I’ve read here and elsewhere about purchasing foreclosures. And I understand someone’s motivation to sell pre-foreclosure. And I’ve read about finding the worst house in a good neighborhood.
Can someone provide me with convincing ideas, techniques, letters, flyers, sales pitch, whatever, to persuade a home owner who lives in the worst house in a good neighborhood to sell?
Thanks.
We may call ourselves investors…but in reality we’re salemen. We sell ourselves, our solutions, etc. Learning the fundamentals of sales in general is extremely important. I would learn about sales in general through books and tapes. A visit to a local book store and looking through their books on sales might be a place to start. Sales skills, once learned, can be transfered to any endeavor. This is an area many beginning investors fail because of lack of sales skills.
Thanks for that reply. I agree, however I’m still looking for some examples or specifics. Thanks again.
It seems to me that there are several scenarios or questions in your post.
“I’ve read here and elsewhere about purchasing foreclosures. And I understand someone’s motivation to sell pre-foreclosure. And I’ve read about finding the worst house in a good neighborhood.”
Okay, so are you asking about buying a house pre-foreclosure, or are you talking about buying the worst house in a good neighborhood?
I think those are two different things.
If you’re buying a house pre-foreclosure because you saw a legal advertisement or some other public information, you’re going to be competing against every other investor for that house. Everyone wants to buy pre-foreclosure, before the auction. Well, usually…
In that case, it’s going to come down to you either offering the best deal (something that I doubt will be profitable for you) or connecting on some personal level with the person where they just feel good about selling to you as opposed to everyone else. That is where your true salesmanship will come in, assuming that you’re even lucky enough to get a face-to-face with the owner. I do not have luck with letters to these people, because you know what? People who are in foreclosure usually don’t open their mail! They are getting hammered by creditors and lawyers, etc.
“Can someone provide me with convincing ideas, techniques, letters, flyers, sales pitch, whatever, to persuade a home owner who lives in the worst house in a good neighborhood to sell?”
This is something else altogether. Buying the “ugly” house in the nice neighborhood…in my opinion, if the owner is not in an “It’s for sale” mindset, there’s nothing you can do about that. And if it is for sale, he’ll be sure and tell you.
But here’s the question…why would you spend all that time and energy trying to convince someone to sell you their house when there are a dozen different ways to get people to call YOU and ASK you, “Will you PLEASE buy my house? PLEASE?”
It’s so sweet to have someone call you and say, “My house is worth $175K, but I’m going to ‘list it’ for $170K.” (Silence.) “Well, actually, I suppose if you were paying cash I could let it go for $150K.” (Silence.) “Ya know, I owe about $120K on it, and if I could just get the note paid off, I suppose that’d be OK.”
BINGO.
Happens every day.
I was looking for information aboutto persuading a home owner who lives in the worst house in a good neighborhood to sell.
You stated "why would you spend all that time and energy trying to convince someone to sell you their house when there are a dozen different ways to get people to call YOU and ASK you, “Will you PLEASE buy my house? PLEASE?”
I’ve read that others do that so their is less competition. Isn’t everyone looking at the pre-foreclosures?
And please tell me about the “dozen different ways to get people to call YOU”
And how often does a seller drop from 175K to 120K in a single phone call?
Thanks.
“And how often does a seller drop from 175K to 120K in a single phone call?”
Often enough to make a nice living. Remember you’re looking for motivated sellers. That’s why, if your marketing approach is well thought out, they call you.
There shouldn’t be any persuasion in your part if you’re dealing with motivated sellers. You don’t have to buy, they (sellers) have to sell. Your job is to pre-screen the sellers. Don’t waste your time persuading them.
I’m not sure what you mean by the first quote. Yes, that is why others do that, so that there is less competition. Yes, everyone is looking at pre-foreclosures. (And by “everyone,” I mean “everyone and his mother.” Personally, I don’t bother with the properties that are known to be in foreclosure because the competition is very tough. There are a lot of people overpaying.)
As for the dozen different ways, I am sure there is a marketing thread where they talk about these, and more. For starters, though:
(1) Road signs (may not be legal in your county or city)
(2) Newspaper ads
(3) Direct mail
(4) Flyers in the local newspaper
(5) Door hangers
(6) Attending networking meetings
(7) “I Buy Houses” all over your car
(8) Web marketing
(9) Lead generator services
(10) Realtors
(11) Attorneys (divorce, estate)
(12) Everyone!
The list goes on and on. What if you became known as the “I Buy Houses Guy” in your market? Think you’d still spend time persuading people to sell you their house? I think you’d have to set up a rigorous pre-screening method so that you could go out and write the 10-15 solid deals per month that you’d find.
You don’t have to “convince” a true motivated seller to sell. You have to establish a rapport and demonstrate the benefits of selling to you.
trying to convince a non-motivated seller to sell is u, becoming a motivated buyer. don’t do this. u can’t convince someone in denile. they have to realize it themselves.
LOL… I think we all gave him the same answers. ;D
Ain’t effective communication cool? Learn how to apply it to your marketing and you’re off and running.
I’ll give you a piece of my marketing that works gangbusters.
Write your marketing letter, personally sign it in blue ink.
Hand address an envelope to the owner. Use a stamp.
Write a check addressed to the owner for FMV of the property. VOID it (kind of important!)
Buy a red ink pad and order a stamp that reads CHECK ENCLOSED.
Stamp it askew on the outside of the envelope.
Mail
Field the phone call and close the deal.
Lots of folks make the mistake of trying to “sell” the program through their marketing. The only purpose of marketing is to generate a phone call. You can’t sell a deal through email. Once you have an incoming call, then it’s time to change hats and play salesman/transaction engineer.
Regards,
Dave
Dave,
Awesome technique. 
Will have to borrow this from you.
-sean
Hi, David -
I think your idea is spot-on. All of your personalization techniques sound exactly right to me. The only thing I semi-question is sending someone who may be in financial hardship a check. People who are painted into financial corners can do some weird things.
Whether you’ve written VOID on the check or not, someone could still deposit it, likely at an ATM, and it could very well get processed. We’ve all read horror stories about items that aren’t even checks being treated as real money. Now, I am sure that the UCC would be on your side, and writing VOID on it would eventually settle the matter with the bank, but I bet it would take some time to work out. However, there’s also the matter of “reasonable care,” and I am not sure that knowingly mailing someone a voided check written out (and signed?) meets that test.
If nothing else, the recipient now has your ABA number, your checking account number, and maybe even your signature. Again, these items are not all that perilous in day-to-day life, but in the hands of someone who is having financial trouble?
And I won’t even get into check washing and all that…
At the very least, if you’re going to do this, I think I’d punch holes in a couple of the ABA and account numbers. Then, not only will the person not have your complete account information, but the bank will have an exception to process manually when the check is rejected due to the MICR encoding being incomplete. Then, when a live person sees the check, s/he will see that it’s marked VOID.
You still get the same great marketing effect, but I think you remove 99% of the risk, limited though it might be.
Love the overall package, though!
now if u r going to worry about any wanna be Frank Abignail (or whatever his name was) lol out there, that’s like worring about the DOSC being called, so don’t do the marketing or the deal ;D
Tony, Have you heard of spellcheck? Or are you going to be selling decoder rings? “denile” “worring”
Geeezzzz!
i was absent the day they showed us how to spell those words
Olny srmat poelpe can.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter byistlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! If you can raed tihs fdoawrd it !!
OMG Keith, that was gerat! i bet it took longer to type though lol
Probably not a good idea for resumes or marketing letters, though!