Preparing for my wholesaling campaign

[Redstar1324]

I will be sending out to absentee owners in my area.

My questions are:

1. Is there a sample letter that I can copy?

2. I understand the theory behind absentee owners lists, but aren't there much more properties that I would be missing where the owners live in them that are facing foreclosure? These people wouldn't be on the absentee list.

3. Do you suggest purchasing a list, or just downloading one for free from the property appraiser? I think I should get the free one from the property appraiser, but would I be doing myself a disservice in any way?

4. How do I build my buyers list to be 1000's of people? I currently only know to look at bandit signs (which are often other wholesalers anyway) and to Google "We Buy Houses" in my area. Should I attend a local REI club meeting to gain access to more buyers? What is the best way to build my buyers list to ridiculous proportions?

[Randoskie]

When I emerged from my cave this morning it was a gorgeous sight, blue skies, the trees, a little cold. I quickly got the fire going and cooked me a slab of moose meat. Then I turned on my satellite receiver and noticed Mr Redstar had posted another question. Last week he was totally against wholesaling and only interested in rehabbing and now he's flip flopped in a completely different direction and asking questions.
My first reaction was to run thru the woods naked & screaming like an insane banshee.
But living in this cave has got me a bit more mellow especially after listening to my John Denver 8 tracks. So I question, shud I try to answer these questions knowing they will drive me insane and that the Redstar wont listen or follow any advice and it will only be followed by more questions that will never end, or shud I just do a little spear fishing and enjoy my life of solitude and bliss?
I wonder why he wud want a ridiculous amount of buyers? My buyers list is probably less than 20 but it's always 2-3 investors that buy everything I throw at them. I didn't realize that property appraisers had lists of absentee owners. I've been getting my lists from listsource and listgiant.
Wait, here I go again, I've got to get back to my cave and regroup. I have hides to tan, I want to carve a chair out of a solid log with my buck knife. I must prepare for the cold winter months. I want to capture and train the mountain lion that shares the land with me. I want to become one with the land, I need to turn off this darn satellite get a big pot of moose stew cooking. Let me see if I can find my Crystal Gale & Helen Ready 8 tracks.
Oh, life is good.

[Redstar1324]

The property appraiser WOULD have absentee owners lists, except that they have minor typographical errors in their database.

Something as simple as an extra space in between the street number and street name renders this useless because I can't use MS Excel functions to match and delete the "non-absentee owners". Why is there always some problem like this?

Somebody informed me that wholesaling is more profitable than rehabbing because you can do more deals.

I just bought 400,000 leads from the property appraiser for $25. I can do this for every nearby county or even counties that I don't live in.

Now how am I going to pay for all those stamps? That's a better question.

[Luke9686]

For buyers, go on Zillow and find the recently solds (last 6 months) that sold for a low price for your area ($50K and under where I am).  Next, cross reference that list with the county assessor, noting only buyers that look like they are companies.  Send the standard yellow letter to those people, stating you want to buy that house.  I recently did this and got about 20 new buyers.  You don't need 1,000's of buyers.

As for the letters to send to you absentee list, I wouldn't use the standard yellow letter for that.  They get hammered by people sending the exact same thing.  Use the yellow letter, with a black sharpie, and a slightly different message than the standard yellow letter message.

Here is the standard yellow letter:

https://www.yellowletters.com/product/investor-yellow-letter-1


But it doesn't matter, you'll be back here by the end of the night with a question about a completely different strategy...  That's ok though, my buddy who's killing it in Orlando doesn't need any more competition...

[Redstar1324]

Yellow letter with black text sounds good except that it would be. hard to print at home.

My message text says,

"To (owner):

 My name is (my name). I am an investor wishing to purchase your house at (address).

 I will buy your house in " as-is" condition and purchase in cash. I would like to buy your house as soon as possible.

 Sincerely,

 (my name)
 (my number) "

What do you think?

I want to use paper and envelopes rather than post cards because I've heard they get better responses.