Direct Mail and Building Your List

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 the today’s expert host.

Jim: Hey everybody, I’m Jim Ingersoll back with you on the REI Classroom and I want to talk a little bit about direct mail.

Announcer: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by UglyOpportunities.com.

Jim: Because direct mail, as you know, is a highly effective method for reaching out and connecting directly with very motivated sellers, but there is some risk on doing it wrong and spending a whole ton of marketing and getting no results. I don’t know about you, but I want to fine-tune and laser-focus my marketing to maximize my results.

To maximize your results, what you want to do is you want to make sure that you get your list done right. You may be using a source like ListSource.com I like to use that. It works very well. Where do you build your list to get your phone ringing with these motivated sellers? Well, there are a couple different lists you may want to consider and it depends on the strategy. It really depends on your access strategies, specifically. If you’re looking for subject-to deals or lease options and things like that, you’re going to want to go after people that have very little equity but have really good loans in place and maybe bought in the last two or three years towards the bottom of the market, so they bought it at a good price and they got great rates, say 3 ¾%, 4 ½%. Those houses will cash flow like crazy on subject-to deals. If that’s the case, you want to fine tune your list to very low equity.

Now, If you’re a wholesaler, you’re looking to do some fix-and-flips, you’re a rehabber, this type of thing, what you’re going to want to do is go after people with high equity. This also works great for people looking for seller financing. You go after people that have a lot of equity that are willing to trade that equity for a fast sale without doing any repairs and without a realtor coming in, posting a sign in the yard, and doing open houses and bringing people in and out. You can create a list that’s very motivated. Beyond that, you will also want to fine-tune and go after absentee owners, maybe out of state owners depending on the market that you’re in, that works really well also.

One of my favorite things to do is go after people that are aging a little bit. Not go after them, but talk to them about selling their properties, because one of the things that happens, if you get a little later in your life and you’ve got a whole bunch of rental properties, your kids start to ask you to get rid of it. If you’ve got the ability to fine-tune that list that you’re building to go after landlords that are aging a little bit, say over 70, that can be a really sweet spot in the market that other investors probably are not going after.

Now you can’t build that list in ListSource.com, by the way, but you can use a site like YellowLetters.com if you reach out and talk Zack over there and tell him Jim sent you. It’s a great site for doing your turnkey marketing, but he also has the ability to build a list for you to target after the folks that are just a little bit older in age.

You start doing that, you build your list for those that have equity or no equity, absentee versus being homeowners in the house, and you will start to get really sweet results with your marketing.

Again, thank you so much for tuning into the REI Classroom today. Build that list, get your phone ringing and find some red hot real estate deals today.

Announcer: Homevestors, the ‘we buy ugly houses’ folks, is a franchise system of hundreds of real estate investors that have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro looking to take your business to the next level or whether you have no experience at all but a burning passion to be successful in real estate investment, please visit FlipNerd.com/ugly to learn more.

Please note the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers, or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.

Are you a member yet of FlipNerd.com, the hottest real estate investing social community online? If not, you can join for free in less than 30 seconds and get access to hundreds of off-market deals, vendors in your market to help you in your business, and you can start networking with thousands of other investors just like you. Get your free account now at FlipNerd.com.

Please check out the FlipNerd family of real estate investing shows where you can access hundreds of expert interviews, quick tips and lessons from leaders across the real estate investing industry. They’re available at FlipNerd.com/shows or simply search for FlipNerd in the iTunes Store.