All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Something also went wrong with the links to the envelopes and yellow notepads... here they are below:

Notepads (Half this price at costco, not on their website). This paper fits the word template I linked to.

A1 Invitation Envelopes These fit the paper size above

...I'm not affiliated with these products and their sellers.

@Mindy Jensen I edited my original post with a working link right after Jonathan told me it wasn't working. Btw... those disclaimers of non-affiliation were for you! Hope you liked them :)

@Account Closed Weird. I just fixed it. The file should be available for download now. Thanks for letting me know Jonathan. 

BTW, you've got an interesting profile. Bitcoin and minecraft huh? Your profile link (solidgould) is hilarious haha.

If you want to do the pilot run for cheap then print it yourself! It isn't as hard as the naysayers say, and the sweat makes you appreciate the results. I'm mailing these letters at half of the commercial cost (I'm mailing 1000 now, so I dont get bulk pricing), allowing me to get double the volume out for the same price and a bit of elbow grease. I will move to delegation once I actually have more important things to do with me REI time.

Hi all,

I am looking into purchasing an SFR to flip in Sacramento, California and there is a tenant in place. The tenant is currently on a month to month lease. The property is off market, and the seller states that he has notified the tenants that he will be selling, and they will be cooperative. This promise doesn't extend beyond words, though.

When pulling hard money @ a 6 month balloon, how would you recommend I deal with this issue? It seems like it could really hold us up. I was thinking of inserting a contract contingency, but this would undermine the value of the fast close. It seems like the most prudent thing to do...

Please weigh in BP! 

Hello direct mailers!

I've been putting together my first self printed direct mail campaign to use here in Sacramento, CA. I'd like to share my yellow letter printing experiences with you so you guys don't have to spend the time and effort putting together your template, experimenting with supplies, and messing around with the process (trust me, it got a bit annoying).

First of all, HERE is a BP fileplace link to my microsoft word yellow letter template. 

This fits on THIS 5x8 legal pad paper (with which I am not affiliated). I actually found this paper at Costco, not amazon, where it was much cheaper @ $5.69 for 24 50-sheet pads. Once the paper is torn from the pad using the perforations, its dimensions are 5x7.25, which correspond to the template. If it doesn't look perfect to you when you print it, just adjust the line spacing a little bit and you will be fine.

-Now I know that most articles on this recommend pulling the binding off the paper and ripping out the staples. This is not the best idea for the following reasons:

1. It's more of a pain to do than tearing out the paper, trust me. The paper can be torn out smoothly and quickly in groups ~20 sheets at a time.

2. It leaves ugly staple holes and creases on your paper.

3. The staple holes and creases + partial binding of the sheets at their top end cause the printer to jam and/or pull multiple sheets at a time VERY frequently. This frustrated me quite a bit. I have not had a single printer problem using the torn out sheets.

4. It makes your paper look disproportionate, and less authentic. When it's torn out, it seems more like you actually pulled it out of your notepad (don't worry, the tear is still very clean). 

So yeah... tear it out and don't deal with the binding removal mess.

I like the 5x7.25 sheets of paper because they give the appearance of you driving down the street, noticing a house, and jotting down a letter in your personal portable notepad. They also happen to fit nicely in A1 envelopes when folded in half. I got these in bulk pretty cheap on amazon HERE (with which I am not affiliated).

I used a downloadable font that may not be available when you open the file if you don't already have it. You can find it HERE (not affiliated with this either...). If you're using it for commercial purposes you are asked to pay 5$ (more if you have multiple employees). 

All in all, I managed to get my total yellow letter cost to 55 cents mailed and they print niiiiice and smoothly. I have some cost management info on the fileplace and forums, but it may not be up to date... please reach out to me if you'd like to know! When I get to stuffing and sealing envelopes I'll try to come up with an efficient process and I'll definitely make a post detailing how I did that.

Finally, the phone number on the yellow letter is in fact mine. I definitely won't include it when I send out the mailers. I figured i'd leave it in on this shared file in case any of you BP'ers would like to reach me. 

Cheers!

Elliott

@Faiz Yusufi Welcome! 

Those properties in the Bay were a great purchase, you've got an impressive equity position in them considering the debt paydown (or maybe you even paid cash!). How much would you be willing to leverage them to get your multifamily property?

I'm a bit on the conservative side but in this current market, I don't feel too comfortable leveraging a property beyond 70% loan to value unless I am CERTAIN the funds are going to generate a significant surplus of equity on the other end.  The same goes for a multifamily deal on the other end. After the value add, I would like to ideally be in a 30% equity position. We've been trying to find a 6-20 unit deal like this in Sac and have had a bit of a time, but will keep plugging away. 

I say the transitional neighborhoods in Sacramento would be your best bet for this type of deal... they're the only places with some supply left at a reasonable entry price. Then of course there is Stockton... what research have you done on their multifamily market? I'm curious what you've discovered

Welcome Damian, both to BP and to Sacramento soon. What kind of renovations have you done? A little bit of everything? 

@Gordon Cuffe is definitely right about prices going up in Sacramento lately. I'm sure there are still some deals out here for you though. Your construction background helps. 

What kind of investment strategy are you going for? 

Hey Seve, glad to see you doing it! If you look at my recent posts Ive made a few threads about direct mail! If youre making your own, one has a link to a cool little spreadsheet I made that lists some super low cost direct mail supplies and where to get them. 

Are you marketing in Sacramento like we talked about a few weeks ago?

@Gordon Cuffe

I'm dialing you as we speak. 841 has a pretty low median sale, so as long as the value add is there he would be interested. 

@Tim Kunz you're quite welcome. Thanks for sharing that post with me. I may have seen something similar on strugglinginvestor.com? It looks a bit familiar. I'm trying to figure out a better process flow for that, so that the process scales for larger mailing campaigns (the author of that post said he only intended to send 20 mailing out). The amazon link posted in my earlier file has loose leaf sheets of paper, which beats the hell out of pulling staples and ungluing separate pages from eachother. I'll be doing mine this week also, let's compare methods afterwards!

@Gordon Cuffe It's that bad now huh? I guess it makes sense with how little the supply is. How many mailers are you sending out monthly? What are you doing as a wholesaler to overcome the challenges of the high offers? I've partnered up with a friend of mine who is particularly talented at doing great rehab work at 60-70% the costs I've seen other investors incur, so it looks like I'm going to have to work to keep as many deals as I can if I can't buy at a price that is competitive for most investors.