Marketing Tip- Free and Easy Ways to Find Motivated Sellers
One of the best 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, vendors or anyone else you know or talk to might be a good source of leads for you.
The way I deal with these folks is that we pay a referral fee if we get a deal from their lead. You could also pay them by the lead if you would like. This is another way to keep these people motivated to bring you even more leads. The last two houses we purchased were leads that came from our roofer and one of our handymen. So you never know where a lead might come from. I also picked up a new private lender by having a conversation about what we do with my nail tech. So many investors forget that there are lots of folks out there who know people who have houses for sale and money to lend you for your deals.
Another good way to find leads is to use a “for sale by owner” list service. Basically what these folks do is provide you with a list of all the “for sale by owner” properties in your area on a daily basis. They will e-mail this list to you. The way I use this lead source is to give the person who works for me a telephone script I use for pre-screening and then I have her call on all the for sale by owners leads once a week. Though I find that there usually aren’t as many leads to be gotten this way, it is still a good way to automate your system by getting someone else to find and pre-screen these leads for you, and there are definitely some deals to be made using these lists. It is also a very inexpensive lead source for you to use. This list is also a good way to keep track of how much properties are selling for in your area which gives you a good idea of comparables on properties you are looking to purchase.
Another really good technique that we implement to find leads is to work with a couple of realtors in our area to provide us with expired listings. These folks have a house to sell and generally they are very motivated sellers by the time the listing is expired. We find that these are great leads for us and we do a lot of deals from them. We have systems in place to recompense our realtor for providing these leads for us.
Always remember to implement between three and five different marketing strategies at all times since you will be targeting your market in a variety of ways. For more information on finding all the motivated sellers you need for your real estate investing business, and sources for “for sale by owner” list services, visit my web site at www.marketingmagiclady.com. While you are there be sure and sign up for my free Monthly Newsletter.