All Forum Posts by: Dev Horn

I never said I was trying to eradicate "Christmas".

The vast majority of people in the U.S. celebrate Christmas.  We are looking to appeal to vast majority in our marketing.  So yeah, we use imagery of Christmas but with a more globally appealing "Happy Holidays" wording.  So there is some compromise, but not an attempt to appeal to "everyone" with the colors, images or words.

No marketing will ever "speak" to every person.

And by the way everyone -- MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Happy Birthday JESUS!

The fact that others want to celebrate Jesus' birthday is totally cool with us Christians!

Sam, I can tell you are an engineer (I was originally a systems analyst), because you are putting a lot of analysis into your business idea.  My caution is this - don't overthink this.  Until you generate leads and talk to sellers, this is all just an academic exercise. 

The MLS is not a great place to find deals. Your best bet is to partner with an agent who can get you access to the MLS. When a new listing pops in, you want to immediately compare it to the tax appraised value and if it's less that some % of TAD (like 60%), that's one you might want to take a look at. But good deals on the MLS will go fast and probably for more than they should because there are too many people aware of and competing for the deal. Focus on non-MLS sources.

Otherwise, there are 3 workhorses in REI marketing:

1) Direct mail to absentee owners WITH EQUITY
2) AdWords with a good set of REI related keywords ("sell my house fast", etc.)
3) Signs - Billboards, bandits, bus stop signage, etc.

FYI -- Infusionsoft is crazy expensive for a small business with simple needs - several times the monthly cost of Top Producer (which is several times the cost of Podio).

We use Infusionsoft for our corporate email drip campaigns.  It's hard to learn and implement.  I don't recommend it to investors.

No.  Until you get a BUNCH of legit leads, you can track your leads on a whiteboard or Google doc.

Sure CRM is great, it's a matter of focus.  People that start focusing too much on websites or implementing CRMs etc at the beginning tend to be putting off the business of actually doing real estate.  Don't fall into that trap.

And I like Podio - but you're right, it needs a lot of time invested to make it work.  There is a guy that offers a version of podio set up for RE investors & wholesalers.  See that here:

http://www.realautomation.biz/  (I have no association with this business.  One of our guys uses this and likes it....)

Several of our guys use Top Producer which is tailored to real estate (focused on agents of course) and really not that expensive ($85/mo) once you get to the level where you actually need a CRM.

But honestly, one of our guys will do several hundred grand this year and they have no CRM.  Don't make this something that delays you from getting out there and doing real estate...  Wish you the best!

We send these postcards to homeowners (prospects) in December.  I'm a Christian but also a marketing guy; ours is a diverse society and our marketing should be sensitive to people of many different beliefs & traditions.

We don't say Merry Christmas in our general marketing, but we also don't avoid the spirit and look of Christmas.

This has very little applicability to REI education gurus who primarily teach "wholesaling". 

This case specifically had to do with offering "mortgage relief services":

Before providing any services, however, Wealth Educators charged consumers an up-front fee ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, promising the money would be fully refunded if the company didn’t provide the relief it promised. On its website, Wealth Educators claimed it was “America’s Leading Home Preservation Legal Services,” saying that they “. . . act on behalf of homeowners to work with your lender and avoid the lengthy and costly process of foreclosure and the stressful act of eviction that follows…”.

Unfortunately, according to the complaint, while Wealth Educators told many consumers they could get them a loan modification, typically through a government-sponsored program, and even quoted a specific amount consumers’ mortgage payments would be reduced, the company often did not provide the promised relief services. In addition, the company told consumers to stop communicating with their lenders, delaying them from discovering that Wealth Educators had not obtained the promised mortgage relief. Finally, while promising a “100% refund” of the service fee if it did not provide the promised mortgage relief services, consumers who tried to get their money back could not do so.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/201...

What you see above is simply illegal - it's not what the REI gurus teach (dean, scott & amy, dave & pete, blah blah blah). This is old news, IMHO. MANY companies have gotten hammered for this mortgage/foreclosure relief stuff since 2008.

Bandit signs don't work well in LA anyway.  Man, you are in the MOST EXPENSIVE MARKET IN THE UNITED STATES when it comes to the cost to generate a motivated seller lead.

In LA, it costs over $200+ in advertising to make the phone ring (one lead),  and your "marketing cost per deal" can easily be $5,000 (you'll need maybe 20 leads to bag 1 deal).  And guys out there will spend $5K per month ALL DAY LONG to bag a heavily discounted house for cash.

I'm not trying to discourage you, there is some chance of getting a deal by putting some signs out or sending out some letters, but you are in a SHARK TANK there in LA, filled with guys dropping $10K, $20K, and more on marketing for motivated sellers.  HomeVestors is probably spending $150K to $200K per month advertising in that market.

I'd say, pick an area you know and concentrate on that "zone" (a town, set of zip codes, etc.).  Focus whatever marketing $ you have on that and hopefully expand your footprint once you've made some money and can amp up your marketing.  Postcards are much cheaper than letters.  You might also think about just getting a bunch of door hangers made and walking thru your target neighborhoods putting them on doors.  In doing that, you might meet a lot of people and tell them what you're doing, asking if they are looking to sell or know neighbors who are.  That's how you can beat the big guys right now - by getting OUT there instead of just sending out some postcards and waiting for the phone to ring like everyone else does...

"There's plenty of intelligence in the world, but the courage to do things differently is in short supply." ~ Marilyn vos Savant 

The problem is, any "deal" you see on the MLS is seen by 1,000 other people. And the last buyer an agent wants to work with is someone who just wants to bomb listings with low-ball, not-a-chance-in-h*ll offers.

If you want to buy distressed properties from motivated sellers at steep discounts which allow for a profit to be made, you pretty much have to go off market. Sure, I've gotten a couple of deals off the MLS over the years, but the bulk of your deals will come from off-market opportunities - mostly found via paid marketing aimed directly at the home sellers (direct mail, Google AdWords, signs, etc.).

RE is a slow start-up business.  If you come in praying for that one deal in the next 30 days that will pay your bills, you are set up for failure.

I love real estate - investing, brokerage, whatever - but right now you need a paycheck.  Get that first, so you can pay your bills, and work on building an income from real estate that you are not depending on at the beginning.

If you go to houses of people in default, you might not want to mention that.  Just knock, introduce yourself as an investor interested in their home, give them your business card, see if they'd like to get an offer ASAP.

My concern about anyone in financial trouble is you need to make sure they have equity in the house (assuming your strategy is a cash purchase at a discount). Simply knocking on doors of people in default could be a huge waste of time if none of them can sell you their house at 60-70% of ARV.

I prefer to mail to absentees that I know have at least 40% equity (using Listsource.com).

Door knocking is fine to get some practice, but it's a tough way to find deals.  It's better than doing nothing, but there are likely better uses of your time (at least only going to talk to people with equity)....