This is Episode 1 of our “Real Dealz TV”
This is Episode 1 of our “Real Dealz TV” series with Tucker and our Realtor Chris. In this episode we visit our Ladd’s Addition and Sellwood remodel projects. We will continue to bring you Real Dealz TV episodes that will follow our own Real Estate Investing business.
Using direct mail to generate consistent motivated seller leads
Posted By Tucker Merrihew on Dec 15, 2013 | 19 comments It’s no secret to those of us who have been in the Real Estate Investing game for any length of time, that the market has changed a lot over the past 12-18 months. One of the biggest changes has been the increased challenge for Real Estate Investors to find quality investment grade inventory to flip! Back a few years ago deal were plentiful since there were tons of REO’s (Bank Foreclosures) on the RMLS to bid on, HUD homes (FHA Foreclosures) that you could simply place bids online for, and lastly foreclosure auctions that were bursting at the seams with screaming deals that could be had for $1 over the opening bid amount…….but that is not the case anymore! Foreclosure inventory has started to dry up, and those foreclosure that even resemble a possible deal are being chased down by just about every investor in your respective market and the prices are being bid up to ridiculous amounts. So what does this mean to Real Estate Investors who want to continue to have great success in 2014 and beyond…..? Well the answer is learning how to generate your own flip inventory, and there are a number of different ways that you can do that. In my opinion however, there is one strategy that is far superior to the rest both in terms of costs and results…….and that strategy is Direct Mail! You see, direct mail is a strategy that works in every market if done properly. So I believe this is the most important marketing strategy that real estate investors should not only learn about, but also be putting to work in their business. So without any further introduction lets jump into today’s blog post: Using direct mail to generate consistent motivated seller leads for your real estate investing business! Direct Mail vs. Other Methods A few years back I was buying most of the houses that my company flipped through the local foreclosure auctions — relationships that I had made with REO listing agents in my area, and other fixer type listings off the MLS. During the time period of 2008 to around 2011, these strategies were producing plenty of discounted houses for my company to buy and flip. But I knew that those days would be numbered as the economy started to improve, and foreclosure inventory began to work its way through the system and eventually to dry up. Fast forward to today and buying deals at the local foreclosure auctions are few and far between due to all of the increased competition on any given...
HOW TO START A HOUSE FLIPPING BUSINESS: PART 3 OF 3!
We have had a great response so far with the previous two articles that lay out the steps necessary to build a house flipping business from the ground up. So in order to raise the bar even higher in the third and final part of this series, I am going to be giving away TONS of extremely valuable and FREE information on how to build your own successful house flipping business! In the last article I gave you a couple strategies that you could put to work in order to generate leads for your real estate business. Although those lead sources (probates and driving for dollars) are great and everyone should be taking advantage of them, you always need to be looking to grow your business and your marketing reach! The key to building your marketing machine is to become very good at one niche and then move onto the next (while continuing to use and master the previous niche’s). So in this article I am going to go through the next steps you need to take in order to become the player in your market that everyone aspires to be. So now that you have started to implement a couple marketing campaigns on a consistent basis (probates and driving for dollars), now its time to take it up a notch and start to increase the number of marketing campaigns you are running at any given time. To help you accomplish this my suggestions would be to do one of two things that will help you grow your business: The first would be to hire a marketing manager to help keep your direct mail consistent, organized and effective: Or the alternative would be to outsource all the mailings along with the lead follow up process. This would entail using a direct mail service provider to send out all of your yellow letters, postcards, ect. and then hire a virtual assistant to process all of the leads and follow up with the potential motivated sellers that contact you. I personally don’t care to use virtual assistants because I have a physical office space that my team and I work out of…..that and I am all about building my business with long term people who can actually go out and view properties and make offers for me. There is something to be said for having your team working along side you every day as apposed to half way around the world (which apparently doesn’t sell so GURUS fail to make this point). If however hiring virtual assistants works better for your current situation then go for it……its absolutely better to get...
HOW TO START A HOUSE FLIPPING BUSINESS: PART 2 OF 3
This is the second article in our blog post series on how to start your house flipping business from the ground up! After releasing the first article we got a lot of feedback from newer investors who said they really enjoyed the information and found it extremely helpful in giving them actionable steps to take when first starting out! So in this 2nd of a 3 part series we are going to go even deeper and deliver you some of the best “free” information you can get your hands on when it comes to real estate investing. We are on a mission to help as many investors as we can to achieve a life of financial freedom through real estate investing…..and this series of articles will give you simple step by steps instructions on how to do just that! Now that we have gone through what you need to do in order to start your House Flipping business, now its time to start making some major decisions on how you are actually going to make money! What I mean by this is what is going to be your property acquisitions niche or where are you going to find your deals? Because eventually you will actually have to buy (or assign) properties if you want to make money! Eventually you want to diversify so that you can constantly acquire properties through a variety of different niches, but when you are first getting started the only way to assure success is to FOCUS on one niche at a time. So here’s the deal…..most new investors start out trying to wholesale REO’s because they are the easiest to get access to since they are almost always listed for sale on the RMLS. The problem is most of them have no clue what they are doing and end up wasting A LOT of peoples time. Here is an example of a recent phone call I had with a newbie investor who called my office to try and sell us a deal: Newbie Investor: Hi there the guys at TTM Development Company……I have a great deal for you! Me: OK…..well tell me a little about it. Newbie Investor: Its a solid house that needs about 10K in rehab. I am selling it for 120K. Me: OK…..well can you give me the address and I’ll do some research? Newbie Investor: Its 123 main street After doing about 2 minutes of research I come up with the following information: The newbies house is an REO that has been listed for 95 days, the listing price is 115K, its a complete gut rehab, the house is in...
HOW TO START A HOUSE FLIPPING BUSINESS: PART 1 OF 3
This series is going to be dedicated to teaching you how to start a Real Estate Investment business (AKA House Flipping Business) from the ground up……and since I have successfully built one of the largest House Flipping businesses in my market of Portland, I think that should be a pretty good reason for you to keep reading and put this valuable information to work! This is one of the greatest businesses on earth, and to be successful doing something this great is one of the best feelings you can experience in life. On the flip side however, getting your Real Estate Investing business off the ground and then building a successful business that lasts can be very difficult…..especially when you are trying to accomplish everything on your own without the help of a mentor or business coach. So in an effort to give out some SUPER VALUABLE free content to our Real Dealz followers I am going to go through everything you need to do, in order to build your your very own Real Estate Investing business. This will be a three part series dedicated to getting you off the couch and ultimately running a hugely successful Real Estate Investing business…….so here we go! The first question that everyone asks themselves when they get into real estate investing is…..what do I do first? Well here is the answer….set up a company! I have read articles from a lot of Gurus who say don’t worry about it until you flip a deal or two….well I say BS! You have to treat Real Estate Investing just like you would be starting any other type of business, and there is no way in hell you would start any other type of business without actually setting up a company first. So the next step is going to be picking a company name…..now this is actually a very important step, so give it some thought. Pick something that people will remember and that will allow you to stand out from your competition. My companies all start with TTM, and the reason for that is because its easy for people to remember (and its my initials of course). Now when you are first starting out using a straight LLC is going to be just fine since they are rather simple and cheap to set up. After you have been in business for a year or so and are making profits, I would then suggest having your accountant file for the S-Corp election. This will allow you to ultimately save a lot of money on your taxes….but consult with your CPA before doing so. The next...
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