I am completely befuddled on finding motivated sellers, or any sellers for that matter. All the leads that are coming my way are via realtors that really aren’t deals. My classifieds section of my newspaper are empty… literally no one selling via the paper. And craigslist is a joke! Any advice besides putting signs out around the neighborhood. As always it is much appreciated.
A lot has been posted here on that topic.
Any hook you leave in the water will produce a catch, eventually.
The issue I see is that you’re dropping hooks where there are the least fish. Craigslist is NOT good for prospecting sellers. Sellers rarely, if ever call craigslist advertisers. I think the primary reason is that fsbo’s are not trained to call up potential buyers. They follow the lead of agents who also wait for sellers/buyers to call them. Agents may call FSBO’s to see if they can get a listing. That’s still not uncommon.
And frankly, finding motivated sellers that advertise requires a phone call to them. That’s what they expect. That’s what they’ll wait for.
That all said… what are you trying to buy?
Perhaps you should consider doing direct response mail.
My partner uses “yellow letters” effectively. Michael Quarles, on this forum, offers an example in his ebook of what to do that resonates with my experience.
The quality of the mailing list is quite important. We mail all the out of state owners in our farm on a monthly basis. We get calls all the time. We make our letters timely and memorable with references to the season, and including informative articles every so often, so that our mail is welcome. When the out of state owner decides (is reminded he still owns the hell hole), we’re the first one, and often the only person the seller thinks to call. Some sellers have called us and they’ve already made up their mind to sell to us.
If we’re friendly and likable, sellers often want to please, and they’ll give up quite a bit, simply because it feels good to do business with us.
After enough people have a good experience with you, word spreads and your referral business may become enough to keep you busy (depending on how ambitious you are).
Meantime, I know two full time RE merchandisers (flippers/wholesalers) who spend upwards to $120,000/yr advertising for sellers. They’ve found two or three responsive veins and mine them consistently. Their farm is more like the southwest United State, but…
I think consistency would describe their advertising.
Check out MichaleQuarles for ideas on how to find motivated sellers. It’s really thought provoking, and his ideas about the “yellow letter” are profitable, in my opinion.
Hope that helps a little bit.
This has been a struggle for me as well!!
I feel like :banghead!! And this :flush and this :flush!!!
I clicked your post hoping to find some help as well.
I’ll look into Micheal Quarles.
Thanks javipa!
Woaaahh! I always thought Craiglist
works in whatever strategy I may want to
use. However, it isn’t. Thanks for this very
informative and specific information.
You have to play the numbers game. What I have found is that it takes 100-200 deals to come into your pipeline, you quickly weed out the duds and end up with 10-20% of them left. Figure out how to evaluate them in 10 minutes or less and offer away. It is different in every market. Some markets, the newspaper, local publications, craigslist or bandit signs work great. Others social media is better or REOs. Others doing direct mail to foreclosure, probate, divorce, absentee owners, bankruptcy, tax delinquent or other motivated sellers lists works best. How are the experts in your market finding deals? Find them on the web or in REI Clubs, find out the address of some of the deals they have done and research the address to find out where it came from. Was it an REO, short sale, purchased from a wholesaler, did it have back taxes, probate, other? You will have to try, test, improve and keep trying and trying and improving. Once you figure it out, you will be dangerous. Keep trying different things until you figure it out and try some of the techniques above to shorten the learning curve. Best of luck.
Generating real estate leads can be quite tricky. Though many these days prefer Craigslist as their primary marketing strategy, there are both offline and online methods you can try to help you succeed in your venture.
This might sound a bit hardy, but if you want to be successful in marketing real estate then you need to take some risks. One way is to create lead generating sites. Yeah, the cost might be too much to handle but it quite possible to generate a good amount of leads that you can contact if you do it right. Marketing it properly with good ol’ SEO should help start it out.
Another advice is to check out popular real estate sites, or even consider IDX solutions as well if you have a mind to further improve your marketing strategy to attract more leads.
Hope this helps. :bobble :bobble :bobble
Actually I think that trying online would be far less expensive than pursuing the same old offline strategies that are slowly but surely becoming obsolete.
The future is online, there’s no doubt about that.
Believe that if you want…but dollar for dollar I’ll take bandit signs & yellow letters over online marketing method any day of the week. More leads for the buck and the leads are higher quality…just my opinion.
I have found that direct mail marketing in some form is what works the best for me. I mail several hundred postcards a month and get about 1-2% response rate. Of course you need to know what you are wanting to buy, and backing up one more step you need to know then to whom you are marketing to. Yes it’s costly. QUITE COSTLY but very direct and very effective.
I used to do the thrifty nickel and penny saver newspapers, as well as craigslist however every lead was either other investors (pronounced: bird dog) looking to assign a contract or wholesale a dump, or lagit sellers that cannot sell their house because it’s so badly under water or in the worst area of town, neither are on my list of prospective buyers.
Seek out what you want to buy and target that seller in some way.
Yep, just like the previous two posters - signs and mail work best for us.
Everyone I talk to asks why we don’t do more online. The reason - the leads have not been that good! Like Tony, most of the people that contact us from Craigslist or other web generated leads are other wholesalers/bird dogs or someone who needs a short sale done.
For sellers who can sell at the price we need and buyers that actually buy - it’s mail and signs for us!
I believe that marketing is an attack. I use as many weapons as I can. Looking on Craigslist can work but how much energy does it take. Type and click. Generating letters takes way more typing and the cost of mail and envelopes this will keep most from even bothering.
Develop a Marketing Plan. Outline the weapons you will use, a calendar for their implementation, and measure the results to find what works best for you. Consistentcy is the key so plan to use a weapon for 3 months, evaluate and redevelop the plan.
Putting hooks in the water is great just make sure the bait stays on the hook.
Attack from every front and look for new ways to win the battle. The next marketing piece may be your WMD.
You’ve inspired me! I’m ready to go out and kick some ***…
Seriously though, I agree with this comment 1000%:
Probably why it works so well for us - no one else (or very few) will even bother! And those that do don’t even answer the phone - why would you spend money and time on marketing and then not talk to the seller???
But if someone can’t be bothered to do these simple activities, how do they expect to make any money in the business?