The Breakdown of Bandit Signs

Announcer: Welcome back to the Flipnerd.com REI classroom where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today expert host.

Larry: Hey, this is Larry Goins. Welcome to today’s REI classroom. Today we’re going to talk about bandit signs.

Announcer: This REI Classroom Real Estate Lesson is sponsored by Virtualstaffnow.com.

Larry: Now you might be thinking, “I’ve heard everything I need to know about bandit signs.” I got a few tips and tricks for you. Now first of all, if you’re brand new, you may have never heard the term “bandit sign”. It’s those signs that you see on the side of the road, let say “I buy houses.” It’s just like this one right here. This is one of ours that says, “I buy houses.”
So those are the type of signs that you see but I’m going to show you how not only you can increase your response but how you can sell your properties with bandit signs as well. Now first of all, where are you going to put the bandit signs at? You want to put them at intersections, you want to put them at the entrance and exits to shopping centers, malls, convenience stores, in neighborhoods where you want to buy properties, at the corner of a intersection in a neighborhood, at the entrance to a neighborhood, all those types of areas. If you see a vacant lot, put one there. If you see a vacant house, put one there. Those are all different places.
Now, here’s the reason they call them bandit signs, because a lot of places . . . I shouldn’t say “a lot”, some places they’re actually illegal and you’re going to get a call from code enforcement. What we do, if we get a call from code enforcement, we basically tell them that we will take the sign up, and we do, and then we just move out into the county because it’s typically only the cities that have code enforcement for the bandit signs. But I’ve got to tell you something else, you don’t typically get any resistance or any calls from code enforcement when you’re selling a property with the bandit sign, only when you’re trying to buy a property.
Now, you saw my “We buy houses fast” sign. Let me show you a sign that gets a better response. Change it up a little up. See, this one says “Larry buys houses” and has our phone number on it and make sure you have it on both sides. Notice it is black letters with yellow stock. Now, it always helps if you have a picture on a sign.
Now look at this one. This one gets the most response at any sign that we have. This is Gaby Buys Houses and has toll-free 855-GABY-BUYS. Now notice the other one had 855-LARRY-BUYS, but this one right here gets more response. Who would you rather talk to, Larry or Gaby? A lot of people think a female is going to be less aggressive or easier to talk to than a guy, so Gaby does work with us or actually she did. She moved out to . . . where did she move to . . . Oregon. And she still does some work with us but she allowed me to continue to use her picture and her sign on our bandit signs.
Now let’s talk about selling them right quick. So we sell most of our properties from bandit signs as well. We put these signs out all over the neighborhood, not in front of the house if it’s an MILS listed house and we don’t own it yet. But if we’re wholesaling it, we put this signs out all over the area. We put the price. If they see a sign in a neighborhood that says $50,000 and they know it’s a $80,000-100,000 neighborhood, then they know that it’s a deal and they’re going to call. We have it on both sides.
Now we also do a lot of owner financing. We put these signs out for our owner financing buyers and we actually put “Call for the price” and we handwrite like this is four acres, four-bedroom, three-bath, 1,800 square feet and we put them all up all over the neighborhood and on that side of town and the phone rings off the hook.
So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of REI Classroom. I’ll see you on the next one.

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