Month: May 2005

I have found in the real estate business that there are two kinds of people, the “doers” and the “wannabes”. There are folks who get up every morning with a clear and defined direction who want to make their business work no matter what it takes. Then there are the folks out there who go to seminars and buy books and tapes and do absolutely nothing.

I used to be one of those folks who did absolutely nothing, for almost a year in fact. There were two main things that held me back. One was lack of focus and the other was the fear monster. You can absolutely tame both. I am living proof that you can. The biggest change that occurred for me finally was the desire to succeed and to get back all the money we had spent on courses and seminars.

I discovered that there were some easy ways to get focused and get on track. One was to find the specific reason I wanted to succeed. For me it was to get back the money I had already spent and to get rid of a job I hated. For you it may be putting money away for your kid’s education, taking a trip you’ve always wanted to take or maybe becoming involved in charities you want to support. Whatever that reason is for you, commit it to paper and to those around you.

You can also enlist the help of your local real estate club or a mentor to stay on track. Even if people around you are telling you it won’t work, don’t let them “steal your dreams”. Only you can make the decision to be financially free. I know that lots of our friends and family members thought we were crazy to want to do this business. I’m glad I didn’t listen! Hang around with like minded people, wherever you can find them. Hang around with people who make more money than you do. Some of it is bound to stick to you. Enlist the help of your spouse and children while growing your real estate business. There are lots of things they can do to help and you’ll get a feeling of team work which will keep you moving forward.

Do whatever it is you need to do to keep moving in a positive direction. Don’t let the naysayers get you down. They just want to keep you where they are. You have a right to live the kind of life you want so get out there and do it!

Flyers are a good way to locate motivated sellers and can be used to target specific neighborhoods where you want to buy houses. You can either hire a company to do this for you, or hire older children to hang these flyers for you. Do follow up by driving by the area to make sure the work was done. This technique can be repeated either monthly or quarterly depending on your time and budget.

Billboards are another way to attract motivated sellers. Just remember that they can be costly and hit only one part of your target market. One way to make billboards less costly is to go in with another investor on them and split the cost. You can have the calls sent to an answering service who can split the calls between the two of you. This method definitely makes it more equitable to do billboards. Also ask your billboard company about remnant space. What this means is that for a lower cost, the billboard company will put your billboards wherever there is an empty billboard. This can be another way to get your message out.

One of the other ways to get the message out that you buy houses is to simply tell everyone you know what you do for a living and that you pay referral fees. This is the cheapest way I know to find houses people have for sale. Make sure you let everyone you talk to know what it is you do. For example, your hairdresser, dry cleaner, pest control person, grocer, toll takers, pool cleaning person, lawn person, Fed Ex or DHL delivery person, attorney, accountant, neighbors, friends, relatives, co-workers or anyone else you know or talk to.

Always remember to implement between three and five different strategies since you will be targeting your market in a variety of ways. For more information on finding motivated sellers, visit my web site at marketingmagiclady.com.

Using direct mail to attract motivated sellers is my favorite marketing technique. There are several reasons for this. The first is that generally speaking, there is no competition for these properties whatsoever. Much of your competition don’t use direct mail and the sellers themselves generally don’t know they are going to sell their house until they receive contact from you. They know they have a problem to solve, they just don’t know how until you are there to help them.

Secondly, once you build a machine whereby you have direct mail campaigns going out on a regular basis, you create an ongoing source of leads. Not only do you have deals coming at you today, you are constantly planting seeds for future deals. As these sellers’ situations change, they will contact you first because you took the time to create credibility with them through your mailings.

Another really great thing about direct mail is that since it is very targeted to specific lists, you are getting the very best use of the marketing dollars available to you. The more you do direct mail campaigns the higher the response rate gets. So the more you do it, the less it costs. Direct mail is the only marketing technique out there that allows you to do this. In addition, you are using your available marketing dollars to target specific types of sellers as opposed to other types of marketing like signage or an ad where you are hitting a much broader market area. You should always have between three and five marketing techniques working at any given time and one of them should absolutely be direct mail campaigns.

There are several great ways to get the lists you need to mail to. For the most part they are very easy to get. You can get lists to mail to from your local newspaper, from the property assessors office, from mailing list companies, from the courthouse or from a company called First American Real Estate Solutions. For more information on direct mail campaigns and how to acquire lists, please visit my web site at Marketingmagiclady.com.

If you are a serious investor or you’re just getting started in the business, then you need to have a realtor on your “team”. There are many ways a realtor can help you to build your business.

A realtor can help you by giving you MLS listings with key words in them such as “motivated seller”, “handyman special”, “needs TLC” and other phrases that will tell you the seller is motivated to make a quick sale. Another function a realtor can perform for you is to give you very old MLS listings. This tells me they have been on the market for a very long time for a variety of reasons. Maybe the home needs rehab and the seller doesn’t have the money to do it. Or the seller is very restrictive as to when the house can be shown. In any case, these listings can provide you with many good leads.

One of the best deals you can do with a realtor is to have them provide you with expired listings. You will need to make an agreement with them as to how much you will be willing to pay if you close on one of these deals. In my Marketing Magic System, I have an entire direct mail campaign aimed at expired listings and have bought houses this way myself.

Sometimes a seller will contact me and they are not terribly motivated and would like to sell their home for near retail. In these cases, I refer them to my realtor. If he does a deal and sells that person’s home, I get a referral fee, so it’s a win-win all the way around.
I also use my realtor to help me with comps and valuations of properties when I get stuck on a property that is in a remote area or is somewhat unusual.

I even use my realtor to sell houses for me. There are times when I will have a home in portfolio that is unusual in that it’s very large, very expensive or has some other trait that makes the market area smaller. My realtor has a buyer’s list available that he can draw from and gets my homes sold quickly.

For more information on using realtors to help you find motivated sellers visit my web site at Marketingmagiclady.com

Being an investor who purchases properties in multiple counites and in multiple states,I have had the experience of buying homes and vacant land in rural communities. I will absolutely share with you that this is a science in and of itself. There are many different parameters to buying in rural areas.

Firstly, if you are buying vacant land, many times it will not have a street address, making it more difficult to locate. One advantage to buying in rural areas is that generally speaking the folks at the court house and the property appraiser’s or assessors office are usually easier to work with. If you plan on buying vacant land, I would suggest getting a plat map book which shows the subdivisions and the properties in lot and block. The easiest way I found to do this is to go to the court house and ask if they have a copy you can buy. If this is not possible, find out if you can make a copy of the one they have. Sometimes they will let you borrow it, or copy it on the premises. This will make it a whole lot easier to locate the properties you are trying to buy.

The other thing you will also need is a street map of the community. Usually these street maps will also show subdivision locations. This also makes it easier to find properties.

If you are looking to buy properties in rural areas there are three main ways to find motivated sellers. One of those is to work with a local realtor. Usually, they are much easier to work with than those in larger cities. They are usually willing to share information for example on why a seller needs to sell. If the first realtor you talk to won’t help, find another. The second way to find motivated sellers is to simply use signage. Usually in a smaller community, the sign ordinances are not nearly as strict as they are in a larger city. The third way to find motivated sellers is to do direct mail campaigns to non-homestead exempt or absentee owners. The program I use to do this is Real Quest and my contact for this company is David Kirk at 813-909-4043. If you go to my web site at marketingmagiclady.com, you will find a lot more information on this company. This program can provide plat maps, sales information, property information, comps, and more. I personally use this program to find motivated sellers in the community I like to buy in.

There is absolutely money to be made in small communities and people sell for a variety of reasons. I find the main ones to be probate and estate and pre-foreclosure. Both of these situations create wonderful opportunities for buying properties well under their value.

You will also need to set yourself up with a title company who understands your business, even if you have to train them yourself. I know that the first couple of deals I purchased into land trusts I had to explain to the title company. I even provided them with the deed that included the duties of the trustee.

Buying properties in a rural area is a real learning experience, but I will tell you that if you take the time and the energy to do it, there is a lot of money to be made. For more information on finding motivated sellers, visit my web site at marketingmagiclady.com