All Forum Posts by: Scott Costello

I've been actively wholesaling for the past 2 years and have only been able to close 3 deals (1 the first year and 2 this year). I get calls from my yellow letter marketing campaigns to out-of-state owners with response rates as follows...

1st mailing - 12%
2nd mailing - 5%
3rd mailing - 3.5%

I'm happy with the response rate, but not happy with the amount of motivated callers. I send out about 500 to 1000 letters per month. I'd like to send out more, but my budget won't allow for it right now.

Couple things I'm trying now...

Postcards - I am currently split testing how postcards will do so I'll be able to compare in a few months.

More specific yellow letter that hopefully will bring in more motivated sellers, instead of tire kickers.

For anyone else who was in a similar situation in the past and figured out how to get better results, what did you do? I'm in a rut and not sure how to get out.

For me and the amount of leads and transactions I do, the cost of a real crm software was just a bit to high (I hate monthly payments). Being a programmer I created my own that was modeled after how I do business. But for everyone else who does small to even medium volumn, use excel. You can even learn to use macros in excel to make life easier as well.

I didn't used excel only because I'm not very organized and quickly ended up with dozens of excel files. A more organized person will probably do better then me though.

Ned Carey pretty much hit the nail on the head. Assigning a contract is my preferred way of doing things when I'm making less then 10k on a wholesale. Anything above that I would go with a double close. Sellers don't really want to see that you are making so much money off of their house. Yes it shouldn't matter, but one of my good investor friends lost out on 20k because of this. He had a 50k profit all lined up and then the sellers attorney balked after seeing his profit. Said "You either take only a 20k proft or none at all". Crazy but I'm sure not that uncommon.

Jean Norton,

The link to your blog doesn't work. It doesn't work without the s a "www" in front. That usually happens when you don't have the proper setup with your domain registrar. It's been to long, so I apologize as I forget what that setting is.

I'm also interested in a system like that, particularly the part about it integrating with the MLS. I know there are 100's of different MLS systems, but most won't let you access their database directly with API's and such.

Is it more of a screen scraping software?

I've never owned either phone you are talking about, but I've owned an Iphone 3gs and my current phone is an Motorola Atrix (android). So I have experience with both platforms.

Each has their pluses and minuses for sure. I like the larger screens on android phones and also LOVE Google maps. I don't use widgets so that isn't a discerning feature for me.

What I liked about the iPhone better are the apps and ease of use. Plus the iPhone is integrated with everything these days. The android would work, but always had to jump through some hoops to get it to work.

If something works with the iphone, it works with the iphone. As for android, it works with android unless your particular phone variant supports it.

All that said, I'm still torn between my next phone purchase come next spring. I'm actually waiting to see how Windows Phone 8 devices fair. I'm a windows fan more then a apple fan so my ideal technology toolbox would be....

PC with Windows 8
Tablet with Windows 8
Phone with Windows Phone 8

In my view the integration between all three devices would be seamless. I'm particularly excited about bring a Windows 8 Tablet with me everywhere and being able to run my lead management software (that I developed) on it. ooohh baby!

The only holiday I don't mail on or with in a week of is Christmas, though I've gotten calls on Christmas before. I put the mailers together like I'm going to send them out, but wait till the 26th to drop them in the mail.

I agree with Jerry Puckett. You will get some pissed off people with what ever list you are sending too. I will say that I've gotten more gracious people then pissed off people with regards to my probate letters. Though the Level of "Pissed Off" hits another notch when it's a pissed off probate lead. They call you all kinds of names

I'm not an expert but I agree with Will Sifert with regards to the "urgent" type express mail envelopes. I chuck them all the time without opening them. Unless I've ordered something or am awaiting some documents, there is no reason why I should be getting one of those in the mail.

Now a hand addressed envelope with a couple stamps on them and maybe a fun doodle would get my attention. Though I would agree not professional looking, but it gets them to open and at least read the letter.

Does professional type letters work better in the minds of recipients or yellow hand written letters? I've gotten responses both ways saying my hand written letters where unprofessional and they would never sell their house to me, and some that say they appreciate the hand written letter. It all really depends I guess.

I'm with John Stevenson and Andrew O.. I can't tell you how many times I've seen investors looking for houses that specifically say "That are Not Listed on the MLS".