All Forum Posts by: Kerry Baird

It is straight-forward if you do not have bank financing in place. For a free-and-clear property you may go to a title agency and fill out the appropriate forms to transfer title from your personal name to that of your LLC. You can also close with a lawyer. Or you can fill out the paperwork and take to your county recorder.

When you have bank financing in place, this is a whole new ball of wax.  Your loan may be called due, for example.  

A title agent visited our local meetup and said that, to cover all bases, you would want to do a double closing.  You can use transactional or bridge funding.  So you sign a regular purchase agreement with the first party, and a sales agreement to the second party, and the title agent will give your check in the middle.  Yes, you would go on title, but just for a couple of hours.  

Same as with other people on your team: referrals and others' experiences.  Ask them for references.

Please use the search function, as there are many variables and a handful of experts. I gleaned these responses from the forums.  But it will depend on your area, where you mail, and a dozen other nuances.  All the best~ and much success with marketing.  I get the point that just getting something out there is the important part.  ~Kerry

Here are just a few of the quotes I found in the BP Forums...

-1 week after the first call I am up to 20% response, evenly split between looking to sell and not interested.

-I used gobigyellowletter.com - it was easy but I only got about 4% response. I got about that same with the postcards I sent out.

-My response rate has always been very good (5% or more), but I always put myself in the recipient shoes and I never used yellow letters.

-I currently hand write 5 of them a day. Well the good thing is I am getting responses within days. I've sent about 150 and got about 10 calls.

-I find that doing smaller, more frequent mailers work best for me in my market. I personally do 1200 mailers every 10-12 days. The key is consistency no matter what market you're in. More consistent mailers = consistent calls = consistent leads = consistent deals!

Puckett: Absolutely. With a first and last name. Outside of looking suspicious without a return address, you want to know when an address is undeliverable, or when the people are not where the tax man thinks they are. Without a return address, the Post Office cannot return these to you.  

And while I'm agreeing with him, I have to confess his answer on the previous page was 100% right on too. Leaving off the return address definitely increases the open and read rate. I've since had a chance to split test and have seen a dramatic increase in response.

Quarles: I would not use a first or last name as part of the return address except on postcards and there is a trainload of evidence to support this.

Dev Horn

Your ultimate goal in marketing is that the moment someone realizes they have a need (to sell asap), they THINK of YOU (i.e., your "brand", even if that is your name...). AND they can recall HOW TO CONTACT YOU. We call that "actionable awareness". You can't create it overnight, but over time - with a systematic approach (& a marketing budget) - you accomplish that level of awareness. That's when your business starts to become sustainable and competitive in your local market…

Bill Kennedy

Get a PO Box. We use one from the UPS store. We just put the address no name. We mail out 20 letters a day which has been generating 1-2 calls per day! Daily mailing leads to daily calls which leads to consistent results.

Ned Carey

Statistically you are not likely to get a deal until you have sent out 1000 to as many as 5000 direct mail pieces. Direct mail although very effective long run is an expensive way to start.

Blair Halver

I've been compiling my results from my postcard mailings to Absentee Owners over the past few years. Here's what I've been getting:

Average Call-In Rate: 10.67%
Average Voicemail Rate: 4.40%

My Call-In Rate is the total number of calls I receive (whether they leave a message after listening to my 2-minute pre-recorded message or not) divided by the total number of postcards I send.

My Voicemail Rate is the total number of voicemails I receive after they call in and listen to a 2-3 minute pre-recorded message that tells them a little more about how we buy houses, divided by the total number of postcards I send.

My list criteria: Last Market Sale Date 10 years ago or more, house not older than 1978 (lead paint year), 3+ BR, 2+ BA, 1000sf+, Absentee Owned in-state and out-of-state, exclude trustees and corporations.

I've had great success with this combo of postcards and Absentee Owners. I would encourage you to give it a shot.

How did you find this property? I look forward to seeing you freshen up this home.  To your success!

Welcome! We are old timers in the military, and love the Groton area. We were mil to mil and I served 10 years, and turned to real estate. It has been a great way to augment that retirement. In simple terms, we were aiming for 5 houses, paid off. I thought it would cover the salary we'd lose at 20 years. Now hubby has been in 23 years and we've done a lot of deals. Start off with your own home. You can go up to 4 units with a VA loan. We actually saved our VAs (we get two, one for each of us), until we ran out of investing money last year. Listen to those podcasts~! They are terrific. And see about attending a meet-up or a real estate investment group so you can meet others who are doing what you want to do. All the best~

I'd call my title agency and see what they can do for me.  

If you pay the seller you cannot be sure where the money is going; you want to make payment on the note, and put the loan number on the check.  

If you use the owner's insurance and there is a fire, how will you be paid?  

Why are you using a land contract, yet don't know what paperwork to use?  

I will go check tomorrow.  Thanks!

We started out by doing live-in rehab houses.  We have always bought fixers and improved them over time, while occupying them.  Also, we are an Air Force family and bought houses where we were stationed, so have purchased homes in Arizona, England, Texas and Florida.  

Some of these were rentals, some were pure flips. As I learned more, it enabled me to be flexible and do more deals, rather than turn some down we figured out how to problem solve. So there are a couple of pre-foreclosures and short sales that we worked, plus a probate we found on the MLS, in our portfolio. We found an older man who wanted to "be the bank" for us and carried the note.

You asked a good question...what niche and why.  WHAT:  Well, we realized that we had "killed" a few of those golden geese by selling them.  I have a cookie-cutter type of house I prefer: newer brick 3 or 4 bedroom house, near military bases.  If you drive my target neighborhood, you might see a police car parked in the driveway at one house.  People blue collar moving to white collar...no cars on blocks, mostly groomed lawns. WHY: I don't want to repaint or deal with siding, I want newer houses because I don't want older systems like A/C and electrical or plumbing.  These houses tend to rent well, too.  The sweet spot for cash flow is lower in a market, typically.  

I'm originally from Colorado, and it is one place I haven't bought a house.  Maybe after military retirement!  :D  Good chatting with you~ 

The Learn tab above is a good starting point. Listen to the podcast while you drive around those lovely Colorado mountain communities. Figure out what niche interests you; set up keywords for those topics, and also to find meetups in your local area. Attend a REIA, or real estate investors association so you can network in person, and possibly take classes. You can sip information or you can drink from the fire-hose, because there is so much available here.