All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Charles

@Connor Stark

Not to burst your bubble, but here's a good thread from a local investor down in San Diego. 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/87/topics/632...

And for what it's worth, we stopped doing direct mail up here almost 2 years ago.  At our height, we were probably sending out 2000 pieces a month and our response rate was only 0.25%.  To make matters worse, the few leads that we did get wanted WAY more than we could offer.  Since it's a strong seller's market up here, especially then, it didn't make much sense for a seller to sell at a discount when they could list with a realtor and get almost what they were looking for. 

@Rob D.

@Lynnette E.

Great conversation. I hope that someone who is actually doing this actively will chime in.  Without having done one myself, i can't speak to the ins and outs of it.  My guess is like anything, there is some level of risk when it comes to liability.  My hope is that the ethical investor will have all their legal paperwork in order and explain any risks to both homeowner and end buyer. 

@Rob D. I got you.  I wasn't meaning to imply a majority of sellers.  Or that there's even a good number of them. I was more just saying that they are out there.

@Rob D.

My wife just helped my co-worker's daughter list and sell her house. She had such bad memories of it, she didn't care how much it sold for, as long as she at least broke even. The only thing she cared about was getting rid of it with as little hassle as possible. 

@Rob D. I hate to make assumptions, but it sounds like you're talking with your investor hat on. From my limited experience, non-investors potentially think differently and have different motivations. We have worked directly with sellers where money was not their motivating factor and all they cared about was a minimum amount of headache. Unfortunately for us, we were not versed enough to discuss the pros and cons of lease options. In those cases, my wife just listed their house on the MLS, but i bet we could have made a case for a sandwich lease to those who didn't need their payout right away.

@Alex Shin

When we were doing direct mail a couple of years ago, we used Rebogateway. It worked great for our purposes. If I remember correctly, we were pulling absentee owner, NOD, divorce, eviction, and one other list. I don't remember there being a function where you could layer lists in Rebogateway, but if there's not, you could always use Excel to find any common names.

IMHO, the main hurdle you are going to find is that there is not much reason for sellers to sell at a discount in this market. 

@Daniel Jodrey  . I know everyone will have a different opinion on this, but I think that you need to look at the numbers for a primary residence and an investment property a little bit differently. It will probably be very difficult to find anything in Ventura or SB county where the numbers work as a strictly investment property. My wife and I bought a primary a couple of years ago with a studio in the back. Although the studio does not cover our mortgage, the money that we are coming out of pocket every month is less than what we were paying in rent when she first moved to this area. To us, this makes sense, even though we do not have "positive cash flow." 

Hey Nick. Here in Ventura County, we are at 2.7 months of inventory.  inventory has slowly increased for the past 5 months. 

@Mondrell Fields

When we were doing direct mail, we used Rebogateway.  I also heard that Property Radar is pretty good. 

However, we found that there was very little reason for a seller to sell to us at a discount in today's market.  They could put it on the market and get way more than we could offer.  Our experience is that even complete gut jobs get bid up. I'm sure it's possible to find a needle in a haystack, but not sure how much time/money you will be spending to do so. 

@Anthony O.

I'll send you a PM.