All Forum Posts by: Jason Fraser

which situations does seller financing make sense?

after the reality check I got at work today I'll be making this webinar

Just thinking outside  of the box and getting my creative real estate juices going.

Is there opportunities with nicer houses I.e. Doesn't need a complete rehab, kitchen and baths look great, maybe even move in ready? If so what profitable strategies can be put in play?

my first question is how are you keeping track of any lead you are marketing to? Are you using a CRM (customer relationship manager) or even just a spread sheet?

Instead of throwing away a lead that doesn't convert today, market to them in a few months to see if the situation has changed. Unless they say do not contact me ever, why not reach out to them again, especially if it's a lead you purchased like from list source.

Anytime I mail something or send an email via Craigslist I put the contact info in  a spreadsheet so I can easily do a mail merge for future mailings or emails. If it's a lead I've been in contact with and started a dialogue with ill move them to the CRM for better lead follow up and nuturing.

personally I use godaddy. There customer service is great. There very proactive with following up with me by phone.

Put systems in place to generate leads more effectively to wholesale two deals a month at a minimum.

Do at least two rehabs this year for the experience.

Take a course in project mangement

Upgrade to BP pro.

Consider your business card one of your marketing tools. I order mine from vistaprint. I'm always getting emails for discounts from them. Gotprints.com is another company that has reasonably priced cards. 

I have two sets: one I give to investors and other ones are for sellers. The ones for investors are the "free" ones vistaprint offers. You still have to pay shipping. They also have the vistaprint watermark on the back. That one is basically name and contact info. There's also my website. (I'll share an inexpensive way to set up a quick webpage to capture info towards the end). The free ones also limit the customization you can do. This is fine since all an investor really cares about is name, number, and email address to get ahold of you. You can go fancier later if your just starting out).

The sellers one has the basic info:name, number, email, and website. It also  has a blurb about how to get your house sold fast. It's just four short sentences. I bought the premium cards that allows for more customizations and doesn't have the vistaprint watermark on the back. These ones I'll pin on bulletin boards or anywhere with other business cards on display I.e. Car repair places, mom and pop stores. I went to check out this nightclub on an off night last Tuesday. As I was leaving I noticed they a place where you can leave business cards(it was mostly taxi service business cards and a couple of other businesses). I went back to my car and grabbed a stack to leave at the club...you never know who will take a card.

One more tip related to business  cards, you can create a flyer/business card holder by taking a piece of paper, folding the bottom (about the width the of a business card) and then staple the ends. Use a thicker stock of paper than regular printing paper.  Anywhere with a bulletin board, stick your flyer/business card holder. The main body of the flyer will have your tag line: we buy houses or whatever it is and contact info. The bottom half will hold a few of your business cards. In stead of pinning one card on the bulletin board (and having someone take the one card) you can now leave 10 cards. If the flyer business  card holder is still up and empty, you just add more cards. While it's empty people still have a way to get a hold of you. If you want to get fancy, you can add a QR code (the square with what looks like a Roarshak image that you can scan with a smartphone for more info).

So inexpensive way to have a webpage that can be done quickly. Godaddy has a product called instapage. It's free when you buy a domain name which $12.99. When someone goes to the domain name it goes to a webpage you can customize instead of site "under construction". It's only one page so Its a webpage vs a website which is multiple pages. You can add a form(which is used to collect info: name, number, email, and a text box to add more info. You can link it to Facebook and Twitter via their logos. You can upload a photo. 

I use this just as a landing page to capture investor contact info and what they're looking for. The information is then emailed to me and I transfer it to my CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) for better management. I'll upgrade it to full website later on. Later on I can integrate a form that sends all the info right to my CRM. For the time being it serves it's main purpose ...capturing info.

For  sellers I have a full website also through go daddy. I built it myself through their website building program.  This one I wanted it to look more professional than using instapage. 

I've built my buyers in 3 ways

1. Networking at local events REIA meetings and luncheons. This helped me to get a lay of land. Who rehabs vs buy and hold, which areas they like, rehab costs they are willing to spend at a max, whether they are cash buyers. When I grab their business cards, I write that info on the card and transfer all the info to a CRM program for better management. I use ZohoCRM because they have a free version, it functions like Salesforce which I use for full time job (reduced learning curve), and I can use it multiple devices especially my phone.

On the business cards I give people there's a link  to a webpage where they can leave their contact info and what they are looking for.  My domain is through godaddy and they offer a product called instapage for free as part of the domain package.

2. Running ads on Craigslist.  The purpose of this is to get people to my webpage to provide their contact info and what their looking for.

3. Calling bandits "we buy houses 555 1234". It serves the same purpose as number 1, networking and getting a pulse of who is looking for what, where, and how much they want to spend.

Two key things that is important is following up with your list on occasion and management. I'm going to use survey monkey to poll my list to see what their needs are these days since it's been six months since I've done this. I already mentioned using a CRM (customer relationship management) like Zohocrm to manage your buyers list.

Real Estate investing Systems by James Orr is a great book on the topic. I've been referencing it the last few days while putting together systems for my own business.

thanks for sharing this. I've interested in something like this for sometime now.