All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

And a VERY TARGETTED LIST.

Sure. This is my first one ever but I've studied them for years owning another small business (never did more than postcards though for my lawn biz). Here are my thoughts on why it is so effective. Target market fourplex owners only.

1. It was honest. I explained that my goal was to live in it with my young family and get closer to other family at the same time. (trying to get the kids closer to Grandma)

2. I explained I was preapproved. I wanted to attach the letter but didn't get it in time.

3. Included a pic of my family on the top of letter.

4. My wife and I handsigned each one.

5. Real stamps.

6. Real return address with our names.

7. Handwritten envelopes.

8. Cardstock paper.

9. I broke every rule in marketing. It was a me me me, us us us, I, I, I letter. It wasn't littered with marketing tactics like I am going to solve problems that they didn't know they had. It was a full page. No bullet points. Just genuine, because that's me.

10. Each one was personalized with name and property address. I used mailmerge for this.

11. Gave them the option to call or email to make it less weird for them. I received 3 calls, 1 email.

Last call yesterday was from a very nice owner who did not want to sell. He called to let me know how much he appreciated the letter. He specifically mentioned the cardstock paper.

The last batch I sent, I realized I cut an entire sentence off in the middle. Two people out of all of them got the corrected version. I meant to come back to it and change the wording, never did. I was devastated and embarrassed. Thought I wasted the whole week, paper, envelopes, stamps...

Of course, While doing the letters an MLS property came on the market and I am currently highest offer (not sure if best), hoping to have that under contract today...

I have been interested in this for 4 years. It is amazing what can happen by taking action. It's been a month since I decided to take action and have been every day ever since.

So, now I have 2 leads for my next deal before the possible first one is even done.

All I know is I did a lot of work to make an effective direct mail piece last few weeks. 65 or so mailed, 4 calls already.  2 interested in selling. Got to think outside the box. Do what others aren't doing or willing to do.

OK, well that good. At least it isn't negative. Are you sure you can do this job for only 5K. Seems low. Would that 5K be better spent towards another property purchase? Sounds like the best thing would be to take the hit, look for the next deal. One beginner to another.

I don't know much about this but maybe you can fight the assessed value. I don't know if that would work being that they went off your purchase price. Might be something to look into.

Drive there and find out for yourself. 

House hack. I don't see vacation rentals being a good idea for a beginner (I am one too). Regulation coming more and more. Too much turnover etc. New construction for a beginner, not me haha. Flips for a beginner, not for me either. Buy and hold makes the most sense in my opinion for someone just starting out.

Read this post from today, then learn how to avoid posting things like this:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/572...

Learn the math and how to analyze property. I'm in the process of making my first purchase, a 4plex. But, all I have done is learn learn learn calulations and how to make a spreadsheet. Of course, there are tools to use too for this. I personally like dealcheck.io but there is one on BP too. I use my own spreadsheet.

Good tip to look into more. Next would be what kind of calculations to determine the return on that money.

First things first. Analyze the property. You say "I think I overpaid". You need to know for sure. Obviously, this was because you didn't anylyze it properly from the start. Crap happens. But, that needs to be dealt with. Find out for sure what similar things are renting for. How negative is the cashflow? Then and only then can you start to make decisions on how to fix it...if you even have to. 

2 2cson :-)