All Forum Posts by: Dev Horn
Dev Horn has started 44 posts and replied 1813 times.
Post: List Source?

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
Yes, you have stumbled upon a situation where Listsource does not have the records in Sheboygan County listed using the PropertyType=SFR.
Interestingly, I found that only ONE of the residential property type filters work for that county >>> Residential:Other
Using that one reduces the result from 46K records to 35K records.
This might be how they have your residential properties tagged. Might be better to use Residential:Other than no filter at all.
You could use that filter and buy a small number of records - get them and then look them up on Google to see what you have - you may have condos, etc. mixed in with your SFRs - no way to tell without doing some research.
Best of luck!
Post: Best Way to Find off Market Properties

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
The answer is good old fashioned MARKETING. If you started a carpet cleaning business or a construction company or a maid service, you'd have exactly the same problem - how do I let people know I EXIST and what I am OFFERING? Just like all those other businesses, the answer is marketing / advertising. This is a business - it requires start-up capital, infrastructure, processes, people, and MARKETING.
Stop looking at Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, etc. which are just copies of what's on the MLS. Those sites are almost a complete waste of time for real estate investors. You need to get out there and find people who have not already responded to the marketing offers from real estate agents. You need to go DIRECT to the home owner.
I have a video in my BP profile here called The Search for Motivated Sellers - good stuff for people like you trying to figure this out!
"The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Post: Marketing Help - Suggestions

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
Forget foreclosures - that's complicated for a newbie - you end up mailing to poor people with no equity and waste your $. At $400 you don't have a lot but you could probably mail postcards to about 800 people a month. If you decide to do that, go with absentee owners with at least 50%+ equity. Listsource.com is a good vendor for the list.
Otherwise, I'd set up a nice clean landing page and set up a Google AdWords account with a $15 per day budget. If you write good ads and choose good keywords, this can start to produce decent leads pretty quickly. You pop up in the ads right along with those higher-trafficed sites because you're all paying the same for a click. $15 in AdWords is not going to be a firehose of leads, but you will get a few per month and the quality can be really good if your copy/keywords are solid.
Best of luck to you!
"The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have." ~ Vince Lombardi
Post: Do California agents need to disclose they are an agent?

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
For all our clients who are LICENSED agents/brokers in CA and throughout the country, we provide disclosure of their RE license and the appropriate disclaimer on all our marketing materials.
I agree with those who mention that a disclosure is provided for activities for which a license is required, so you might say, no I don't have to because I'm acting as a principal.
The problem arises when someone SUES YOU and says you took Granny's house for pennies on the dollar, and in court they found out that you did not disclose to Granny that you were a licensed RE professional. A judge or jury will likely feel that you had an ADVANTAGE over Granny because of your professional knowledge.
Another problem might be your broker, who finds out you're mailing out marketing materials for your "other" RE business, and you are not disclosing the fact that you're licensed on those materials. He/She may not be happy because he/she may feel that you are putting him/her at risk.
So, do HAVE to do it? Maybe not. SHOULD you do it (disclose, disclose, disclose)? Absolutely. As one client said to me recently, "There is no assignment fee that is worth losing my license." And how about getting SUED for having an unfair advantage?
Disclosure is simple. I'm not sure why you would NOT do it.
“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” ~ Thomas Paine
Post: Looking for a way to brand my buying and selling business

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
This won't surprise anyone, given my company and position, but I LOVE BRANDING. In a crowded market, where there are too many competing options saying exactly the same thing, who can DO exactly the same thing, you need to stand out. I think the key to that is buying or building an outstanding brand. When consumers are confused about product selection due to too many choices, they turn to brand - one that they either know from the past or feel comfortable with because of the professional image, etc.
Many will tell you this is a business of one-time purchases (not "relationships" with people) and that brand doesn't matter. Those people are NOT marketing people and I'm guessing many of them are also no longer in real estate. Any business is about relationships, and a great brand helps people to refer you to their friends and family.
“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” ~ Warren Turner
Post: Marketing is Expensive!

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
Originally posted by @Jerry Puckett:
I generally recommend people starting out to stay close to the 1000 letter a month mark if their budget can handle it. There are many reasons why, but an important part of it is that I find that is about the most one man working alone while holding down a full time job can handle.
Be sure to take @Michael Quarles up on his offer, I'm sure he'll get you squared away. Think of it as looking before leaping.
That's a good rule of thumb for the part-timer. For full time investors (who are doing different kinds of advertising) we advise a minimum of 2,500 per month on their direct mail.
Post: Marketing is Expensive!

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
Originally posted by @John Horner:
Originally posted by @William Baumann:
@Joshua Durrin I feel your pain my friend. I am in the same boat, listsource cost about $0.40 -$0.65 cents per address and considering your looking at an average of 1 real lead per 1000. However on listsource and yellow letter also I believe, you can get partials of your list, so you can save your list of 10,000 and only purchase the first 50 addresses for example for $40, instead of the whole list for $4,000.
I know it is really tough starting out with very little/no funds, but starting anywhere is always better than never starting.
I just pulled up a local list for high equity, absentee's. There were just over 10k names and it cost about $0.08/name.
I bought a couple lists before they emailed me and told me I could get a discount by setting up a new account. Not sure why but I pay less then half of what I used to.
I'll buy your list for you and email it to you if you want, $0.45 - $0.60/each is insane, should not be that much.
RIGHT. Listsource is NOT $0.40-$0.65 as previously mentioned. Their base record is 8 cents. Certain extra filters cost more money - in particular, they charge 10 cents per record for the "Equity%" filter. That's the only filter you need to pay for, so you're basically looking at $0.18 per record with it included.
Post: In buy and hold investing, who are my clients?

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
When you have a PM that is responsible for marketing, you have - in essence - outsrouced that role just as you have outsourced the property mgmt itself. Marketing is happening (we assume) if he is getting tenants, so what's your worry as far a tenants go? That's covered.
Seems like your marketing focus would be towards sellers - looking for the next property to acquire (buy & hold)... and that would be the basic marketing challenge that we all face, regardless of exit strategy... the SEARCH FOR MOTIVATED SELLERS. (FYI - I have a video in my BP profile on that topic).
Post: Social Media Management Services. Worth it?

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
Let's get specific here as "social media" can mean a lot of things...
The most useful social platform is probably FACEBOOK. Just create a FB page for your real estate business and start reaching out for friends and family to Like it. Then create posts about houses you list (with pic of house) or buyers that you helped (with pic of family), etc. and BOOST those posts. Boosting posts is inexpensive and a powerful way to get awareness in your personal network and beyond.
Also set yourself up a Google business listing (See Google My Business). Once "verified", this puts you on the Google Map. You also get a Google+ page - we post the same things to it as FB but of course no one uses Google+ =) But GOOGLE likes if you use it!
Also consider making videos and creating a YouTube channel for your REI business - here again, Google owns YouTube so they give you a lot of "SEO" credit if you use it.
If you're a listing agent, you might feature pics of houses on Instagram or Pinterest.
You might also create a BLOG and write about real estate and work on developing a following there.
Then there are the RE-specific social sites: BiggerPockets, Trulia, Zillow (you can create blogs and post articles and comments on those sites).
I've never found much use for Twitter, myself.
Point is, it's not hard - you're already doing social media here in BP! Just work a plan to develop a presence on those other sites. I would not spend $$ on someone to do this at a small scale.
Best of luck to you!
"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change." ~ Stephen Hawking
Post: Bandit Signs in Los Angeles

- Flipper/Rehabber
- Arlington, TX
- Posts 1,893
- Votes 2,226
=) KIDDING!!!!!!