All Forum Posts by: James M.

Duh... I have been trying to copy and paste ibuyhouseleads.com with no results. I didn't even see the plural houses in your post. That just goes to show you to read posts before taking action :).

After checking out the site, it looks like the site is run by Mike Ochsner. Mike also owns ibuyhouses.com and is in Oklahoma. He appears to be a real estate agent/manager.

Hope this provides you a little help. Personally though, I am not familiar with him, so I can't give any personal opinions.

Writing good and effective ad copy is a monster all of its own. It is probably something that will need to be tested and recorded multiple times before it gets the conversion rates you might want.

I'm not sure how much help it will be, but I have heard good things about Gary Halbert when it comes to copywriting. Maybe check him out on Google?

While I have never used Constant Contact, I have used Get Response for some time. Personally, I think they have a great service going on there. It's very easy to learn and the customer support is fantastic. Every time I have had a problem, I get a response from the customer support in normally less than 24 hours. The only reason I stopped using it is because I decided to save the money and host my own autoresponder.

In general, virtually everything in the real estate market slows down come the holiday season. People get the whole 'shopping sensation' and get their minds set on the holidays. A lot of people consider it like a little vacation that allows them to not have to worry about their everyday issues for a short period of time and instead focus on more enjoyable things.

That being said, you can understand that response rates, conversions, leads, etc. will usually decrease during this period of time. Because of this, a lot of people lay low until the new year, then they kick things back into gear when people get back in their daily routines again.

But, like BlackBook said, if people are desperate enough, they'll want to sell now.

Staging can be a pretty tricky thing when it comes to flipping. I know of some people that have tried it with a moderate level of success, while other fell flat on their face with it. No matter how debatable the issue is, I think it really comes down to testing it in your local market. Give it a shot on one of your properties and see what kinds of results you get from it. Depending on the outcome, that should then determine whether or not to continue with using stagers.

Aside from Google AdWords, it may help to look through various classifieds. They are popping up all over the place nowadays and while it may take a little time, you may be able to find some great leads through them.

For what it's worth, I also agree with the previous comments; developing a relationship with your clients will definitely boost your probability of success.

That is a very interesting letter you got going there Jonathan :)! I'm glad to hear that you are getting a 4-5% response rate with it. Honestly, I am kind of surprised by that. If I saw something with that pig on it, I don't think I would relate it to REI or anything like that. Then again, with the economy the way it's going, that actually could be an enticing image...

Thanks a bunch for sharing your letter.

Unfortunately, it will be kind of difficult to give you a definitive answer as different markets and demographics react differently to letters and postcards.

What Dan said is a great advantage for postcards; it's a quick and dirty method to do testing in your area.

I normally use letters for more serious issues, as they take more time to compile (i.e. code violations). If I don't have to though, I will normally use postcards as often as possible.

I was kind of surprised to see that prior to Peter's comment there was very little information posted here with relation to Content Management Systems (CMSs).

A CMS would be a great alternative for you if you want to create a website without wanting to learn any coding languages. As stated by Peter, an excellent resource to get started is WordPress. If you are willing to install it on your own using the instructions that anyone could pretty much follow, you can start creating a great looking website in no time at all.

Then again, if you want to create a membership website or something much larger-scale, you might want to take a look at Joomla (www.joomla.org) or Drupal (www.drupal.org). Both are amazing CMSs and have been designed for building large-scale sites. In fact, a lot of large-scale corporations use platforms like Joomla and Drupal.

Best of all, they are both free and come with great communities. If you are just willing to take the time to learn how they work (again, no knowledge of coding languages are required), you could create your own professional looking site.

ReBlackBook has brought up a great point. That is probably the thing I would recommend the most as you will probably get the highest response rates in the quickest amount of time.

Another alternative you might consider is PPC campaigns. While you have the potential of getting highly-targeted traffic using PPC, it can be costly if not done efficiently, meaning you have to constantly view your results and continuously test new things.