All Forum Posts by: Jeff Rappaport

@Korbin Smoot, There are  a lot of ways to generate leads.  I assume you are looking at finding houses that have a lot of equity that you can buy cheap and then pass on to a rehabber.  If that is true it is best to market to the owners that have high equity.  Even though direct mail is highly competitive it is always a great source of leads since you can really target the type of homeowner that will fit your criteria.  Absentee owners with high equity, code violations, tax delinquents, divorce, probate and inherited are just some of the more popular lists to go after.  Any type of list that may show motivation is what you are after.   Direct mail will typically do better with an older demographic such as owners 55+ and older.  Using some form of online advertising such as google adwords, SEO or social media will usually attract a younger demographic.  Both of these methods work well but will cost you some money to implement.  

If you are on a tight budget I like to implement driving for distressed and vacant houses or referrals.  The distressed and vacant houses are much like the absentee owner list but you will actually track down the owner with mail, a phone call or talk to them in person.  

A couple of other suggestions:  First, do you have a good buyers list.  If your deal is really good it is not hard to find a quick buyer but if it is mediocre the better your buyers list the more likely you will get it sold.  Second, are you comfortable prescreening a seller on the phone and gathering the necessary info you need to make a good offer?  For some reason, most investors think that the prescreening step is get on the phone and just wing it.  Make sure you know what info you need and how to ask it to get the most forthright answers from your seller.  Third, make offers to all the prospects you generate.  Even if one of those offers is to list their property for them.  You will certainly come across many sellers that want full retail price for their property and will only take cash.  These are perfect for you to get a listing.  

I have rambled on long enough.  Hope that gives you some direction.  If you need anything else just pm me and we can discuss more in detail.

@Kristi Harmon REO properties will all be on the MLS and will be listed by a realtor. The websites you can go to see some of them will be Hudhomestore.com and Hubzu.com. There are certainly some deals you can get that are REOs but the main supply of the cheaper deals will be off market properties or properties not listed on the MLS. You can find these properties in different ways: Direct mail to absentee owners with high equity, code violations, probate, inherited, divorce, vacant and distressed properties. Some of these you can buy a list for and others you may need to do a little work to get. Vacant and distressed homes can be found by driving neighborhoods. You can also use bandit signs, door hangers, online advertising, google adwords, SEO etc. I just sold a property in Sandy for $135K and three properties in Ogden for $55K each. The cheap deals are out there! Let me know if I can help you!

@Korbin Smoot Direct mail response rates vary depending on your list and your message.  I would also agree with @Steve Bracero that it is not enough to hit a list one time.  Studies have shown that your response rate will increase significantly between the 5th and 8th time you have hit a prospect. 

In the areas you mentioned you can expect about a third to one half of one percent response rate.  So for every 300 postcards you will get a call or two.  Out of these responses I would say at least a third to half of them will be prospects that ask you to take them off of your list.  As far as conversion rate (leads to deals) that really depends a lot on you.   If you are looking strictly for properties that you can buy cheap and either wholesale or rehab then your conversion rate will probably be lower. It may take 15-25 leads to generate a deal.   These are the most competitive leads right now and you may be bidding on properties with multiple other investors.  If you are more of a transactional engineer and can structure different type of offers to prospects you will get a much higher conversion rate.  Furthermore, you can target a different demographic that is not getting bombarded with direct mail and other solicitations.   Much of the conversion rate is structuring and negotiating a deal and how good you are at creating rapport with your prospect.  Another key aspect of conversion rate is your follow up!  Do not forget this step or you will be losing out on 70% of your business.  A good follow up campaign will increase your conversion rate and make you a lot more money in this business!

@Alan Walker, @Vini Joseph, @Jacob Oakeson, @Cody Tanner, Not sure what is wrong with the PM. I am getting other messages. The Utah REIA meeting is tomorrow night (Tuesday, July 26) at 6:30 pm at the Apartment Association in Murray. The address is 448 E. Winchester St. Suite 460. I have an expert panel to answer your questions. The BP Meetup is August 4th at The Huddle (2400 E. Fort Union Blvd) in Cottonwood Heights at 6:30 pm. Strictly networking with othere investors. The Wholesale Meetup is August 11th at Thai Siam in Draper at 7:00 pm. First time attendees to the Utah REIA are free and the other two are always free. I hope to see you of all you at one or all of these events.

@Zane Kilpatrick,

What kind of deals are you looking for?  Something to wholesale? Buy and hold?  Rehab?  Some of the criteria I have used in the past on Listsource include:

County/City/zip code

Absentee owners/Owner occupied

Single family residences, duplex, triplex and quad

Equity - 5%-100% or Loan to value - 0-95%

Last sale date - 1900-2006 sometimes I go longer if I am targeting a different group.

Demographic - 45 and older or 55 and older

Include trusts 

Obviously you can create a number of different type of lists.  I like playing around with them a little and test different lists.  Are you aware of the zip code list?  When you have put your criteria in you can go to purchase list and then custom/partial list/zip codes.  Listsource will break down the amount of leads in each zip code for you.  You can actually email that list to yourself on an excel spreadsheet.  This is great to determine which zip codes you want to work in.  Some of the zip codes may be fairly small so you may want to disregard them.  You can also do this for cash buyers and create a spreadsheet of the zip codes of the most cash buyers over the last 6 months.  You don't get charged for doing this so always do it before you checkout.  Hope that helps!

@Vini Joseph, there are no courses to buy!  Nothing is pitched at these events.  I am not sure why you can't private messsage me.  I will message you and see if that works.  @Jacob Oakeson just pm me and I will send you some info about the different meetings you can attend in the SL valley. We have a great event coming up on Tuesday, July 26th through the Utah REIA. We are holding an expert panel with experienced rehabbers, wholesalers, buy and holds etc. You will get a chance to hear their stories and what is working best for them now and what they would do differently if they were starting over! It will be a great opportunity!

Thanks @Joe Au for the positive feedback!  Hope you enjoyed the Wholesale Meet-up presentation.  @Cody Tanner and @Vini Joseph there are a ton of groups you can be apart of throughout Utah. There are the three major REIA groups - Utah, Salt Lake and Utah Valley. All of them have a monthly meetings with a presenter. They all also have various luncheons throughout the month that are free to all investors. The Utah REIA meets next Tuesday night and I have an expert panel of flippers, wholesalers, buy and hold and joint venture partners scheduled to tell all of what is working for them now and how to make it in a tough market. You won't want to miss it! I hold a BP Meet-up the first Thursday of the month and a Wholesale Meet-up the second Thursday of the month. Both are free and everyone is welcome. If you want more info just PM me and I will be happy to get you everything you need! For new investors just starting out there is nothing better than building your investor network. Hope to see you there!

@Justin Hammond, I think you are wasting your time going the legal route.  I had a deal back in 2004 that was cut and dry.  It took 5 years to resolve!  My suggestion to you is find out what has happened that changed the sellers mind.  Do they want more money?  Do they not feel comfortable working with you?  Did the seller get a better offer from someone else?  Whatever is the issue is figure it out and try to solve it!  I want the seller of every property I buy to give me a written or video testimonial of how much he/she loved working with me!  Keep that in mind when you go back and try to solve the problem.  I know how frustrating it is to have a great deal under contract just to have it all pulled out from underneath you.  However, as real estate investors we are in the problem solving business.  We are in the people business.  Use those skills to work out a win/win for everyone!

@Eldon Gomez, I applaud your initiative!  You have actually come up with an action plan.  I am not sure why you want to take out the Corporations and LLCs.  Yes, they are probably investors of some sort but they are still 2+ years behind on their property taxes.  Contrary to popular belief there are many investors that own properties that have problems.  The only other question I have is the time frame you plan on getting through all of these mailings with your limited budget.  If you are going to mail 500 per month (not sure if that was the plan) it will take you 5 months to get through your list.  If you then are going to follow up 5 more times you will only hit this list twice (some 3x) within a year.  In my experience you will want to get a new list 12 months from now and scrub that list.  You will have owners pay up their taxes and the new list will allow you to add the 2015 tax delinquents as well.  I think the ideal situation would be to hit this list 3-4 times within the year.  Now, that might not be possible based on your financial situation.  

As far as bandit signs go, I am not a big fan!  You could get a deal or so from it every once in awhile but the results are not what it used to be.  You will also deal with code enforcement as it has become a problem all over SL County.  

This is what I would recommend for someone starting out with limited funds to spend on marketing.  I would focus on some of the things you can do with your time rather than with money.  Track garage sales.  Go to them or do a little research on the sales in your area and find out if they are also the owner of the property.  Many people have a garage sale before putting there house up for sale.  Mail to them or go and inquire at the garage sale.  Look for estate sales as well.  

I love vacant houses.  That is one of my favorite methods right now.  You can drive neighborhoods and find the distressed vacant houses.  Leave a note at the house, talk to the neighbors about the situation and look them up on the County Recorder.  You can then try to track down the owner by mail, phone or new residence.  If skip tracing is out of the question then use Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other free resources availabe to you to find the owner.  

Call FSBOs and make them an offer.  You should be able to make at least 5 offers per day.  If you did that consistently you would have a lot of offers out there.  Even in hot markets there are some deals to be found through FSBOs.  

Focus on building a buyers list.  Attend the various REIAs and Meetups and find out who is looking for rehabs and buy and holds.  Find out specifically what they are looking for.  As this list grows go to other wholesalers and see if they need buyers for any of their properties.  If you actually start performing well for these wholesalers they will start bringing you deals.  You won't have to find deals.  Just put the deals together with your buyers.  No risk and very little if any money out of your pocket.  I just did this last weekend and made a pretty good $$ for having a strong buyers list.  

The last suggestion I will give you is partner up with someone with more money, experience or knowledge than you have.  Maybe it is not a partnership but a mentorship.  Maybe it is someone in a similar situation as you are in but you can combine your resources.   Maybe it is someone that has money but no time to spend on finding the deals and putting them together.  There are a number of ways to make money in real estate.  The more you know and the better networks you have the more money you will be able to make.  Exhaust every avenue and take massive action!

If I can be of any other help to you PM and we can chat.  

@Quintessa Haynes, @Randy Quaccoo,@Austin Faux, @Larry N., @Nick Boullion, @Gabriel Amedee, @Brian Wheeler, really appreciate that I could be of help!  I love being able to motivate people!  If any of you have additional questions or I can help you please pm me.  Wish you all the best of luck!