All Forum Posts by: Scott Costello

Henry M. I can not argue with all that you said, but I'm not sure you understood what i was saying because I'm not sure I said anything about acting like a Realtor.

All I'm saying is that when you are just starting out the challenge is in finding deals not buyers. I have found that when I ask buyers what they are looking for so I can find houses for them I get "A Deal" or "I'll know it after I see it" or vague descriptions. Sure that probably means that they aren't "serious" buyers but sometimes they just don't want to be bothered by a newbie investor.

Anytime I've ever brought a potential deal to a succesful investor, they immediately opened up and told me everything they thought about the deal (i.e. told me what they are looking for).

I'm not far from a newbie myself so I speak from recent memory. My list of good cash buyers went from 1 to about 10 after I found my first deal. That happened with in 3 days of locking up the property and it was closed 14 days later.

Ideally I want to have a list of great buyers and shop for houses for them exclusively, that is how you build a great direct marketing campaign based off your buyers wants. Steve Cook was hugely successful selling to his 5 prime buyers all the time and I'd love to be able to emulate that. It is just tough to do when you first start out and have no reputation.

That is all I'm saying. Great points and thanks for clearing up anything I may have sounded like I was saying.

Henry M. I sort of believe the opposite, looking for sellers is the best way to go when you are first starting out. Nothing brings buyers in quicker then a good deal. You learn a lot about what buyers want when you bring them an actually property.

I've built buyers lists before only to see them go stale because when you are first starting out it's not easy to find good deals for one reason or another.

Sure you go to REI meetings in your area and get to know people who are buying so you have a general outlet when you do have a deal. But I would put in 80% of my efforts to finding deals!

I always prefer to be transparent if asked a specific question. Otherwise I just give as much information as is needed for the situation. To much information can create confusion which will immediately turn the sellers off and cause them to walk away.

I pull my absentee owner list from the county tax records here in New Jersey. There is an online site that allows me to export a list of the owners in an entire town. I then just pull out all the people who's mailing address is in a different state then the property address is.

This might not be true in your state though, but worth a look.

Hi Deshone,

Just in case you hadnt gotten your answer yet, I think "White Letters" are formal printed letters. You usually want be more formal when dealing with Probate leads. It's a much more emotional lead. After the first letter, you might be able to get away with a hand written note.

you are gonna piss some people off regardless though, but don't let that stop you.

I agree with Jerry on this. Keep the two separate as one is really for networking with other investors who are your target for buying properties from you. You want to portray different benefits to them as you do motivated sellers. Quoting Ghostbusters..."Don't cross the streams Ray!"

Besides, to much information for a motivated seller will just confuse them and scare them off.

Seo on the other hand is not that hard to do if you are staying local and have a good idea of the techniques that work best. If not then hiring someone to handle that would work out for the best. I'd take a look at http://www.WarriorForum.com. All the SEO information you could ever want there and great people who could give you advice or be hired to even do the SEO for you.

Hi Christopher,

I live in Northern New Jersey where the average house price is at least $400k. I do wholesale them, but they are fewer and farther in between. I try and focus on sub 400k houses though.

I use yellow letters as well (actually I use white lined paper instead of yellow) and it works fairly well. Getting about a 12% response rate on my first mailing to people. 5% on 2nd and 4% on 3rd. I'll be sending out postcards for the 4th through 7th mailings.

Question: For those that send out letters, do you change up the message for each mailing if so what do you say on your 4th,5th,6th, etc...?

I'm not sure how anyone can say bird-dogging is illegal in anyway. Now if we are just talking about how you pay a bird dog, that might be the fuzzy part.

It's basically just selling information right?

I use a PO Box myself. Just gives me a little more peace of mind if you know what I mean. I also use my partner's name so at least I'm safe...LOL