All Forum Posts by: Joshua Martin

I'm interested to hear the feedback. I know tons of investors gravitate towards the northwest side of Milwaukee, and the cash flow numbers on single families always look great.

Good luck!

And just start playing around with lists on listsource and listability. You can create them before you buy.

Benjamin Eccles Hey dude, I planned a similar campaign, but I'm using the dollars elsewhere at the moment, or might mail a very small targeted list. Some resources: Michael Quarles generally, or his podcast Direct Mail marketing. You'll find the first episode extremely helpful as he goes over all of the primary and secondary lists you can consider. I'm not sure what are you're looking in, whether it's UWM, Mt Mary, Alverno or what, but depending which you should consider whether that is already an absentee owner list to some degree (like UWM), or whether it's a changing area and might have a lot of owner occupants. The basis of it is that they have to have equity otherwise you can't buy at a discount anyways. Then you'll build in other criteria. Just start doing some research and read all the recent forum posts about lists. I posted one a few weeks ago, Lists, Lists, Lists, only to discover afterward that somebody asks this question every few days and there is a TON of information already on here. Depending on the volume you want to do, there are vendors. Open letter.com or yellowletters.com both seem pretty good and you hear of people's success using them. They have designs and all that, but as the previous poster mentioned, maybe you want to tweak it. But I think it's always better to build off of what's worked for other people Budget is another consideration, and what's holding me up for the moment. You need to send volume, it's a numbers game, and be consistent; that is, mail for six months straight, depending on the type of lead. Say you send, 2000 pieces a month, you could expect to pay, depending on the piece, .50 cents to a dollar, so do the math for six months. And from what everyone says, the only key really, is consistency. So budget for the marathon. Alright, my cig break is over. Best of luck. JTM

Net worth is always assets - debts. So if you own a 100k property with 80k in debt you don't even have a net worth of 100k, you have 20k. When you those properties off in 20 years, maybe.

Update: The plan was to call all the FSBOs in my county today, but I actually only called the first one and thought I had a 'hot lead,' haha, there's such a learning curve here that I 'wasted' half a day doing research and reading about lease options, when I should immediately have QUALIFIED the prospect, and learned right there that it wasn't going to work. He said he'd be receptive to a cash offer (who wouldn't) and that he had taken over the property for his son (I assumed this meant he was motivated). Did my CMA a few hours later, realized the property was way overpriced and if I was going to make a cash offer to wholesale it, that offer would come in about 56k below what he is asking, and even a more creative arrangement wouldn't work because I still don't think he'd go low enough (at this point). In any case, great learning experience. I called him back and just talked to the guy (he went on for about 30 mins), said his rock bottom was 120k (that's the high end of what I think it's worth), and for the moment didn't like the lease option idea. In any case, good exposure and learned several things doing it. Told him I hope he sells the house but I'd follow up in 30 days. Also has a good undisclosed equity position.

@Rick H. Would you just buy that list? Listsource, 40% + equity and 30, 60, 90 day lates? I could door knock. Of course there will be a learning curve but I think I can develop the talent of talking to motivated sellers and building rapport. 

And I already order the bandit signs, but we'll see if the batch does any good. Might take your advice moving forward.

@Doug Pretorius

Thanks for the input Doug and sorry I was unclear. For the moment I'd like to wholesale properties to build up some cash flow and learn the process (i.e. just do some deals), but the plan is to buy and hold. If I can do that creatively at this point I'm all for it. Perhaps that is still a bit unclear, but I'm sort of diving in, seeing what works, and letting the niche come forward.

I'm calling just to call really. That may seem odd, but I figure even if it's not a motivated seller I'm getting good experience talking to sellers and giving them my pitch. 

I don't think I'll do expireds again unless I can find a good way to do it. FSBOs I'm expecting low conversion, but again, all of the exposure is good.

Probates I'd like to wholesale.

Maybe that's still unclear, but, being a rookie, it's the best I got for the moment. I appreciate that 411 tip and will probably use the MLS, although zillow spits me a lot of FSBOs.

Spokeo sucks, don't worry about it ;)

Best,

JTM

Thanks everyone for the input.

@Brendan H.

 I appreciate the insights, and I am logging time of call and outcome. Most of them just say 'no working number.' And I think spokeo just sucks. I looked up myself and my girlfriend and the e-mails we've never had, and the cell phone for me is a variation of my mom's home phone from like 6 years ago. I don't think I'll continue to pay for it but I'll figure something else out.

@Rick H.

As always, thanks for the input. I hope to not end up down and out (as a result of my cheap campaign), but the question is how to strategically place my measly 3k for the best marketing result. Sweat marketing (bandit signs, cards, and flyers) seems like it will play a role in this until I get a deal or two and can ramp up direct marketing (because that's really where I want to be), but I'm torn about the list. If I buy 750-1000 names and mail them for six months, I just don't know if that's enough volume and then I'd be all out of chips.

As far as the motivated sellers, that's what I'm working. The probate campaign (where I'm only going to mail the more clear cut cases, i.e. no attorney as petitioner because I just don't know what the heck is going on there), and I'm digging through the Milwaukee in rem foreclosures to find the best prospects who I will either mail, door knock, and call (probably a combination).

 I'm just going to stay vigilant. Today I'm calling FSBOs. Perhaps not sellers in dire need (who knows), but good practice nonetheless. And I actually have numbers for them off of Zillow!

Thanks guys.

JTM

Hi @Alejandra Corona,

  Welcome to BP, great group around here. I'm actually just wondering how you're finding these properties? You say 'distressed' but are you just knocking even when they might be rentals? 

  I was just reading another post, as well as listened to an old podcast, about knocking on doors for pending foreclosure properties. Here, again, you might very likely upset some people by bringing their problem right to their front door, but people have seemed to have very good success with it when they just get over the fear and do it. 

 I'm working on the list for my market right now, but keep us posted!

Best,

JTM

Hey Gang,

  So my on the cheap marketing campaign is under way. I've ordered 200 bandit signs (should have them in about a week or so), continue to compile my probate list and mail that the first week of September (August leads), but am also looking to incorporate cold calling possible sellers.

I've been at this today for like 6 hours, and have talked to one person on the phone. What I'm doing is going through expired listings on the MLS, finding the owners via the tax assessor's site, and then using spokeo to get numbers. Does spokeo suck? Or is the nature of cold calling that you get very few people on the phone.

  If I could just buy a list of numbers I'd pay happy to just continue calling. Any ideas?

And lastly, for finding FSBO owners do you basically have to pay one of the sites? If so, which one?

Thanks in advance.

Best,

JTM

Of my two mentors, one was a bartender, and the other did maintenance at an apartment complex. Point is, you can make it work no matter what your circumstances.

@Rick H.

Hey Rick,

  One more follow up question if you'd be so kind: do you market to 'petitioners' or just PRs? I need to do a little more legal research, but as far as I can tell they don't actually have the authority to sell the property? Though they're probably in the loop with what's going on with it. 

  Trying to work out kinks.

Thanks.

JTM