All Forum Posts by: Lucas Machado

Welcome to the industry!  Make some offers, dive in, nothing happens on the sidelines.

For postcards, response rates can be extremely low.  In the competitive market of South Florida, some months you can have very low response rates beneath 1%.  Although good to monitor, I don't make it a huge focus to create more responses.  If I wanted to do that, I could pay for hand-written yellow letters for $1+ per pop.  I often would rather pay $.40 and hit double the amount of sellers to find the more motivated ones.

@Marcus Durant Six weeks in and you're already meeting two sellers?  I don't think I did that until 6 months in! 

@Ramon Polo Interesting idea!  Couple questions if you wouldn't mind sharing: 

(1) when you say buy "motivated seller leads", are you referring a a ListSource type owner list with mailing addresses, commonly used for direct-mail marketing? 

(2) if that's the case, typically, it doesn't have e-mails or phone numbers in my experience.  So your saying use a different service to pull e-mail/phone numbers?  What would  be the best service for this specific task - I see you listed a bunch.  (I use some other services to do this; but it wouldn't work on a "mass scale")

(3)  (1) & (2) are very interesting and make a lot of sense.  But, regarding the Facebook "detailed targeting features" to create the custom audience, what features are you referring to?

Your post is one of the more thought provoking marketing concepts I've read in a long time.  Seems extremely extremely powerful.

Thanks!

HML here! I'll shoot you a PM...

Not 915 over the last month!  That's 915 over the last 12 months.

@Assi S. That's alot of questions : )

I'm always learning and there are way bigger fish in the sea than myself.

That being said, if I had to start over, I would seek mentors to work with in the local area.  Hunt the deals, bring them the deals, and soak up information like a sponge as we work together.  I still do that in terms of seeking mentors, but I mostly have enough experience to manage and secure financing on my own.  As to always learning, I've been working on this condo deal the last two weeks, which I've previously avoided like the plague, and have learned so much during due diligence from mentors and the GC re: condos.

PPC and mass direct-mail is very expensive for starting out - so I would never recommend those. Probate leads with hand-written envelopes; hand-written yellow letters to targeted mailing lists should be affordable and high value.  I've been there, done that.  InvestorCarrot type website.  Re: InvestorCarrot - although you can't do PPC since it's cost prohibitive, that isn't to say you can't begin the process of ranking up your site, as well as marketing yourself on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.  This is all free.  I started my site about 1 year ago (kicking myself for not starting 2-3 years ago), and it's ranking from #1 overall to mid-page 3 on some of the key searches - I get around 6-7 free leads per month.  Not "huge" but I'm not at the top yet (time is critical for ranking and it took about 3 months to even show up).  No reason you can't write blogs, do a podcast, livestream, videos, to market yourself and your business.  My team does this all cost free (besides time).  I'm not suggesting you just pop on your phone and do a random videos; but it doesn't cost much to get a logo made (check 99designs) and get started on a legit online marketing plan.

We work with bird dogs regularly. Two levels though: you can bring a contract, or bring a lead. Bringing a contract is substantial, so even if you do not work you will get a big piece of the pie. Bringing a bird dog lead is fairly marginal, we would have to do the negotiations, and most leads don't become deals - so really that would be a small finder's fee - can't give 10-20% for a lead. However, there is really no reason you can't get a deal under contract and bring that to an investor though (note: I'm not suggesting wholesaling - big difference between a JV and a wholesale).

Hello BP community,

I'm a proponent of marketing/investment where others aren't/won't/can't. Although I market typical channels, I've had good success on vacant land deals. These properties seem to fall through the MLS/off-market wholesalers and I've noticed (based on speaking with more experienced investors) the properties aren't necessarily marketed/presented properly. For example, land often has liens but we have successfully negotiated it down with townships turning good deal to very good deal. Nonetheless, I've only done a handful of these deals so I'm seeking to learn.

I am designing a marketing piece and vacant land mailing list.  Usual mailing list criteria will be used: non-corporate, not in the last few years, owner only has a couple properties in the area (though might be some more leeway on vacant land).  However, I do not want to dedicate limited resources marketing to land that can't convert to a good deal.

Here's my specific questions:

(1) What type of land (in terms of land use zoning/building code rules) would be effective, or maybe this does not substantially matter unless I'm the direct developer?

(2) What lot sizes should I market to?  My gut tells me small square footage (due to not really being desirable) and large square footage (due to being beyond my current level) would not be effective.

Very possibly, I can imagine (1) and (2) are directly related.

Looking forward to hear perspective on vacant land marketing/deals!

Thanks.

@Pratik P. Absolutely love your description!  That's exactly what I've done (though not for wholesaling, more flipping and close & re-sell unless seller agrees to a wholesale process and closing wouldn't make sense/be possible).  I have an acquisition partner, marketing partner, and I handle post-contract flipping.  Looking to hire more staff in the future (on-site flipping person; second person answering the phone; working with more real estate agents).  Always hunting ways to save time and more deals.  As of last week, I had 4 properties under contract and 4 properties in ownership, and about 915 seller leads.  No way I can manage it on my own (even the 4 and 4 can be overwhelming).

@Dominique Coleman Although there are plenty of ways to make money in real estate, often two common ways to start off are discussed on BP (though certainly there are plenty of others): (1) wholesaling; (2) license.  You can do both, so it's not really a marriage commitment.  If I could go back in time, I very well may have gotten my license from the start and earned initial business that way.  I highly recommend getting your license - there is little downside.  Relatively small cost/time investment, and then you the ability to offer legitimate listing services to all your clients.  You will have to disclose your license on marketing, but I've never viewed that as a downside that couldn't be turned into a benefit:  if I were licensed, I would use that as a tool to discuss why a client should work with me rather than an "unknown and unlicensed" wholesaler.