All Forum Posts by: Robert Laird

I think you make a great point here. You are not going to find motivated sellers by just sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring. The only way to get motivated sellers is by being pro-active and contacting as many people as you can directly. In the real estate investing company I work for, we do a fair amount of cold calling, but we also use post cards to mail to people, yellow letters to mail to people and door hangers. On top of this we do some television advertisement. If your a tech saavy person, then start a blog or email blast. Whatever it takes to reach out to as many people as possible is essential to close deals. I have seen a concept called 100-10-1 on BiggerPockets before and the gist of it is that you need to contact 100 people, of which 10 will be leads, and that will lead to 1 solid deal. If this is the case then contacting people should be a must for real estate investors if they want to continue finding good deals.

Rob

Kyle,

When I looked at your website it looked fine. The logo in the top left looked solid and I could read the name "1st Choice Homes, LLC" clearly. As for the lay out, it is simple, but it is all you really need. The "About" section is clear and the "How It Works" section is simple and understandable. Out of curiosity, how many responses have you been getting since the website has been up and running? Do you get a lot of motivated sellers from the contact form on your website? Just a couple ideas to improve the website, maybe you could put before and after pictures of some of the houses you fixed up to give a visual. Also it might be a good idea to put a picture of yourself and the address of the office just to personalize it a bit. Other than that I think you did a great job!

Rob

Hey Keith!

The real estate investing company I work for also looks at houses in the Portland and SW Washington area. Here, we do not exclude potential properties based on the population of the town they are in, because this is too general of a factor that could apply to some good deals. Good deals we would miss out on if we eliminated them as an option just for being in a lowly populated area. If a property comes your way and the properties surrounding it are of significantly higher value, then it is a good sign that it is a good deal. You can use websites like (http://www.ziprealty.com/) or (http://www.eppraisal.com/) to be a starting point for an appraisal on the property. We tend not to put too much efforts in advertising in places with a small population, but there is no reason not to invest in a property that is a good deal just because the population of the town is not very large. You just have to make sure that all the other variables make it a logical purchase. I hope this helps!

Rob

I personally do not know how to put your real estate investment company on google without an address. However, I do have one suggestion that can help grow/manage your business without an office. A lot of independent real estate investors will use a virtual receptionist or virtual office when they start getting a lot of return calls. This can help make you look more legitimate and help cut down on your busy work. I have posted a couple of websites below that you can take a look at if your interested. Hope this helps!

http://www.opusvirtualoffices.com/services.html

http://www.virtualoffice.com/packages.php - 30 Day Free Trial

http://www.davincivirtual.com/loc/

I have heard mixed things about billboard advertising, but great things about television advertising when it comes to getting motivated sellers. In your experience what works better? If your budget is too low, what other methods are effective at finding motivated sellers?