All Forum Posts by: Steven Leigh

@Account Closed That's very interesting. I'm jealous. I can get a lot of info, but not quite what you are talking about. I have to compare different lists to get the full spectrum of what I need. Congrats!

@Burt L. It's not hard to see how he had a "falling out" with his previous property manager is it?

There are SO many people in the investing world who seem your talent and skills and want to exploit it for their own benefit. Be really glad this guy showed his hand early before you did even more work for him.

This also goes for those "reliable buyers" who want you to bring them your deals first. Every time you do that you are losing money! Why do you think they want you to do that? Don't let them turn you into a "cash buyer employee". Continue your wholesaling, keep putting money back into your marketing and growing your business, and forget these guys.

The fact that you have a talent for comps, finding deals, etc. is the very reason people are trying to exploit you, so take that as a huge vote of confidence that you are in the right business! Continue growing your cash buyer list until you can just start dropping these people who don't really respect you.

I have an investor who has been trying similar tactics with me lately. Initially he wanted me to work directly for him, but I told him I wasn't interested in that. Now he said he's considering having me do his marketing for him. I'm considering that, as he would pay the budget for the marketing, but I need to make sure we have iron-clad expectations for my wholesaling fee from every deal, and that I can do as much marketing on my own as I want at the same time, etc. He's already tried some shifty tactics to get me to bring deals to him before, so I'm very wary of it, but it might be worth it as long as I protect myself.

Just as a contrasting opinion, realtors LOVE working with me, and with many other competent wholesalers I know personally. This is mainly because I bring their buyers great deals, make the whole process MUCH easier than the average transaction would be for them, and make sure they get paid the full commission! What's not to love?

I will say that many realtors don't like the term "wholesaler", usually because they don't know what the heck that means, and they just sort of fear what they don't understand. I generally avoid that term at first, not because I'm hiding it, but because of the weird reaction. Realtors are trained that there is one correct way of doing everything, so investors and off-market properties scare them at first. I just introduce myself as an investor who sometimes has off-market properties available at a discount. Later, once we have a relationship, they understand what a wholesaler actually is, and they have no problem with the term.

I have several realtors (the smart ones) who reach out about once a week to let me know what their buyers are looking for and asking if I have anything that fits. This saves them a lot of work, and they KNOW they are going to get the full commission working with me.

The other thing is it takes some time to "train" realtors to work with me as a wholesaler sometimes. Several just don't get back to me, which is fine. The ones who are interested it often takes a process to get them used to how it works. I send deals to them, and they are slow to respond, like 5 days later. So I have to tell them that my deals go fast, and they have to jump on them. Then they start to get back to me much quicker and actually have a chance, but then they sometimes want to control the whole transaction. Eventually they realize that they need to act quickly, and adapt to my way of doing things, but it ultimately benefits all of us, because I can bring them a lot of sales at full commission and I do a lot of the work!

@Daniel Garcia This is the wholesaling forum, by the way. It's no big deal, and you're getting good answers, but this question might be better posted in the "Starting Out" or "Real Estate Basics" forums. Not a critique, just a tip.

@Sean OToole When will Property Radar start covering Ohio? Tomorrow? It's tomorrow, right?

And I assume you are going to give me a 2-year exclusive on the data before you release it to the public? Yes? :)

Will do @Sakeena Rashid

I will add that if you go to the Wholesaling forum it is more supportive. We still get some infiltrators who insist on being negative about wholesaling from time to time. It baffles me why they feel moved to do that, but overall it's a better place for wholesalers to ask questions and get helpful answers. 

@Account Closed did that come from the county assessors? Did you buy it from their site, talk to them on the phone, or what?

@William E. is right that the MLS slows down for the holidays and the winter, but I will add that it's a GREAT time to ramp up your marketing. Motivated sellers are still looking for solutions, and a lot of people get even more motivated around the holidays. You want to be the one with your letter or postcard on their dining room table when they decide to finally sell that house, and a lot of people decide around the holidays. Especially as a New Years resolution.

Wow, that's a really low call rate. Maybe you could try switching to something with more proven results. Check out the yellow letters at yellowletters.com and you could try some of those. Even if you print them yourself it's a starting point. You could also try their postcards, but the response for postcards is lower, even though the quality of call is usually a little higher. 

Yellow letter response rate on average is about 4%, so 1,000 letters gets 40 calls and averages about 1 to 2 deals. 

So it's not uncommon to send 1,000 and get no deal, but I'm really surprised at the low response rate. I would suspect something in your letter isn't working. 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you say you bought the lists from the property appraisers. Do you mean they came from the county?

In answer to your question, though, lists that come from the city or county are generally going to be much more up-to-date and more lucrative than the ones you buy from Listsource and other places. It's not that those purchased lists are bad, but they have a lot of competition.

Lists like tax delinquent and code violations can be very hot leads, and the harder they are to obtain, the less competition you will have. There will generally be several investors mailing to the equity properties on Listsource, for example, but if you track down really hard to find lists, there is a chance you might be the only one mailing to some of those properties.

This can also be true for "driving for dollars". For example, I saw what looked like a vacant house the other day. Knocked and looked in the windows and confirmed it was vacant. Went to look up the mailing address of the owner and it's the same as the property address. This means the county doesn't even know it's a vacant property, and Listsource wouldn't know it's an absentee owner. So no one is mailing to this owner yet. If I can track them down, I'm probably the only one offering to buy their property.