Postcards, and ads during April.

This includes the initial phone call, driving out and meeting the owner at their house, follow-up until I have signed contract back, and the BS associated with title problems, seller's getting cold feet and trying to back out of contracts, and all the other stuff that comes up from contract signing to actually settling on the house.BEST PERFORMING MAIL PIECE:Handwritten letter on yellow lined paper with handwritten invitation (A6) sized envelope in random colors (pink, light blue, yellow, etc)I have graphics on BOTH the letter and the envelope- things like dollar signs, stars, arrows, houses, etc- whatever random stuff I could think of to make the letter more eye catching and 'WTF' eliciting when opened by the homeowner, so they would actually read it.SECOND BEST PERFORMING MAIL PIECE:5.5 x 11 inch yellow post card (big post card) with somewhat handwritten looking font.  

YLs, aside, look at the postcards offered by each and you'll see a huge difference.

I have a list of Absentee owners and wanted to start with this post card.

If you can't afford a ton of yellow letters, do postcards.

I've been filling out post cards by hand to send out to the area I want to market.

To be honest, I get about half a dozen postcards and letters every week on my properties and shake my head every time thinking about how someone just wasted time and money on them.If you want to see better results you either have to send out thousands more mailings or maybe you should refine your list and try to pinpoint the type of owner that may be interested in selling.Drive some of the list (driving for dollars) and look for ones that are not being taken care of or in need of obvious repair. 

Also, does anyone know of a good site for yellow postcards?

Maybe a refrigerator magnet or postcard - something they can keep with your name & number.

I buy a couple thousand names at a time and get an average 11% response rate on my postcards (range 7.4% to 13.7% response).