All Forum Posts by: David Flores

Brian Fleig i agree with you, as I was first skeptical about all of this too. But because or if I should say get the land at a large discount 5-10% of market value you can also sell it cheap (40-50% market value). So if someone is looking for a piece of land to purchase and they come by my property it will be hard for them to ignore it. Not saying this will definitely get the land sold quickly, but the chances are higher with a steep discount. Imagine looking for a home to buy and you see a home that is 50% below market value, it will be hard to not heavily consider it. @Glen R. The reason this CAN (not definitely will) be done is because some of these pieces of land are inherited or have been held onto for an extremely long time and people simply just want to get rid of it. They don't want it anymore or never did, which is why the taxes have not been paid. Some may not know the resources to get rid of the land or the time, or maybe they are just simply lazy. Land is much different than a home. People are attached to their homes and would never give it up for 5-10% market value, even with liens, its almost disrespectful. But when you have an owner of the land living in Florida who inherited it from his or her family and the land is in upstate NY, a couple of thousand dollars can sound like a good deal to them.

@Seth Williams I plan on sending these letters out December 11th. Do you think the holiday season can affect the accuracy of the response rate? Also, in your opinion do you think I should avoid the holiday season in total and send out after the new year?

I was thinking the holiday season may actual be beneficial because people spend a lot of money during this time and the thought of receiving some from a piece of land may entice them more into the deal.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

@Brandy Horkey yeah that's a great option also, I actually was thinking about doing that in the future and comparing. I also want to use Seth's strategy with post cards using click2mail. I want to see which campaign i feel did the best, both efficiency wise and rate wise. I understand that out of pure luck or different wording one campaign can skew the data. But for example, say this hand written mail converts a response rate of 10-12% and the others only convert 5-8%. In my opinion, the little extra work and couple hours of labor is well worth it. But, this could also have 0 effect on anything, which it very well might. But just wanted to see how this route turns out. 

Regarding excel, i'm extremely proficient in. I actually use it every day at my day job at Ernst and Young as a Financial Management Analyst. When it comes to this stuff excel is my best friend. I honestly don't think any of this would be possible without at least intermediate skills in excel. I am currently working on a mid right formula to automate the process of the letters, but because of the way Microsoft word documents transfer into excel and because a formula needs to be in its own cell it is very difficult to figure out. But if anyone has any suggestions that would be great!

@Brandy Horkey will do! This weekend I pretty much fixed all my letters by inserting the individuals names and the property i'm interested into each letter. My leads are up to 142 and to do all of these it took about 2 hours. Not that bad honestly. I know Seth uses click2mail, which I will try out also in the future and compare. Click2mail is extremely easy to use and great for large amounts (250+) of mail. i just wanted to make this round a little more personal so a lot of manual labor will have to be done. I think the most time consuming part will be writing the shipping addresses by hand. But when we are talking about big investments/pay offs, I find some elbow grease well worth it. We shall see the outcome and the response rates. Honestly I am hoping these response rates will range around 10-12%. 

As I said previously I plan on sending all these pieces of mail by the 15th. 

@Seth Williams yeah I have some counties telling me you have to go to a location in their county and search for people individually. Others don't know what I am talking about, but for about half of them I have been getting the information (or at least the correct information on how to receive it). 

I have 2 county lists right now I am working with, waiting on another in the mail. Some of the others are a little to expensive for me right now but I wrote down the information on how to get access to it for futures sake.

Thanks Seth!

@Seth Williams does agentpro24/7 only cover Arizona, California, Florida, Colorado, Nevada for the foreclosure lists? I live in the Northeast and was wondering if it had info for that region also. 

If it does only have info for those states would you happen to know another lead generating site?

Hello BP World,

Just starting a forum to track my story about using a strategy i learned about from @Seth Williams. 

Pretty much it is about using public information from county's around the US to gain access to the tax delinquency lists that County's provide. Using this information I will be contacting individuals with liens on their home that are NOT foreclosed yet, but instead using the foreclosure as leverage to buy the land cheap (5-10% of market value) from an individual. This strategy helps you (the investor, by getting land cheap) and it helps the owner of the land by geting out of a tax lien, protecting their credit, and they can make a few bucks in the process. 

Right now I am working on Upstate NY leads, I currently have 136 leads that I will be sending out extremely personal mail too stand out. I am just waiting on return labels right now. But the way Seth Williams mentioned doing this was using a personalized post card. I think I want to go in a slightly different route to see how it works. Seth's ratio's were about a 5-10% response rate with a 1-.5% close rate I believe. I want to compare this to the strategy I will be using. My strategy will be to send extremely personal letters, with hand written envelops (just the shipping to address). I don't know about you guys but I have always opened a letter with a hand written address on it. This way, I know my mail will be opened by the individual. 

The letters I am sending are extremely honest. I am simply stating why I am contacting them (using their personal name and property address) and why it can benefit them and I. I am also sending them a personal business card (which is with my return labels shipment) so they can hold onto my details and call or email at their best convenience. 

I plan on sending all of my letters for my first 136 leads by December 15th. Waiting for the delivery of my package which should be here by the 8th. Then I want to hand write the shipping addresses. 

Anyway, if I do get a lead that is interested in my offer (5-10% of market value) I will try to sell at full value and keep updating this post. Ask any questions you may have and correct me if I am wrong anywhere Seth! 

This area is infested with investors as you could probably tell by living in the area. I have tried this route before but did not find much luck. I found great homes and must have put an offer in on 5 houses at least but there are heavy players out here who purchase all cash, which pushes the investors trying to use leverage to the side. As @Malia B. said MLS will be very little help if you are using leverage. If you aren't and you are all cash you can do really well out here.

Best of luck!

@Seth Williams what would you say your response rate and completed deal rate is for every postcard/piece of mail you send out is?

Just curious as to what I should expect. 

I seriously have to thank you for all of this valuable information. I am having a lot of fun doing this. Going through property history by parcel numbers and searching the owners and all that. Still going through a bunch of properties but once I get 50 leads I am going to send out my first pieces of mail! Very close and I should have the 50 leads by the end of the week, I never knew so many people were so close to foreclosing. 

Will keep everyone updated!