Author Archive
Rehabbing Your Way To Millions
Posted on October 3, 2017 byIn just about any real estate market I believe that there are a lot of great ways to make a fortune in real estate and one of those ways is to rehab and sell properties quickly. This is a strategy I implement on a daily basis in my own Real Estate Investing business.
There are some excellent resources for you to use to find vacant, ugly properties to rehab and sell in virtually any price range. One of those ways is to simply use targeted direct mail campaigns like I do to find motivated sellers of ugly vacant properties or estates.
This is a great way to find highly motivated sellers who need to sell quickly and there are great deals to be made for pennies on the dollar. Remember, your profit is made when you buy a property. Read More→
Using The Right Mailing Lists To Locate Motivated Sellers – Part 2
Posted on August 7, 2017 bySo what other lists can we use to locate highly motivated sellers? One of my favorite lists is people who are behind on taxes. You can get this list by getting a list of tax certificates available for sale in your county. In most counties this list comes out right before the tax certificate sale takes place. You would then mail them a neutral type of letter saying you are interested in buying properties in their neighborhood or subdivision.
When mailing these letters initially, I suggest that you do not refer to the seller’s specific problem. All you will accomplish is to alienate them so that they will not want to work with you. I personally do a mailing every year to folks whose tax bills have not been paid and I have purchased many properties this way. A lot of these folks are people who have a problem they need to solve, they just don’t know how until they are contacted by you. A lot of these people have inherited properties they neither want nor need and appreciate your offer to purchase it, especially if they have just received another big tax bill to pay. This is an extremely good lead source for really great deals. Read More→
Using The Right Mailing Lists to Locate Motivated Sellers
Posted on July 10, 2017 byImplementing the right list and using the right letter when creating your direct mail campaigns to locate motivated sellers is crucial to your success as a Real Estate Investor. There are lots of different ways to find these lists and lots of different types of lists to choose from.
The easiest way I suggest to locate a list to use for mailings is to simply go to your property appraiser’s office or auditor’s office and have them create it for you. There are many different parameters you can use to create these lists.
Some of the lists you could create might be directed at out of town owners, deed transfers, zip codes ranges, sale dates, estates, evictions, delinquent taxes or pre-foreclosures. These can all be good lead sources for you to use to find motivated sellers and these are lists that I use in my business on a daily basis in addition to several others. Read More→
Building Your Personal Credibility Kit – Part 3
Posted on June 5, 2017 byI also like to use my personal Credibility Kit to find more private lenders for my Real Estate Investing Business. You already have all the information about yourself and your company and deals you have done in one place to show your potential lenders.
Looking through your Credibility Kit leaves no doubt in a lender’s mind that they will be making a good investment in you and your properties. Plus, you have references available if they would like to see them and follow up with any of them. I also give my potential lenders an abridged copy of my Credibility Kit in case they know of someone else interested in loaning me money for my deals. This is a great way to build this part of your real estate investing business! Read More→
Building Your Personal Credibility Kit (Part 2)
Posted on May 1, 2017 byYour Credibility Kit tells a story about who you are and what you can do for your seller or buyer in order to get a deal done. It will list the benefits to the sellers or buyers as to why they should work with you, a Real Estate Investor. The other main function of a Credibility Kit is to give you the confidence you need in order to create a win-win solution for you with your sellers. It should have all the tools you need in it to get you through the offer making process.
For example, in the back of my personal Credibility Kit, I have a list of different types of offers I can make on a property. This helps me when talking to the seller and keeps me from getting tongue-tied or forgetting a strategy that could just help out that particular seller. It also includes a cost analysis sheet which shows my sellers exactly how much it would cost them to sell their home in the traditional way and how much money I can save them at the closing table. My personal Credibility Kit gives my sellers all the facts they need to make a sound decision to sell their property to me. Read More→
Your Personal Seller, Buyer and Lender Credibility Kit and Why You Need To Have One
Posted on April 3, 2017 byWhy do you need a Credibility Kit for your Real Estate Investing business? In fact, what exactly is a Credibility Kit? This is the question I hear most often from students when I am at real estate investing events.
Think about this for a second. Have you ever had a contractor come out to do a bid for you on some work you wanted done, say new cabinets, or siding on your house or new windows? Do you remember seeing the book they brought with them that showed the photos of jobs they had completed, testimonial letters from satisfied customers and copies of their licensing and insurance? That was their Credibility Kit. Why then as a Real Estate Investor are you not creating this amazing tool for your real estate investing business? This is definitely a tool you will need for your real estate investing business and it’s so easy to create one if you follow a few simple steps.
Your personal Credibility Kit will not only build credibility and integrity for you with your sellers and lenders, it will give you a serious edge over your competition. Almost none of your competitors know about this incredible tool that makes you look like a true professional in your Real Estate Investing business, whether you are working with sellers or buyers of properties. Read More→
Following Up with Motivated Sellers Can Make You Millions
Posted on March 6, 2017 byLet me ask you a question… Are you properly managing your prospects? Are you taking the time to follow up with the sellers who didn’t initially accept your offers, or the sellers you still need to make offers to? Did you know that you are leaving thousands of dollars in potential income behind if you aren’t following up with sellers? One of the easiest ways to make a fortune in the real estate business and gain the advantage over your competition is to take the time to follow up with motivated and semi-motivated sellers. You’ve already got the seller in your pipeline, you’ve already done the marketing and spent the money to find this person, and now all you need to do is to follow up with them until they either sell you their property or tell you to go away. How much simpler could it be?
There are two types of sellers we are going to follow up with, those we’ve already made offers to who haven’t accepted our offer and those who have not made any decision after our initial contact with them. Quite often, you will need to make multiple contacts with sellers before their situation changes and dictates that they sell their property to you. When you stay in touch with these sellers, you build credibility with them. When it comes time to sell their home they will contact you first, even if they have been contacted by someone else in the meantime. Read More→
So Where Do I Find The Mailing Lists For My Direct Mail Campaigns?
Posted on February 6, 2017 byOne of the Questions I am frequently asked by students wanting to implement a direct mail campaign is where to get the lists of sellers to mail to. While there are several resources available, I find they vary greatly in price and in quality of the lists. It is important for you to find a good, reliable source for your lists. When doing direct mail campaigns, their success is going to be based 70% on the list and 30% on the direct mail piece you are using to contact these motivated sellers.
There are a couple of resources for lists that I find to be especially reasonable in price and the quality of the lists is excellent for your use. One of those resources is very easy to find and simple to use use. Just go to your property appraiser, auditor, or assessors’ office and ask them to put the lists together for you. You will need to target specific types of sellers you want to do deals with. If your county is online preparing this list is usually pretty simple for them to do. I will suggest to you that you go down to their office and ask them for their help in person to customize these lists for you. If you just call them, you may get “blown off” by someone who doesn’t want to do the extra work, or you may get someone on the phone who doesn’t understand what it is that you need. I know all of this from personal experience with counties I have worked with. In addition, if you live in a particularly large county, they have plat maps you can look at to subdivide your lists by specific areas you want to mail to. This is just another way for you to hone in on the area and type of seller you want to work with. Read More→
Why Should You Develop a Marketing Strategy In 2017?
Posted on January 9, 2017 byWe all know that developing an effective marketing strategy is essential to getting any business off the ground. Educating yourself and discovering how to locate and motivate potential sellers to contact you is a must in making your real estate business a success. You must be able to locate prospects who want to do business with you. You must find the sellers who need to sell, not just want to sell their properties. This is essential to your success as a real estate investor. Coming into the new year this will an important step to growing your real estate investing business.
Marketing is also a numbers game, the more leads that come in, the more opportunities you will have to make deals. You won’t buy every deal that comes your way, but when you develop a machine that brings in quality leads, you will be able to pick and choose the deals you want to do. You will quickly learn to recognize quality prospects. Read More→
The Art of The Negotiation
Posted on December 5, 2016 byDespite the obviously important role information gathering plays in the art of negotiations, very few people actually spend much time analyzing their seller’s situations or needs before jumping into the negotiating process. Even logical individuals who wouldn’t jump into a dangerous sport before learning more about it often jump into a deal where they could possibly lose thousands without first getting the information they needed in order to protect themselves from a disastrous result.
I always remind my students that they need to listen, ask appropriate questions, do their due diligence and determine what the seller’s real underlying needs are. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of your sellers in order to get the information you need to make the best deal possible. If you need clarification on some part of the negotiation, ask!
So why are investors so reluctant to ask questions? Part of it is fear and part of it is the unwillingness to admit they don’t know or don’t understand something. It used to cause me a great deal of discomfort to ask certain questions of sellers such as “how much is your mortgage balance?” That one question used to really make me choke. The main reason for this was uncertainty as to how the seller would react to my question. Even when a seller refuses to answer your question, you are still gathering important information about that seller, namely that they are not particularly motivated. Usually a truly motivated seller will answer whatever questions you have. Read More→
Creating A Solid Direct Mail Piece To Locate Motivated Sellers
Posted on November 7, 2016 byOne of the most important aspects to a marketing campaign that is going to work is to create a solid mail piece for your business. These are key points for creating a solid direct mail piece that folks will respond to no matter what business you are in.
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The first thing you’ll want to do is to “touch” your prospective customer or seller with “the dream”, or “the solution” to their problem. You’ll want to touch the basic emotions and the needs of your client or seller within the body of your letter, whether that is fear, relief, greed, pride or vanity.
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Keep it simple. The grammar doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect. You want to reach this person at their comfort level. Keep your letter relaxed, personal and conversational.
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Use simple language; don’t fill your letter with big words or technical words or “industry jargon” that your seller or your customer might not understand. Read More→
Get Paid To Buy Houses
Posted on October 3, 2016 bySo you think you can’t get a seller to pay you to take their problem home off their hands? I have heard many times from students, friends and relatives alike, “are you nuts, nobody would pay you to take a house off their hands.” Wanna’ bet??
There have been many instances where a seller needed to get rid of a piece of property quickly and they needed our assistance to help them make their problem go away. They were more than willing to pay us to make that happen. You have to remember that you are not in the business to make someone else’s problem your problem. We get paid to solve problems for sellers.
Now, you will never get paid to take a house off someone’s hands unless you ask. You never know what a seller will agree to until you ask them. The worst they can do is to simply say “no”. You just have to explain to them why they should pay you to take their problem out of their hands and outline the benefits to them of selling their property this way. Read More→
