT it might be a lot better to sell a home for 400k than an investment property for 125k (fictitious numbers)

For those reasons I feel like if you're doing it part-time and you're also an investor then go for it, but if you want to be a full time agent then do both.

Along with the BPO you can take a peek at it on zillow/trulia/etc and see what the house looks like (google maps street view is great), as well as what the other houses in the neighborhood are listed for.

You can quickly figure out if it's a nice neighborhood with manicured lawns or if it's a junkyard.

There's a lot of factors that impact it, one of which is your local community.

In some areas open houses work, in some they aren't that popular. The marketing associated with it has a huge impact like David mentioned. My mentor agent friend had an open house last week-end for another agent so I visited it. We chatted for an hour and a half before anyone showed up, and the lady that showed up was the neighbor.

What's crazy is that due to some clerical error with the newspaper, the open house was listed twice that week-end. You can see how much of an impact that kind of advertising has (not)!

I personally haven't done a lot of open houses so I don't have data to support it but all the agents I talk to mention that door knocking in the neighborhood and dropping off flyers still has a big impact on turnout. The angle being that the community gets to choose their new neighbor, and if they know someone who wants to move into that neighborhood it's a good time to come check it out.

Hi Matt,

The thing is that even if you were to get a client on day 1, and they wanted to pay cash, it would still take a while for the transaction to close and for you to get a commission. Even if they pay cash they will usually want an inspection (the time required for the inspection varies greatly, I have no idea in SCarolina). Then you have to get to closing date and cross your fingers that everything out of your control actually worked out.

If you follow a strict lead generation regimen, and you can afford it, then you can start out full time. But if you hate the idea of cold calling or door knocking, and most agents do, then there is little incentive to start full time.

If you're going to do lead generation using direct mail for example, then you'll spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs at the office while it's in production and being sent. Same for your website if you choose to focus online - it's going to take several weeks or possibly several months before it starts churning out leads on a regular basis.

I think Michael Quarles was in your position and did really well in his first year cold calling 8 hours a day.

The top producing agent in our region is doing it. I have no idea what kind of results she gets from it, or if it would work for general real estate investing, but it might work.

That's pretty strong local branding!

There must be but I haven't found the most optimal way yet.

For trustee/lien sales, I always follow the local newspapers' legal notices, check county records etc. Each county is different in how they operate but you can always find something in the newspaper.

First, sorry for getting sarcastic above. Your message was pretty venomous. People come here to learn and share, not to get called out by someone who knows nothing about them.

With that said, you will never learn more than by working on your note. You can read BP/books/podcasts/mentorship programs/seminars/gurus all day and all night but if you never take a small calculated risk and buy a note (because you don't have 72 years of experience) then you will never learn.

What gets me buzzed is when you compare a solo investor buying a $5,000 note with his own money and hiring a servicing company, to a company down your street that was originating loans using other people's money. And then you hang over his head that he might go to jail and pay a quarter million in fines.

That's not apples to apples comparison by any means and doesn't relate whatsoever to the small investor buying his first note.

^Steve, that was a great first hand account of your experience.

Hey Todd,

I can't speak for your exact list but in my experience, the lists aren't super accurate in terms of recent events. For example in my area it shows only 1 house in foreclosure/trustee auction and like 3 in pre-foreclosure, even though there are dozens.

Same for houses that were recently sold - sometimes the list gives you owner X, you look at records, and they actually sold the house 4 months ago.

I'm not saying it won't work, but keep in mind it may not always be super reliable for this kind of list.

Me personally, I take them off the list. I think you're right that they may change their mind, but with direct mail often costing 50 cents - 1 dollar per piece, I prefer spending it on someone else who hasn't asked to be taken off.

Say you only send postcards so your average cost is 50 cents. After the first month the person calls and asks to be taken off, but you keep mailing to them. By the end of month 6 you spent an extra $2.50 on them even though the odds of conversion are really slim. That's 5 postcards you could have sent to 5 other people, or a sequence of 5 to another person. It adds up.