All Forum Posts by: Cass R. Smith

I met a seller Saturday who owns a vacant house sitting in a excellent neighborhood.  I saw the house about 3 months ago and sent him a yellow letter.  We've talked on the phone about 5 times but our schedules never lined up to see the property.  He is about 2 hours away from the property.   We met and he told me he's an investor...a pretty successful investor at that.   He has one of the most diverse portfolio I've come across..  I was honest and up front with him on a lot about the house and the reasoning behind my offer.

He told me he gets postcards all the time but decided to meet me because I was pretty consist with him and was never pushy.  I always kept a good rapport with him.  He told me someone offered him 75k for the house and he flat out cut the visit short because he really knows he has a good house.   He said he'd be leaving too much meat on the bone selling it for 75k.

The house needs about 15-20k in work and homes in the area go for 158k-178k.   

He told me he could stay in the house for 2 weeks and knock out the work with his team (he owns a contracting company) and put the house on the market for retail.  His only reserve was he'd actually loose about 15k during those 2 weeks if he pulled his team away from the commercial jobs he has them on.  

He said to me "Why don't you buy the house and renovate it and put it up for sale?"  I've only been wholesaling for 4 months but I didn't want to tell him that...so I told him it was more so a capital thing for me which holds me back.  He then says well how about this.  If you tell me what you were looking to make from passing it off to a buyer I'll double that.  Only condition is we do a contract between us.  I'll put up the money for the renovation cost but you oversee everything like the general contractor and as if it was your flip.  I don't cut corners so things have to be to my liking.  You GM the job and then we put it on the market and I pay you a % of what it sells for.  

He looks and says I know you'd make more money doing that versus passing it off right?  

Has anything similar ever happened to anyone before?  If so what was the outcome? Would you take him up on his offer? 

BTW my offer was 85k  

I use to pull them down during the week but then I thought about the fact that some people may not do much on the weekends because of working all week.  That's when I started leaving them out .  I've had signs that stay in some spots for weeks and some spots I've put signs up and they were removed within a day or two.  Hope that helps @Account Closed 

I think the one people use most is TRL..or something of the sorts..just use the search field on the site and you should see something. 

Some free options I"ve tried that work is to still mail your yellow letter to that address and put "please forward" under your return address and if the post office has a forwarded address for the owner they'll forward it to the new address.  I've also had luck just doing a google search on the seller or using white pages.com.....sometimes white pages will have the same address but often they give a phone number in which you can just call them and save that time and letter cost.  Try those first then go to skip tracing.  Good Luck with everything!  @Iverem Rose 

@Jade Davis 

@Jason Farmer does have a good point but I really think different things work in different markets.  I think its up to the investor to look at what works for their market and tweak and adjust until they find something that works best. 

I'm usually able to gauge from my intial contact with sellers the level of professionalism that may be required.  I have had sellers I met with just khaki's and a polo shirt on and no contract in hand (it was in my truck) and I've met sellers and made sure they had my buinsess card and my website information.  That's just the angle I approach it with.  I like to be prepared and make the seller feel like they FULLY understand how the process is going to work.  Ive even had some sellers who think email addresses are the same thing as websites so giving them a professional pamphlet with my company history and website propbaly wont get read thorougly but they remember my yellow letter they put in their kitchen drawer weeks ago.  All good answers though

@Jade Davis  I've placed Andes mints in a batch of yellow letters and seemed to get a good response.  I know the shape of the mint in the envelope made them open the letter.   

and I even agree with @Senay Baraki he was pretty saying he takes action and doesn't let something like pamphlets or brochures etc be the reason why he'll put off going to see a seller who contacted him wanting to sell their property as soon as possible. 

@Account Closed told me what he does and I started with 25 signs a week and I've gotten more leads from those than anything thus far.  My second deal actually came from a bandit sign from a seller who desperately needed to sell because he moved into a new home.  It just worked out good and it was no back and forth.  I put signs at intersections, highway off and on ramps, Walmart , and near Wawa gas stations (not sure if either are in your areas) but they get a lot of traffic from all types of sellers. 

Thanks! Your market does seem like a challenge...just get creative.  Good luck in 2015.  @Tony K. 

Hey @Goldy R. 

diid you ever get any clarification on the area?  I'm looking to wholesale a deal in the area maybe If i think i can unload it.  I'm in Richmond about 40 minutes away but havent invested in the area.

I've been serious since Septemeber 2014...focused and setting 10x goals since end of October/November and I'll close on 2 deals the week of 12/15.   2015 I'm looking into invest in proven systems and outsourcing some DM and bandit sign task so I can focus on scaling up.  There seems to be no omnipresent in my local area and I plan to change that or at the very least have a mutual relationship with the person who does most most of the wholesaling in my area.  I"m also getting a lot of calls from landlords looking to liquidate and retire so I'm stepping onto more turnkey properties and wholesale bundle packages.  Super excited for this!    I wish everyone wealth! and REALLY recomend Grant Cardone's book The 10X Rule.   It pushed me and made me realize I was limiting myself tremendously.

@Casey Cuppy Thanks!!