All Forum Posts by: Joe Davalos

I've done direct mail in house for the last 3 and a half years. I realize now that was a mistake. I was able to buy 6 or 7 houses a year. If I would have gone through a mailing company I probably would have bought more. Why. Because I had budgeted 1000 mailings a month. Due to time constraints instead of sending 12000 a year I sent 8 to 9 thousand. I know this by the amount of postage I had spent. Also I did 1 and done and hit another area The mailing company might have suggested otherwise. I am now on track to send 6 mailing and then move on to the next I've sent about 1800 a month in June and July. I plan to get that to 3000 by year end I would recommend going with first class postage. That way you get the returned not deliverable mail. Why send 6 mailings to a bad address than 1. Better yet you get to see the mail not being delivered and have a new source of potential leads Once you get the return mail the fun begins. You have potential with a little detective work to find a good address for the seller. You then have a seller getting a few pieces of direct mail a month instead of several. It's not always possible but you won't know unless you try. Sometimes the post office writes vacant on the postcard and or deceased. They at times also have the forwarding address printed on The return label when the forwarding address has expired. All good intel With good leads condensing those leads down based on the distress factors you can then hire a skip tracer for addresses and better yet phone numbers. I read the mailing companies can scrub your list for bad addresses. I recommend against it Those bad addresses can be gold. Will be signing up with a direct mail company myself for my August mailings. Just sent a recommended skip tracer 20 leads I plan to send 200 a month. I have come to realization you got to go the extra mile to make it in this competitive market. Anyway best of luck on your marketing endeavors. Happy mailing.

I hope it works out great since they offer more than just contact information. If I remember right they have a built in CRM    At the end of the day it's how good is the intel. 

I hope it's a hidden gem. Waiting to hear   

I have a third party working on contact info for distressed sellers will let you know as well. 

I had ran across this company about a month ago. I clicked on their request demo link and never received a reply. I figured if they couldn't even do that I didn't want to chance it. I just sent a list yesterday to a well regarded skip tracer. I couldn't say much more since I am waiting on the return list. His quote was reasonable. I honestly think calling beats just about any form of marketing if you can get a good number. I will let you know

Welcome. I learned a lot here in a short time. One of the best things I learned I feel for simplicity and profit sake is the purchase formula. 70 percent of ARV less repairs is max you should offer for buy fix and flip I have seen it mentioned here and heard it a while back on one of San Antonio's premier investors podcast I have bought and sold about 10 houses a year the last 3 years I went back and worked numbers on closed sales after the fact and when I was in the 70 percent range or less and minus repairs on my purchase price I did great. A few times I paid more than 70 percent not so good. I can say this forum has opened my eyes on so much pertaining to real estate investing. It's great Good luck.

You should search skip tracer/tracing on this site. Good information and recommendations. I am about to send a list of distress sellers and have the name and addressed skip traced. I tried the lower tier services and information is bad especially phone numbers. I found the accuracy is about 10 percent for good numbers. I believe you would be better off with a list of highly motivated sellers and get good phone numbers and call them. Less leads with good intel is far better than a lot of leads with mostly bad intel A true skip tracer can help

Get a note deed of trust and a mortgagees or lender policy from the title company. Very important you get lender coverage and verify it is being paid on the HUD. Also make sure buyer obtains insurance and that it covers a vacant property if the property is so. Make sure it also is paid for on HUD and you are listed on the policy as the lender. Unless your friend has a track record of buying and selling you would not want to finance 100 percent Almost forgot if buyer is buying as an entity LLC Corp have an attorney draw up a personal liability agreement. It can be lucrative and much better rates than sitting in the bank. But with higher returns there is more risk.

I have a good contractor but he charges market rates for a licensed and bonded contractor. In other words he is on the high side. His work is excellent though Not to long ago he had to clean up a poorly incomplete job that a fly by night had started for an investor. Lots of work that required permits that were not pulled and wouldn't have passed anyway I use him when I have a really good spread and want to have it turned key so I don't have to manage the job If you want his contact info PM me

Has anyone worked with Belleslink for skip tracing. They say there compliant and aside from Repo Men they cater to real estate investors. They appear to have been around awhile. I have missed a couple of good opportunities recently where I couldn't find the seller only to see on deed records later where they recently sold the property. That investor found the seller where I couldn't. Even though my business qualifies I am really not comfortable using a credit bureau since they prohibit utilizing that data for marketing. I am not judging as everyone has their own risk tolerance The lower tier sites have such outdated and inaccurate information A couple of Sunday's ago I spent 8 hours researching and then calling motivated sellers. I had countless wrong and disconnected numbers. I was able to speak to 4 owners and got a maybe which didn't pan out. I would have rather spoken to an irate seller than reach a disconnected number. I am ready to find a solution. Hopefully someone has worked with this company Belleslink and has had good results. If I decide to take the plunge I will post the results as well once I give them a trial run. Thanks Joe

I believe there are companies that sell the probate list. I pay someone to go to courthouse 2 hours a week and grab the party that submitted the application info and the individual who's will is being probated. That person works for me so it cost me about $40 each time he goes out with hourly wages parking mileage. Parkings only $5 on Friday's maybe Thursday as well. The other days it cost around double. If you haven't been out there and want to know where to go and what to ask for let me know I used to use the commercial recorder. They would only publish the deceased parties name. I would try to locate and send a postcard. I believe they are no longer in publication To bad I was able to buy a few houses last year using the commercial recorder. You can purchase an absentee landlord list on list source. I just purchased my first list. I did notice that some properties were not in the targeted zip code. They charge you by criteria. A word of advise. If you want to target a price point use the improved value field. It is a lot less expensive than the market value field. If you want an equity percentage be sure and pick that equity and also click on unknown. If you click 80 to 100 percent equity only the amount found is next to nothing. I don't think they really know. Sending out 1000 plus post cards next week 700 from list source and 300 of my own list. Either way best of luck to you. Joe D

I was able to purchase 2 REO properties a few years back that the auction site listed as occupied but were vacant. I drove by parked in front looked for signs that property may be vacant. Utilities shut off boarded windows. Sometimes occupants move out right before they are listed for sale

On occupied properties you have to figure worst case. I saw a property that was listed a year before foreclosure on mls. The photos showed a very nice move in ready property. Present day the property is uninhabitable has 40k in repairs needed. The previous owner destroyed and stripped the property on the way out 

In addition if you buy with occupant in place you have to evict. 

I drive by and if occupied I keep driving to much of a risk