All Forum Posts by: John Horner

Agreed Yellow Letters Are overrated. I was about 10%-12% response rate on yellow letters but spinning my wheels because of all the tire kickers. I recently moved to yellow mail-merged postcard with a similar message and received almost 3% response but much more motivated.

People call yellow letters out of curiosity, it is not often you get hand written mail these days. They call postcards more out of motivation.

If it's a good deal it honestly shouldn't matter. The biggest thing is to make sure they have it in contract. If you are paying them assignment fees without them having the property in contract, you would both be in violation of RE Laws. Make sure you're lawyer looks over all contracts so their mistakes don't transfer to you.

If you just want to know more about them I would ask what areas of town they have experience in, how often they wholesale deals, what percentage of discount do they pass on to their buyers, etc.

This should give you an idea of how experienced they are.

Isaiah, I would try to get as many marketing channels up and running as possible. You can create a website with a form at Wix.com for $24 or so. Create a couple PPC campaigns with Google adwords for $5-$20/day and see what hits. My personal fav is Direct Mail because you can choose exactly who you are targeting. Then of course Craigslist ads, benefit is they are free, downside is the same as Bandits, you can't control who you contact, and usually it's the worst house in the worst block asking double what it's worth.

It takes time to get a steady flow of leads in, but hang in there. It took me 2 months to get my first deal after I started marketing, and about 5 months to get consistent leads coming in from all of my channels.

@Justin B. , sorry I didn't go into detail. We aren't investing the war zones. I am talking B to C neighborhoods, working class.

We find deals weekly with much higher returns, but we choose not to invest in those areas.

Hope this helps!

In Columbus, Ohio $800k would buy you 20 SFH, 3bed/1bath renting at about $800/month each.

Bringing in $16,000 in monthly rents.

You will lose ALL respect from your buyers if you ask them if they are interested in a property that is listed by someone else.

Answer all your own calls or send to voicemail and call back every missed call. This is the most uncomfortable part starting out but you will learn the most doing it yourself.

You're going to be nervous and stumble over your words at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets!

Good Luck!

It's pretty simple to create a spreadsheet yourself. You can start basic to get a grasp a grasp on evaluation. As you get better you can add more detailed information.

I do know some agents who also wholesale, and I know that they have to put specific verbiage in their contracts that states they ARE agents, but in this circumstance NOT ACTING AS AN AGENT.

@Michele Jackson-Wilson , not sure what "most contracts" means? As a wholesaler, I use my own contract which has multiple out clauses. I could see non-assignability in a Licensed Realtor Purchase Contract or something, but typically we wouldn't use those. If you have to work with an agent, which just from experience I would not suggest doing, you can maybe write an addendum to allow it.

As for "what do you tell them", the seller is usually distressed enough not to care that there is an assignment fee in the HUD. The buyer would typically know that you are wholesaling and they shouldn't care if they are still getting good deal. There is also an option to do a "double closing" in states that allow "dry closings". This means that you actually buy the property, just for a moment, with the buyers money, then you sell it to them instantaneously. If the assignment fee is high enough that you think it will make the seller or buyer uncomfortable (typically anything over $5k) , I would use a double closing. A double closing makes your invisible to the seller and buyer.