All Forum Posts by: Tim Herndon

@Gary Alford 

You can copy campaigns that are already created from Zoho or Podio. I like Podio the best. You can also pay someone to set it up for you and save a lot of time.  I think that's what Tracy is talking about i.e one that is already set up for real estate.

I hope this helps!

@Ryan Robbins 

Welcome to the site. 

What you are experiencing with Homepath i.e "there is multiple offers submitted, please submit your best offer" is the norm. That's why we stay away from those. I don't want to be in a bidding war with other investors who are willing to pay more than me. If you are buying off of the MLS there is a lot of competition and the deals are just marginal. I have found that HUD Foreclosures are a little better http://hudhomestore.com and they don't have deed restrictions either, so you can you flip the property right away with no problems (if you are going to flip).

You may want to consider pursuing private homeowners to get the best deals for your rental portfolio. We have found the most equity by dealing with private sellers and this is all we market to now. I wish you the best in your new venture!

@John Horner

"My main draw to Podio was the "form to lead" and "email to lead" functions."

That is one of my favorite features about Podio too. I've tried all of the real estate CRM's out there and they all seem to have their pro's and con's. None of them seem to do everything that I need to do all in one. I was having to use multiple products/websites to manage everything so I decided to build my own CRM and take the features I liked from each one. I looked into building a CRM using free open source software like SugarCRM or SuiteCRM but they had too many features that I didn't need, so in the end I decided to build from scratch, (specifically for real estate wholesaling) using CodeIgniter.

The feature that you mentioned is the one I am taking from Podio. The forms are external javascript forms that dump into the CRM. This is great because you can give a VA, answering service, etc the link to the form without giving them access to you entire CRM. The thing that Podio doesn't have is a contract generator or comunications system i.e email, fax, sms, voice broadcasting, autodialer, blacklisting, etc., which means you still need other systems. But as far as free CRM's I think it's the best. The fact that you can build custom apps for the way your team works and seperate workspaces is brilliant!

@Martin S. 

Realeflow is very good and probably has more of the moving parts than any other real estate CRM on the market. It was ahead of it's time when it was first released. It has some of the communications features that others are missing but I think the new thing now is call tracking and analytics on all of the phone numbers to track each marketing campaign seperately. For all of the paid (real estate) CRM's this one is the best.

@Jerry Puckett

That's right Jerry but our service is tied to other products like 1-800-SELL-FAST and our software's that we have been developing. 

I am always willing to share the postcards and direct mail peices that are working for us in FL. I know that postcards have a lower response rate but we use them almost exclusively and have been having good results.

You made a great point too. Variable data is another important factor that will increase the response rates. 

I like Podio. You can copy campaigns from other accounts that are already set up too. This saves a lot of time! PM me and I'll explain.

If you want something inexpensive then I recommend Podio. It's the same company as gotomeeting and it's free. I have set it up specifically for real estate wholesaling but you can modify it to fi the way you work. I hope this helps ... Good luck!

@Uyenchi Ho

I think you are dong the right thing prospecting for cash buyers! Most investors don't... they simply think the buyers will come if you have a great deal. This is true but it's nice to have hungry cash buyers waiting for your deals. I market to cash buyers regularly and there are also a lot of other ways to get these cash buyers that is less expensive than direct mail. If you average these other ways with your direct mail campign it will bring you cost per lead down. Additionally, the peice you mail will have an affect on the response rate. I recommend an ovesized postcard.

In regard to your mailing - I would mail to more motivated sellers and maybe split it in half i.e. 50% to buyers and 50% to sellers. I just dont think you will get enough calls from 300 sellers. Again the peice you mail will have a lot to do with your response rates too. 

If you want to PM me I'll share with you the Postcard I use for cash buyers and some other ways to get cash buyers in addition to direct mail. Good luck!

@Jaime Dominguez 

You can purchase a Wordpress Squeeze Page Theme. I would get one that is designed for investors. Search Google for "REI Squeeze Pages" or "Real Estate Squeeze Pages". You can purchase a theme for a one-time cost and it's relatively cheap. That's better than a recurring cost and if you have your own hosting as mentioned by several people in this thread you'll also have your own IP address, which is better than a platform where everyone has the same IP. This creates a footprint and usually a duplicate content flag with Google as well. I hope this helps. Good luck flipping houses! Let me know if you need any help.

@Sergio Berumen  @William Robison 

http://easyoutsource.com/ - VA Information you requested.

@Crystal McDermott 

You can type keywords into the search box at the top. You can also set up keyword alerts like "bird dog" and get emails when someone is talking about it. That's how I found your thread/question.  If you are serious about hiring bird dogs I suggest you use tracking phone numbers and some type of software to organize your bird dogs all in one place. This will give them the confidence that they will get paid! (If that's what you are trying to accomplish).

@Michael Modesto 

You're welcome - no problem! Since that is an example contract you can take it an modify it to fit your specific needs.