All Forum Posts by: Ben Roberts

Wayne Brooks That's what I was afraid of. What would be your suggestion from here? Try anyway? Refer her to an agent that does short sales? Some other alternative?

I need some help thinking through this potential deal.  The seller must sell as she's moving out of town, 3/2 in Memphis, TN (Near Park and Highland, for those familiar)

Current balance on the mortgage is $72K, the monthly payment is $673

Fully renovated homes, within a block or two, are listed at $70k-$75k. Rents in the area are around $900/mo.

The house needs work.  I haven't seen the interior but based on what the seller has told me, it needs a kitchen floor and the ceiling is in place but needs to be textured.  The hardwood floors need to refinished, base boards missing in some rooms, paint throughout but major systems (heat/air/pluming/elect.) all in working order.

She has already talked to the bank about a short sale and they have sent her an application, but they did not discuss a number and there is obviously no guarantee that the bank will accept the offer.   She is behind on payments but has a payment plan with the bank and will be caught up by January.

Assuming the house has been accurately described, and knowing the tenant personally, I think we're talking about $10,000 to $15,000 worth of work to get it rent ready. I know this is a big assumption.

Even still, I think a fair price for the home is around $40,000.  What's the likelihood of the bank even considering that?

I don't think there's much here to work with as a wholesale deal but If I could get the property and the work done cheap enough, I think this makes sense as a buy and hold for me.  The margin is too thin to even consider sub2.  I think my next step is to reach out to a contractor friend of mine for a detailed estimate. Then try to find a hard money lender.   I could refer her to an agent that has done short sales but then she's likely end up selling to an investor anyway, right?  What am I not considering here?

Makenzi Kurvits-Statum To get an FHA loan you have to intend to live in the property and it's going to have to pass an FHA inspection. In my experience, these are a little more thorough than a typical hoke inspection. My realtor advised me, many times, not to look at fixer-uppers because she knew the FHA folks in the area wouldn't pass the house based on the amount of work they needed. We ended up buying one that was out dated, but otherwise other wise perfectly livable. You might want to consider an FHA 203(k). It's a mortgage and construction loan together. I looked at two different properties that needed a LOT of work and found a local lender who dealt with these. The problem I ran in to was that investors who were willing to pay cash were also scoping out those properties. I lost both to cash buyers. FHA is a great way to get in to a home and you should definitely give it strong consider just do a little research first, talk to realtors in the area, and lenders. Make sure you're dealing with folks who how to navigate all of it.

Julius Dixon Next time you do this, I believe you can preview three sample entries to make sure you're getting all the data points you want. So take the Property Type filter, select only Multi Family, then select a city, not just a zip code. Look at the sample, google the addresses to see if they are the types of properties you want to target.

@Steve Bracero Yes, the list is from listsource.com  My initial analysis was done prior to purchasing a list.  You can manipulate a lot of the criteria and gleam a ton of information if you know what you're doing. 

I'll be printing my own yellow letters and prof. letters.  I can do it on my own for about half the price of yellowletters.com but I will be likely be using them for everything else.

I'm working from an Excel spreadsheet to track my leads, for now.  I am also building a web based CRM.  I know that there are some very good products out there, Podio comes to mind, but they are all expensive or require a bit of a learning curve and either way, the don't offer the level of customization that I want.  My system will store and track all of my leads initially, but then manage my direct mail and allow me to collect data from multiple sources later.  As I grow, I can add custom functions and features to the system.  I'm already plotting out how to have the system do all of my initial analysis, gathering publicly available data for every lead, crunching some numbers, auto send emails and texts, provide multiple levels of access for a virtual assistant, etc.  I recognize that not everyone has these skills so I'm hoping that it gives me a leg up on the competition.  I guess we'll see.

I will be talking to seller myself.  I will probably setup a minute (-/+) long voicemail to help screen out some of the tire kickers.  I currently have a full time job so effectively managing my time is going to be crucial.  I'm in Memphis, TN, kind of the middle of the country, so I'm expecting a fair average as far as delivery times go.  But I also plan to mail about 250 pieces per week so that I'm not slammed with calls for two or three days then dead for the next couple of weeks.  I'm looking for steady, manageable volume.

Yes, I will followup with everyone.  Even the folks that hang up, at some point. 

@James Wachob   I'm keep you in the loop with each property I come across.  It's been a while since we last met up.  Probably should do that again sometime.

I've been talking to friends and relatives, even co-workers and acquaintances.  I've mailed some yellow letters and post cards.  I've got a web-site, business cards, and UPS Store PMB.  I've done 3 assignment deals thanks to just dumb luck.  (The harder I work, the luckier I get)  So far they have been relatively quick and easy. Uncomplicated.  I like that but I'm open to other ideas.

I'm putting together a plan for the next 4 months.  I've got roughly $3K in cash and $6K in available credit from CapitalOne.  I want to hit 1000 via direct mail.  I'm looking at a list of out of town owners, with at least %40 equity, in 2  of the hottest Memphis zip codes.  The plan looks like this:

Month 1: 1000 small, text only postcards.  est. cost$500

3 Weeks later: 1000 yellow letters. est cost $525

3 Weeks later: 1000 larger, text only postcards est. cost $560

3 Weeks later: 1000 professional business letters est. cost $570

3 Weeks later: 1000 Holiday type greeting card est. cost $1,000 (This will be Mid December)

3 Weeks later: 1000 'Official' looking zip letters est. cost $925

Do these numbers make sense?  

My typical response rate from yellow letters is around %12 but mostly unmotivated sellers.  I'm hoping that the response rate will drop but that the quality of my leads will pick up.  Is this reasonable?

How often should I be touching these people AFTER the initial campaign? once per month? every 3 weeks still?

Any other advice, critique, criticism, or comment would be welcome and greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Wow!  I've been searching BP for WEEKS trying to figure out how to fine tune a marketing plan.  Wish I had found this post sooner. @Brandon Foken, what's the latest on your progress?  How's it going?

@Edwin Barrientos, SEO and/or online vs DM is like trying to compare apples and tennis balls.  They are two very different things.  With a good plan, your DM will be targeted to people who you believe have motivation and equity and homes that other investors want.  You can control, to some extent, the niche that you want to operate in.

With SEO and PPC (also two very different things) you're casting a wide net and just hoping that something gets caught up in your net and not the net of the millions of other We Buy Houses websites.  It takes a lot of time and dedication, research and planning, and technical knowledge to get really good SEO and PPC results.  Split testing of ads, adgroups and campaigns, split testing of pages, do you do text based or picture? what about video? how do FB ads compare to Twitter? What techniques are best to get your ad featured on the first page of google? Which forms are best for converting a page visit to a lead?  There are literally MILLIONS of possibilities to consider and manipulate.  That is why SEO and Online Marketing companies exist.

Now, having said all of that, I do have two websites.  I used a Wordpress for one and SquareSpace for the other.  I modeled mine off of other sites owned by people that I know to be successful.  The sites lend a bit of credibility to some of my marketing and allow me to have a custom domain in my email instead of "memphishomebuyers at gmail".  

I did do some testing for about 2 months with google adwords and did land a deal thanks to an ad that lead the seller to one of my sites.  But if you don't know what you're doing you will waste a LOT of money in a very short time.  Ultimately, the time and energy I was putting in to learning and analysis of my ad campaigns was distracting me from learning more about real estate and developing my DM campaign. Both of which are better uses of time.

I think, if you're starting out, then your most efficient effort will be with DM.  Get a solid plan together, spend a couple hours a week sending mailers, and then put the remaining time in to improving your game.  You could spend literally weeks learning about just text based ads, ad groups, key words, campaigns and the like and not actually have any results to show for it.  

@Erica Ridgley I'm embarrassed to say that I actually signed up for his course. I feel like it's money that I could have better spent elsewhere but I didn't know any better at the time and thought it was a good deal.  You're welcome to PM me if you've got some specific questions.  

Definitely following this discussion.  Are there any students in Tennessee?  I'm running in to some road blocks so I'd like to talk to someone who is in the program if possible?