Posted by Curtis on August 11, 2003 at 14:32:59:
Brent I thank you again. I see you are a seasoned investor and I appreciate your experience. The articles which you referred to I have read and archive. Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Curtis
Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by CURTIS
Posted by CURTIS on August 11, 2003 at 11:05:42:
Hello everyone. I am a newbie to real estate investing and have decided to focus my energies on developing the cash flow via flipping and/or assigning contracts. I appreciate all the information from this website and other more seasoned investors. THANK YOU. I have obtained my local areas Lis Pendens from the county clerk and started mailing a “We Buy Houses” letter to my “farming” area. At what point do you think I should send a second follow up letter and/or phone call ??? I would appreciate any feed back. Also, what are the typical documents one would take to the seller?? (i.e. Contracts, addendums, etc.)
Thanks Again
Newbie from NY
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by John V, FL
Posted by John V, FL on August 12, 2003 at 11:12:57:
You might be doing many things right already. It just could be the wrong time. If you did all that you are doing in the early to mid 90’s it would have been a lot easier for you to find the deals and a lot less riskier as well on the deals you do. Everyone is jumping on this bandwagon at the end of the cycle.
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Jim
Posted by Jim on August 12, 2003 at 08:37:46:
Curtis, where on LI are you from? I’m also new to REI, and I also live on LI. I know what you mean about finding motivated sellers. I’m having the same luck as you… The prices of houses around here are astronomical! I’m even having a hard time finding homes for sale that would be able to yield 1%! Even in the “not so great” areas.
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Kristine-CA
Posted by Kristine-CA on August 11, 2003 at 14:11:09:
My opinion about flipping/assigning: of course it depends where you are, but I doubt that pre-foreclosures are a good place to look for deals where your exit strategy is to assign a contract. Most of these properties will have little equity (if any). Pre-foreclosures makes more sense for lease/options and sub-2 deals. And sometimes for buy and hold rentals if the price is right.
Properties appropriate for flipping have to have enough equity for you and your buyer. And if your buyer is a retail buyer needing lender funds, you will have to consider the seasoning issues.
Hope this helps. Sincerely, Kristine
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Brent_IL
Posted by Brent_IL on August 11, 2003 at 12:34:26:
This is only an opinion, but I think that if you are asking about contracts and addendums that you should stop the mailing campaign and spend time learning the business. Going about this ill-prepared is a sure way to lose money, at best. Becoming entangled in lawsuits and losing is worse. Read everything on-site. Search the archives for “beginner’s success”
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Ben
Posted by Ben on August 12, 2003 at 19:11:01:
Kristine,
Your posts are always very helpful and courteous. I always enjoy reading what you post. Where in Cali do you live? I live in Orange County and I’m in the process of trying to create L/O deals with people in pre-forclosure. (Something new that I’m trying). Have you been successful at doing this where you are? Anyway, I was wondering if perhaps I could “compare notes” with you and what kind of success that you have had. Have you found that working the pre-forclosure market is the best way to go around here? Do you use countyrecordsresearch or foreclosures.com to get your listings? I’ve found that foreclosures.com has been very good so far, but I’m thinking about switching over to countyrecordsresearch because they seem cheaper and more helpful. Anyway, I was just curious to find out what kind of feelings that you have about doing the business this way?
Thanks!
Ben Crozier
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Curtis
Posted by Curtis on August 11, 2003 at 14:29:22:
Thank you Kristine. I appreciate your feed back.
Sincerely,
Curtis
L.I., NY
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by CURTIS
Posted by CURTIS on August 11, 2003 at 12:38:41:
I appreciate your feed back Brent, however, you focused on the part (b) of my post. Any comments on part (a) concerning marketing to motivated sellers???
Thanks in Advance
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Kristine-CA
Posted by Kristine-CA on August 13, 2003 at 01:02:51:
Ben: I don’t target pre-foreclosures, even though I do get calls from people in situations involving mortgage arrears and in foreclosure. I’d consider taking a property subject-2 if the right one came along, and then l/o that. But for the most part I just buy and sell, usually doing minimal clean-up (if any). I sell mostly to rehabbers and landlords.
There is no “around here” in CA. I live in Santa Barbara and it’s nothing like Kern county. Which is nothing like the Bay Area. Which is nothing like Fresno. Which is nothing like Humboldt county.
I’ll continue to buy and sell until I have enough cash to rehab the better properties (and keep them for rentals).
Sincerely, Kristine
Re: Marketing for motivated sellers - Posted by Brent_IL
Posted by Brent_IL on August 11, 2003 at 14:19:51:
I haven?t done mailings for a while, so there are others that are more qualified to respond. If you click on the How-to articles at the top of the left pane, you?ll find articles that relate to mailing for leads.
Richard Roop explained his main system of lead generation in ?The Ultimate Direct Mail for Buying Houses.? He has another article called, ?How to Get Motivated Sellers to Call You.
Many of Joe Kaiser?s articles are about finding motivated sellers. I?ve adapted some of the ways that I do things based solely on Joe?s revelations.
The reason I suggested waiting isn?t to rain on your parade. I?ve bombed twice in CREI, so this is reality-based advice. Real estate investing is not the same as creative real estate investing. We ask seller to do things that their RE broker will not. If a seller, or the seller?s broker, or the seller?s attorney asks you a question about something, it?s O.K. to say that you don?t know and will find out, but you have to have enough RE background to understand the question and frame some kind of response that doesn?t depend on jargon.
We need to buy within certain parameters to make a profit. Well, the sellers don?t care about our profit, they care about their profit. We need to know how to give them what they want in a way that gives us what we want. Otherwise, they?re not selling and we?re not buying.
Anyone who lists a property for sale has some degree of motivation to sell. The challenge isn?t in finding motivated sellers. The hard part is in knowing what to do with them once we find them or they find us. My approach is to get as many potential sellers as I can to eliminate themselves as viable prospects, and to make a profit, however small, from the ones that are left. We also need to know what we are going to do with our exit when we make the offer to purchase. Moving ahead before you are ready could waste the leads that you are spending time, effort, and money to obtain.
This is only one opinion of dubious value, so don?t impute too much doom-and-gloom into CREI, but be careful with how you spend your start-up money. Best of luck.