All Forum Posts by: Silas Lee

@Louis Muse

 Wow its impressive you're doing hand written letters, how many can you actually do a month? I would imagine that is a huge limiting factor if we're looking to scale the business.   I can imagine only a couple hundred a momth is possible with hand written letters, and that volume just seems to low to get consistent deals monthly and several thousand hand written letters would seem like an impossible task.

As a correction, the avg house in my city is 700k+

Hey BP,    I have been learning about marketing for deals (intend to wholesale most and rehab a few) from here and and from Terry.  

Recently at a REI meeting, a realtor put a different perspective I didn't think of. Avg houses in my area is 600k. Avg houses in my surrounding metro area is 400k. Every retail sale realtor fee will be about the same as a "wholesaler fee" (10k net on avg in my area) in profit but with a larger client base since retail is more common. He advised I join his brokerage firm as an agent and is confident being an agent will be easier and more profitable (more deals) when using the same aggressive marketing.

This really did put my world upside down because I've always had the impression wholesaling was this glorious alternative way of generating income in real estate.

Has any wholesaler/realtors go through the same thing and have any experiences they can share?

The answers are all on this forum, and website blog.

Most common method is marketing via yellow letters.  Investors typically market to absentee owners.  

Its a big numbers game.  For every deal you lock down, you will probably have looked at 10-15 other properties, that came from 20-30 callers you've had to talk to, generated by 5000-6000 letters you've sent out.

Thanks for the advice @Chris Piper.  I know its possible to do a deal without spending money on marketing, but it seems like the ones who don't send letters for marketing seem to never get a deal.

Do you think its wiser to just simply buy a wholesale deal for rehab,  vs spend money on marketing on my own?

Hey guys, I plan on starting my REI venture and currently taking in everything I can from this site.

One thing I often hear is the first wholesale deal is always the most difficult (6-12months).  What I don't understand is why would the first one be more difficult than any other when its a repeat of the same process?

The only things I can thnk of are: The new wholesaler is doing something he/she is unfamiliar with and its a bit scary, and lack of marketing $ so they depending on inexpensive/shotgun methods of marketing such as bandit signs.

Hypothetically, if a new wholesaler were to start with 10-20k in marketing budget, would he or she be able to hit the ground running, or is there something I am missing that makes the first deal the most difficult?

Hopefully others people getting into wholesaling/marketing for rehabs have the same question and can benefit from this discussion at the expense of me asking a potentially stupid question!

@Lenzy Ruffin  Dosn't everyone start part time though?  I understand it usually takes 6-10 months of repeated mailers before someone becomes motivated enough to sell.   That is about $10k alloted for mailers that year.  Most people will have to have some sort of income coming in to support that.  

Even realtors that get into wholesaling are doing it part time because they are working with their normal retail buy/sell clients to generate their normal income.

I noticed a lot of those guru programs teach the same thing (mail to absentee and probate), making it competitive now that the market is now getting 5x as many of the same letters every week.    Why hasn't anyone thought of overlapping multiple lists (absentee list, compared against tax default or something like that) to find true motivated sellers?  

Just something I thought of at a local REI meet up the other day when the speaker was talking about competition and spending 10k on mailers without any deals.

@Jade Davis

Looking back at those 12,000 mailers you sent last year, did you get a deal?

@Lenzy Ruffin thanks a lot for that insight.    So you think its not feasible to wholesale after work hours or on weekends only, like what many of the programs advertise?    Including commuting, I'm spending about 9-10 hours deticated to my day job M-F.  Factoring in self maintenance (eating/showering/gym/shower/caring for dog/ect), thats another 3-4 hours

I went to a local REI networking event recently and marketing for properties was talked about. Some people mentioned trying direct mail for several months without any success. I know the response rate in our area is somewhere between 0.2 to 1% depending on the list, and lead to deal conversion rate is around 3% of those leads. I can see how someone can easily blow through a $10k campaign without getting any deals. I'm wondering, has anyone gone broke over trying to market their first deal?

hey guys, i've been reading on these forums for over a year but never really posted. I figure its time to come out of the shadow. In parallel I've been learning about the general REI strategies out there.

I have two rentals that i bought a few years ago but knowing what I know now, i prob wouldn't have bought them due to using traditional buying methods.   They cash flow so I'm just going to leave them be as of now.

I was dead set on marketing for deals for wholesale flips by reassigning.  I have purchased and read various training programs (sean terry being one of them) and realized they are all spouting the same strategies with their own flare so i figure I'm ready to go..   Recently I have had some what of a paradigm shift after talking to a local investor. They jive with some things i've thought about also.

I couldn't help but notice majority of the people looking into wholesaling come from a lower income pool of population, and all have aspirations to "work up to" rehabs.   I understand we all have different backgrounds and situations, but i had an investor suggest I should just focus on buying wholesale deals and doing rehabs because  A. i have a bit of capital that can be combined with a hard lender,  and B. I have a day job that pays some what more than most people and wont have time chatting with hundreds of sellers.  

Without actually have done it, its hard to assess whether I can handle call volume while focusing on my day job.   Does Sean Terry downplay the work load when he says something like "just do it when you're off work and on weekends"?  

Perhaps touchy subject?  I hope we can look past that, and we can share experiences that put us all in the right direction.