All Forum Posts by: Jim Sharp

I've made this mistake.

Just my two cents...

Real estate should be about creating products that creates fruits that feed you over and over.

When you buy equity and then continue pulling it out, its like clipping your tree back and never getting the fruits.

Cash flow and time... sweet, ripe and ready for the picking!

I started with Motivated Sellers.

Then went to extreme marketing which was a little better,

Then to Realprospect

You can got to my website for more details... on my site do a search for realprospect.

It was those duplicate imports that was frustrating with the other two software titles.

It is much better to send 10 mailings to 1000 people, rather than 1 mailing to 10,000 people.

Narrow your list.

Market - who you mail to
Media - postcard, letter etc
Message

FOLLOW UP! 70% of my business comes from "tickling" the people who respond to my marketing.

I use software to track the campaigns and turn then from one campaign to another... ie they are expired listing then they call in but are not cooked. I will switch them to tickler called in.

I've used 3 different software titles and have finally found one that I like A LOT. It took out huge problems I dealt with in the first program.

I only know 2 investors in my town that understand how to use master leasing to it's potential.

Basics - Do a sandwich lease. Basically, a low risk SL, where you control the property, but only send money to the owner of the house when you collect rent.

Basically, risk reward is how I introduce it. If you want more money when the house sells, you'll risk having the home vacant. If you want me to take more risk, then I get a lower sales price on the option.

It has taken me a long time to understand all the benefits to the home owner, but now I know and they love the ML as well.

People get me!

Yeah, my first deal I used my own credit and money.... since then... I've used a tad of my own money, but never my credit...

I'm basically a terms investor. Sub2, now sandwich leasing. I rent to own or rent my properties.

I was cashing out on a lot of rto's the first couple of years, but now I've been having trouble with my tenants getting financing.

Now I'm Master Leasing to get cash flow and down payments on RTO without much risk and definitely no negative cashflow.

I'm open to share to see if there is anything I can help with.

Direct mail, bandit signs, yellow page ads, newspaper...

First, I see a lot of people saying they don't want to waste money on marketing. You're mind should change from having to spend money on marketing to how can I spend my money wisely.

My first year using banditsigns cost me $7,600 and I brought in $54,000 in pure cash. Direct mail brought me less cash but much more equity. So you see my position...

What should I do my second year?

You know the answer to that question... it depends. What are looking to accomplish?

I find wholesaling leads are much better found from bandit signs and newspaper ads. What does your business need?

I started with Carleton Sheets. My success was not because of Mr Sheets. My wife and I committed to make it... and that was the key for us.

My first deal, I call our Real Estate Academy all in all... I succeeded in ... with this deal

1. Buying with my own cash and credit
2. having a HORRIBLE tenant
3. Paying $1,600 to have tons of trash including human feces out of the house
4. Being ripped off by a loser realtor on the sale
5. watching $25k of profit go through foreclosure that I carried back on the sale
6. having real estate guru Richard Roop personally try to power me out of my deal (I don't blame him for trying)
7. posting an eviction notice 1 week before Christmas
8. LEARNING A LIFETIME OF INFORMATION ON ONE DEAL
9. Failed over and over with a smile on our faces, knowing we were cutting our teeth on just about everything an investment property could throw at us.
10. Made $10,000 in spite of all the mistakes we made.

I use fontifier to make the font and a marketing piece of software to merge the names.

My leads have gone down, but my quality lead to cost is better.

Letter costs are cut by a fourth.

Jim