All Forum Posts by: Kenneth E.

Hey gang, some time ago I recall seeing someone here on BP who has a business specializing in only buying 4-units (quads). Is there anyone who does this (forTriplexes as well)? I would be curious to see a business plan for such a business. Just curious. Thanks!

Go Hawks. Im an Iowan as well. Muscatine. Moved to Pittsburgh four years ago as a work transfer. Anyway, welcome to BP!

This is an interesting topic which has been discussed on here before. Some folks get pretty scientific about their approach to mailers, while others will say it doesn’t matter whether the letter is handwritten or not—a motivated seller is a motivated seller and will call regardless of the size, font, message, etc. Others will say the message is most important, so don’t worry about delivery. Others will say a combination of letters and post card follow-ups are the way to go. Some will say to send mailers to the same people 3 different times, others will say 7 times. Opinions vary.
The only real question that most agree on is that hand-written (envelopes/letters) seems to work well for all, however. But, who has the time? Not me. But, like Michael says: its about the quality of your leads not the quantity. Response rate due to handwritten envelopes doesn’t mean anything if the leads aren’t really motivated to sell in the first place. I once had a 19% response rate from a batch of 250 mailers….but only ended up with one measly $400 from a deal after some hidden costs surfaced during closing. None of the others panned out. So that 19% didn’t mean much of anything.
Here are some pointers I use (most of which I got from BP forums):
I use party/invitation envelopes, sometimes colored. They are (almost) square in shape. (People always want to open party invites!)
Send them out at the end of the week so they get to the targeted seller on Saturday (during the week most people sort their mail over the trashcan during their daily routine, while most folks spend a bit more time going through their mail on Saturdays).
Leave your NAME off the return address on the envelope. (A local address is good, but leave your name off. It makes people curious who sent the letter and causes them to open it up to see who sent it.)
Put stamps on the envelope yourself, turning them slightly. (make them a little crooked so people know they were placed by a person and not some stamper at the post office)
Send postcards through click2mail. It’s a wing of the postal service and they give you bulk mailing rates regardless of how many you ship.
If you don’t have anyone to answer when people call and they must leave messages…make sure to save the mean ones people leave about how you should leave them alone, stop sending them junk mail, etc. These can be funny and I tend to listen to them for a giggle from time to time during a ‘rainy day.’
One of the funniest things I ever heard of was one guy who was getting started wholesaling and didn’t have much money to get started. So, he put together a bunch of mailers in envelopes and put every person’s name and address as the RETURN address. He addressed the envelope to HIMSELF. He didn’t put stamps on them and dropped them into the post office box. The postal service returned the mailers to the “sender” because there was no postage. He was able to ‘mail’ all of them without paying a dime in postage. I don’t condone this immoral, illegal activity but it gave me a chuckle because some folks run some very shady operations.
Anyways, good luck.

So has anyone successfully used money360.com to fund their deals? Are thier lenders looking to fund flips (purchase, fees, and rehabs costs)? Or, is it just mortgages? Thanks.

Ha. funny Stuff. You guys might want to check out this section of craigslist for the "best of": http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/

Here is my Favorite on a room to rent:

$550 HOLY CRAP! IS THAT A ROOM FOR RENT ON MY CRAIGSLIST?!?!?!?! (North of Del Paso)

You bet your nomadic *** it is? You don't want to be homeless? Then you better come check this room for rent out. It has WALLS and a CEILING. BLOCKS THE FUC*IN WIND AND RAIN FOOL!

ZOMG THE LOCATION IS THE SH*T. You can WALK to the Natomas shopping center from here. SO you can get your drink on and do some mackin playa. 10 minutes from Downtown, 12 miles from CSUS cause we all about higher education up in here. You could hit the 80 with a ROCK. But don't. We keep it civilized.

We got carpet up in this hoe too. They wanted to come put in hard wood floors. But i was like FU*K THAT. I don't want my feet to be cold when I get out of bed at night. Carpet. So soft. Tracends the walking barefoot experience.

Man the room... You can put your bed and furniture UP IN HERE!!!! So you can sleep, chill, even EAT. You got a private bedroom! We ain't bunk bedding out this motherfu*ker.

AWWW. ****. BATHROOM PRIVACY!!!!! WTF?!?!?! YUH. You can shower and take a sh*t w/o anyone being up in your business!!! I'm not ********tin either... I'm talking HOT WATER IN THE SHOWER.

We got ELECTRICITY. POWER ALL YOUR APPLIANCES. Play my XBox360 because I never do. No need for candles or firewood, because I got LIGHTS and HEAT.

-this pad has doors so people don't come up in yo space son
-this place has windows so you can see outside and sh*t. WHATSUP NEIGHBORS!
-soccer fields, garage, park in the back, gym's close so you can get swoll.

So email me. - Your bad *** new roommate.

Hi all. I am gearing up to get back into wholesaling heavily, but with the addition of a new daughter, I don’t have time to answer all the calls anymore. Basically, on my mailers, I have a website and a or a local number (google voice) they can call. The website has a questionnaire they complete and submit and the goolge voice allows them to leave a message or go to the website. When I return their call, I bring up my website and type their answers into it while talking to them. So, ALL roads lead to my website…. And the submitted information is then forwarded to the my email address.

I am thinking of hiring an answering service that would be able to simply bring up my website anytime someone calls and answer the questions on it while talking to the caller. Once the call is over, the answering service would submit the info through the website……… just as if the caller/seller had entered the data themselves and submitted it.

Does anyone know of a cheap answering service that would do (what equates to) data entry while taking calls from sellers?

David, that is funny! I saw something on the news about something similar. Good luck!

Sergiu, I hope it helps.

Also if you have a smart phone there is a free "craigslist notification" app you can download. It will notify you when new stuff is posted to craigslist using the keywords/location you are looking for. Anytime an ad with "turnkey" gets listed, I get a notice and am able to go right to the ad and see if its something i might be interested in within minutes of it being posted.

I also use it to get first shot at REI books and guru courses. :-)

I just did some quick searches and didn’t see much on here in past discussions, so I thought I would pose a question in the forums.

Has anyone ever sent mailers (letters, postcards, etc.) to owners of rental portfolios offering to buy the entire portfolio? I already wholesale and send out mailers to owners of individual houses, but have never specifically done it to target owners who may be willing to sell multiple properties (not through brokers, though).

The investors I work with have two plans for the immediate future:

1. Expand their personal rental portfolios
2. Sell more turnkey rentals to other investors (either individually, or as packages/portfolios) as part of their wholesale business

So, the obvious strategy to me would be to target portfolio owners who may be ready to get out of the business. Has anyone done this? What was the content of your message/marketing on the postcards or letters? Was it successful? Any advice?

I have a ton of questions for anyone who has done this, so hopefully some of you have!

Thanks, all!

All,

I see these comments were made years ago, but what drove me to ask the question was that no one argued with him, offered a counterpoint, or called him on BS.....so I wondered if there was any truth to that.

Dave, the point was posted above. A question, rather. The three subsequent posters understood and responded, so I am not sure why you are lost.

Rob, thanks.

J Scott, Thanks. Your blog is awesome, BTW. I have been reading it over the past few weeks and sharing it with a friend who is going through a Flipping mentorship locally. Great stuff. Thanks! Also, your comment on 20% is interesting and I hadnt heard of that one before.

Steve, thanks! Thanks, Ill try it!

By the way, those paragraphs are his......I don't know how to quote someone on here.