All Forum Posts by: Jeff Rappaport

@Justin Pierce, I can help you with a Title Company in the SL area.  He will do a Contract for Deed but will not be as excited to do Subject to.  PM me and I will give you the contact info.  

Don't miss this week's Wholesale Meetup! One of the crucial parts to building a Wholesale business is your buyers list. This week we will cover how to build this list and do it the LEGAL way! There are many illegal ways to build this list and we don't want you to be in trouble with the Division of Real Estate or end up in a courtroom looking at more fines than you can afford to pay!
 When: Thursday, August 11th
Where: Thai Siam (12147 S. Factory Outlet Dr. Draper)
Time: 7:00 pm
Cost: Free (order some dinner while you are there - dinner is extra)
Investors of all experience are welcome!

@Matt Gaines, @Jay P., @Lance Card, Sorry guys, the duplex was sold within a couple of days! However, if you are looking for buy and holds with owner financing in either Utah or Idaho PM me and I will get you some other properties. I consistently find multi - family (duplex - 44 units) with owner financing and great cap rates and ROI. Most have little to no vacancy and varying degrees of deferred maintenance. I need buyers that can move quickly and either have their own cash or hard or private money. If this is something you can do we should discuss more in detail. Thanks!

@Mitchell Standing, @Bryson Pennock, The meetup is tonight beginning at 6:30 pm.  If you would like a monthly reminder of the different meetups PM me with your email and I would be happy to get you a reminder.  Hope to see you tonight or sometime in the near future!

@Brian Smith, Direct mail is definitely a constant test and re-test type of marketing.  Based on your post it looks like you are looking for buy and hold or something you can rehab.  Are you mailing to owner occupants or absentee owners?  If you are looking for rehabs on this list your 30% equity filter may not be enough.  On your first mailing you received 12 calls which is over a 2% response rate.  What has happened with those leads?  A 2% response rate is not bad at all!  The question is what type of leads did you receive and how good are you at converting those leads to deals.  Conversion rate is crucial!  The second mailing also netted close to a 2% response rate on a very small sample size.  

Here are some things to consider:

First, your message.  What is your message you are sending in your letter?  Are you listing the benefits of what you can do for that seller?  Do you have a Unique Selling Proposition?  Do you have a call for urgency?  Are the letters personalized with the name of the seller and the address of the property you are interested in?  I am not a big fan of a typed business letter for marketing especially on the first hit.  You may want to try a postcard for the first hit and then follow up with a yellow letter or business type letter.  This will allow you to test your list for considerably less money.  

Second, your sample size is small so there is no way to tell this early how well this marketing campaign may work.  If you were to find one deal out of this marketing campaign it would be considered a success based on how much you are spending compared to the deal.  I think if you polled many real estate investors around the country they would be happy to spend $1,000-$1,500 per deal.  In some areas it may be more like $1,500-$2,500 per deal or even more.  It is very competitive in most markets right now and many investors are sending direct mail to the same lists.  How do you stand out compared to your competition?

Third, what do you do when your calls come in?  Are you answering live or does it go to voicemail?  If you are not answering live how quickly are you getting back to the seller?  Based on the competitiveness of many of the real estate markets you should be answering every call live or calling them back within 5 minutes of their call.  Are you prescreening your prospects correctly?  Are you making offers to all of your leads?  All of these will help in your conversion rates.  Remember, if you get one deal from this campaign you are doing well!

The last thing I would have you keep in mind is that you will typically get your best response rate after you have hit a prospect 5-8 times.  Consistency does matter and it pays off!  

@Scott Petersen, The BP meetup is always the first Thursday of the month and other meetups (Wholesale and Utah REIA) I am involved with are on the second Thursday and the fourth Tuesday of the month. They all are recurring every month.

Have been doing this group for 8 or so months now and it is truly unique!  Great place to network with other investors!  On any given month, you will find lenders, attorneys, buyers, wholesalers and just about every type of investor imaginable.  Everyone is there for the same reason - to build their investor networks!  Networking certainly leads to success in this business!  Come join us this Thursday, August 4th at The Huddle in Cottonwood Heights (2400 E. Ft Union Blvd) for another great networking meeting.  You never know if you might meet and what opportunities will present themselves!

@Cody Tanner, yes they were all wholesale deals.  Typically, wholesalers are not looking to work with buyers who need to get conventional financing.  Conventional financing takes too long (usually wholesalers have a quick time frame to close) and if the wholesaler is assigning the contract then it will not be possible for them to get paid.  The best way to deal with this is line up hard or private money and be able to pay cash quickly for the property and then turn around and refinance it.  Check with your conventional lender about how long they would like you to be on title (seasoning) before they will refinance the property.  

@Brady Lee, what works best in terms of driving for dollars is fairly simple.  Find properties that are distressed or vacant or both and find a way to track down the seller and communicate your intentions.  You can do this in a number of ways:  Leave something at the house, talk to neighbors, mail to them, go see them at their current residence, call them on the phone or skip trace them.  All of these are ways to either track down where the seller is or to find a way to communicate with the seller.  Once you have found the seller just tell them you are a local investor looking to buy another property in that neighborhood and would be interested in buying their property.   The real keys to driving for dollars is to be persistent, consistent and follow up!  Get organized so you are not driving the same neighborhoods all the time.  Map things out for yourself.  Make a plan for yourself so you are bringing in new leads every week.   Figure out what you want to do to track down the seller and get some kind of message to them - letter, postcard, phone call, email or visit in person.   You may want to have multiple ways of getting messages to them.  Then do not forget about the follow up!  If the seller is not ready to sell at this point you must continue to follow up.  You will find that the majority of your business will come from this follow up.  

@Colin Jennings All three properties have been sold!