Hey guys, I just got on this site, my father and I decided to get into this more actively as he has been investing in real-estate long term for the last 20 years and I just graduated college. Its only been a few weeks so far, but we mailed out about 200 letters to absentees last week as well as about 40-60 yellow letters to FSBO’s. If we get no response we’ll keep them on a follow-up schedule and have already picked an area that we plan to zipcode mail within the next few weeks. Do you guys have any other advice to get things going? We are really working hard to get that first deal under our belts and I feel like getting the word out and marketing is by far the most important thing right now. We still need to put out bandit signs as well as business cards/flyers at main areas I’ve noticed quite a number of bandit signs coming up in our area so I’ve got a feeling theres some competition out there for sure, but the market should be big enough for all of us. Also we have our family real estate agent helping us out, he will provide us with some expired listings and REO’s once we get a few dead leads and throw them his way. Anyways if you guys have any advice or tips for beginners please let us know, we’re all ears!
If your father has been in REI for 20 yrs., why is he a beginner? What type of investing has he been doing? Are you ready to pull the trigger quickly if a deal comes your way from your marketing? What are your goals? Business plans?
What will you do with a property when your marketing produces results?
Powder - phlemboy and dave are spot on. Few months ago my wife and I decided to start investing in real estate. We identified several houses that looked abandoned or vacant in an area we liked and send letters/postcards. We probably mailes 100 postcards. We got one investor from California that wanted to sell. When he called I realized that I didn’t know what to do next. I was not ready. I felt so stupid because I invested a lot of time and some money in my marketing campaign and when I got one potential deal, I didn’t know how to do it.
bottom line - we decided to stop and get more knowledge/information. I took a real estate course and got my license. We wrote a business plan and we are in the process of opening our LLC this month. I have been reading on this site for few weeks now and we are planning to go to our first REIA meeting this month (July 14 or 15). We will start looking in the MLS for potential deals this week.
the next time I find a potential deal, I will be ready to close… :O)
I wish you good luck! Please keep us posted.
I say beginner because he as been more into long term investment than quick turn, and owns about 5 or 6 personal properties right now. We have been to the seminars, read over and over and listened to more tapes and CD’s than I’d like to admit. We have an LLC setup as well as a website, answering service, an office and all the phone lines. After mailing yesterday we got 3 faxes in this morning, unfortunately they are all dead leads, but we only sent out about 30 yellow letters to FSBO’s yesterday so thats a good return given the holiday is coming up as well. One guy actually called last night, we looked over his situation this morning, and as we were looking over it and crunching the numbers he called again and another fax came through! I’ll let you know how that goes, problem is he owes more than what his house is worth at the moment, so we’ve gotta figure out if hes got more than one mortgage. Either way we’re definitely ready to make a deal when it comes, but we’re not looking to push a deal thats not there. I’ll keep you updated though, we haven’t taken one main route, we’re open to anything thats possible and keeping our heads up, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from me on here for sure