All Forum Posts by: Justin Silverio

@Jarrell Holmes I prefer to use a sequence of handwritten letters and professional letters that work together like a conversation with your prospects.  The trick with DM is that you need to have a quality lead list.  Without that, your results will likely be bad to mediocre.  Once you have a good lead list, test different methods or, if you want to be hands off, talk to a DM provider that can offer campaigns that are proven to work.  In any case, understand that it will take time to get results - about 4-6 months after mailing the same prospects.  I mail people until they tell me to take them off their list or they sell their house.  The last couple of deals have been from people I've mailed for 1+ years.

I hope that helps.

One Week Away!

keywords: massachusetts, new hampshire, boston, networking

@Account Closed I believe a guideline is valuable when starting out because it will identify the topics and basic flow of how you should gather information.  However, when you talk to sellers, it's critical that you don't try to follow the guideline line by line as you will sound too robotic.  Every conversation will develop it's own pattern.  You want to be sure you engage each person as a fluid conversation while keeping the items that you need to gather in mind.  I'm happy to share the guideline that I used, just shoot me a PM.

@Nick Zocher no, I can't pull tax delinquent properties but can for other lists.  What I would recommend for tax delinquents is by emailing the town/city treasury department for the list.  If you look up FOIA public record request, you will find an email template of what to send to them.

I'm a big proponent of direct mail but for it to be very effective, you need to start with a good list.  In my opinion, an OOS absentee list is not a good list.  The reason is that everyone is mailing to them.  However, if you put together a quality list (i.e., driving for dollars, tax liens, small niche lists, etc.) then I would recommend DM over google Adwords.

I'm not sure if you have experience with Google Adwords but it takes some know how to accurately identify good keywords, figure out a PPC amount, and then manage the account so you are putting money into the right keywords and off of the keywords that are not performing.  If you don't have this skill, then you have to pay someone to create and manage Adwords, which means you are not spending money on actual marketing.  With DM, it would require more upfront time than money and the full $1,000 could go toward marketing.  Also, if you focus on sending out unique looking mailers (not the mailers everyone else is using), then you will have a higher likelihood of success.  Also, I've been buying a lot of properties from older people who don't go online much.  Therefore, I wouldn't have purchased the homes if I solely did Google Adwords.

I hope this helps.

@Trevon Peracca I personally switch between handwritten letters and professional letters.  I think you come across more professionally than you do with postcards, you're able to brand yourself better and the response rates are higher.  Also, I don't use yellow letters because so many other are using them and you don't stand out.  Using a more creative mailers should yield a better response rate.

Given all things equal, I believe you would have better results in an emerging market. 

@Jeff B. - I'm not sure if you have personal experience doing either but I can tell you that wholesaling & DM work really well when done correctly. Assuming all things equal, I believe a good wholesaler can be just as successful and is just as valid as a good B&H investor. With regards to DM, I would argue that the ROI is exceptionally high but you have to treat it like an important business segment and not as a secondary business activity.

@Joseph Ziolkowski I wouldn't market in Wisconsin.  It takes time to build momentum with DM and you'd be leaving as soon as you do that.  If you know the areas you want to buy in PA, then consider marketing there and reaching out to people as @Charlie John mentioned.  I purchase 90% of my deals off DM and I'm in a very competitive market.  Everyone has their own experience and you should find out what works best for you.  Also, don't let people deter you from wholesaling.  If this is the strategy that you want to go with, then pursue it.  I develop, rehab and wholesale in my area and my $/HR returns are much bigger on the wholesale side in this market.  Because my market is competitive, other investors are willing to pay more.  This gives me the flexibility to rehab and make $80k (and take on risk) or wholesale for $40k (and take on no risk but my deposit - which is usually $10).  I'd wholesale all day because my time invested in the deal would be <10 hours, vs. a rehab that would be >100 hours.

Looking forward to seeing you guys there.  Hope you can make it next time Cliff.