All Forum Posts by: Kenneth E.

I havent done it. I partner with a 20-year wholesaling veteran who already hsa his buyers list built. I find sellers and he brings the buyers and we split the profit 50/50. In the beginning I was like all other newbies and wondered how to advertise to potential buyers....and came upon this idea. It was clever but was hidden deep in the forums at BP so I brought it back up for anyone else who is looking to find buyers. (Hint: they may already have them on their lists!)

But, in the end it is only one of many ways to build a buyers list. It jumped out at me because I had the list sitting right in front of me but never realized there are potential buyers already on it (absentee owners who bought other local properties recently likely are investors and likely have money to close deals..........and may be likely to buy more).

I got started with about $1,600 before closing my first two deals. That included buying leads, envelopes, paper, stamps, post cards (click2mail), ink for printer, mailbox at UPS store (didn’t want to use my real address), simple website and sending mailers to about 1200 addresses….mailing to some once and others twice (I was new and was testing the waters). I have a good salary and could play around a bit with the costs but you could do it for less than what I spent. One local guy bought 30 bandit signs and got a hit from one of them which made him $3k right off the bat. Not too bad.

Caveat: I partnered with a local wholesaler who already had his buyers list built, so I found the sellers while he found the buyers and we split the profit 50/50. So, there may be additional costs associated with building a buyers list that I didn’t have to deal with.

The biggest lessons I had to learn when starting were: 1. Wholesaling is a lot of work and 2. The payoffs can take time (you might get something under contract, then 6 weeks later find a buyer, then 3 months (due to lien issues) later close on it.... so it could take months and months before you see any profit, if the deal doesnt fall through somehow.

Hi Dan. I sent you a PM.

Hi Dan. Welcome to BP!
Check out this discussion we had on useful sites for Pittsburgh investors. http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/517/topics/76838-useful-sites-for-pittsburgh-investors
Hope it helps.

Good luck, Hart. Honestly, my best responses came from doubling up items on this list. Rather than just sending mailers to, say, tax delinquent owners, mix it up and send to the tax delinquent owners who are ALSO absentee. Or, send to anyone who has owned for 30 years or more AND who also has numerous properties they may want to get rid of. You should get a pretty sweet response from doing that.

One of the best suggestions I ever heard of, I learned right here on BP. Ready? Here it is.

If u are lucky enough to be able to get your local assessment data in spreadsheet format (purchased from your courthouse), sort the list by where the owner lives, and delete all those who live in the same state. That is, keep only those properties where the owner lives out of state. Now, your entire list contains absentee owners. Now, sort the columns by the year the houses were purchased. Anyone who purchased more than seven years ago are the ones you send ("we buy houses") mailers to -----this is your SELLERS list. Now, take the owners who have purchased in the last two years and send them ("we sell discounted properties") mailers . This is your BUYERS list. Remember, since they live out of state but purchased in the last two years, they are most likely investors who may be actively buying.

That's it! It's a simple way to find buyers AND sellers from one list!

Good luck!

Glad you guys like it. Only one or two of them were my ideas. All the others were taken from other websites, a couple of wholesaling ebooks (one of which can be downloaded from right here on BP) and, of course, BP itself. I never really intended to share them, so the individual sources aren't being (fairly) cited....because I never kept track of where each one came from.

I have never heard if these sites, guys; can you explain the services, as opposed to doing simple direct deposit. I'm curious. Thanks.

Im glad you are selling the audio, Josh. I have listened to three of the presentations already and my only complaint is that they are all TOO SHORT. Great stuff!

Glad you like it, Josh.

When I read about TIGER 21 the first time it sounded like a great idea that I would participate in locally—on a smaller scale, of course. But, I realized BP is already the place to go since its chock full of experienced investors, but another more advanced group could be creating from the ranks of BP. It could be a virtual group spread out across the country, which is great.

Honestly, I am just getting started in my own investing, but I am proposing this idea for selfish reasons—I would love to belong to such a group down the road (I fully recognize that I wouldn’t meet any entrance requirements for a while).

Really, the BP forums already exist for information sharing and learning from each other, but the forums are populated with a large number of casual pedestrians, and with popularity soaring, the forums are getting bombarded with a number of questions which some of the more advanced members may find a bit elementary (and possibly drive away these experienced investors). Plus, the number of questions being posed at any one time pushes other questions down the list before anyone can respond—potentially preventing the question from being answered.

I figure it would take a lot of work to build and maintain such a group, but the possible advantages are endless. By allowing members into the group who have particular areas of expertise (finance, taxes, etc…. as long as they all own investment real estate) the group could be positioned to be a HUGE asset to its members. Camaraderie, support, encouragement, partnerships, and stimulating discussions, would be incredible.

Maybe you could even, as a special perk, allow the members to attend BP Summits via teleconference.... in case travel isnt a possiblity. Or, just offer that to everyone anyway. :)