He Luvs Direct Mail

General Real Estate Investing
261

My buddy Jimbo wants to go Kayaking this coming Friday. The plan is to explore this small gorgeous lake called Redinger. It’s part of the Seirra Nevada mountain range and is fed by the San Joaquin river. It used to be an outrageous river and had massive salmon runs. Now there are a half doz dams generating electricity for the downstream city dwellers and no more salmon.
We need that alternative power source.
Anyways, I’m scared, my fear is not from kayaking a uncharted body of water, or the virus or getting arrested cuz I didnt follow instructions to stay corralled. No my fear is these treacherous mountain roads and Jimbo’s aggressive driving, I’m talking speeding, yelling and honking at drivers and we are in this frikin monster truck. It’s terrifying.
But once at the lake he starts to calm down. Then there is the ride back, is he calm from a half day of kayaking tranquility? no, he’s even more aggressive cuz he wants to get home.
Back in reality, we got this economy falling apart, meat plants closing, massive unemployment, Massive bailouts, the social media censoring everything.
What the heck is going on?

My cave in Idaho is there if I can get thru the snow and little Nanuk is prob hungry.

262

I confirmed with Jimbo that I needed to do some kayaking, and wer going this Friday to keep some sanity.
But, I had this nagging fear of the mountain roads and Jim’s driving.
Finally I dusted off my gonads and sent him this txt.

Jimbo, Your aggressive driving is scaring me. The yelling and honking and tail gating and speeding is stressing me out. There is no hurry, let’s go mellow.
He txted back a few minutes later, and this is all it said… ok.

Imagine if he cud actually do it, for 65 yrs his life’s adventures have shaped and molded him into the human he is today and then along comes this wamby pamby Rando and he’s whining about a little fear.

Charging up the GoPro batteries and maybe if there are not too many power lines around the generator station and lake, bring out the mavic air drone.
Now the only thing that cud ruin this trip is if Jimbo brings his goose poop eating dog.

263

Jimbo calls this morning, I had txted him to say the city has extended the stay at home order till May 5th and my buddy Dave says the lakes and parks are closed.
Jimbo tells me, screw that, we need to get out b4 we go stir frik crazy. And he tells me that his buddy Carl is coming, he’s a doctor, a surgeon and Jim says we wont get arrested for violating the unlawful & unconstitional stay at home order cuz wer with a doctor and it’s doctor’s orders.
And he tells me he don’t want me to weasel out cuz Carl is bringing his Surburban and he’s doing all the driving and bringing his 17 yr old daughter.
We’ll strap 4 of these bad ass kayaks to Jim’s trailer. They suppose to be at my house 9 AM.
So here is the plan, were going to have one heck of a great time all the while our country is doing a back flip in the economical black hole where gravity rules.
I tried to imagine the process of suns and galaxies being pulled into a black hole and the particles of creation stripped down into god know what, doing some insane matter manipulation.
Is that what started all this, the biggest black hole that ever existed reaching critical mass and 13 or 14 billions years later we got these crazy humans that can’t get their sh-t together?

264

Jimbo and Carl decided not to go kayaking this morning cuz of a slight breeze and gusting to 30 mph. So I got up to do some massive gardening, transplanting my squash and tomatoes. Planted some variety called monster tomatacus, one slice suppose to be bigger than ur bread.

I shudn’t hav watched the news, it’s distressing, and frightening. Pork and poultry plants getting shut down cuz the workers wont come to work, scared of a little death. And the FBI plotting and succeeding to destroy our 3 star general white house security chief and trying to bring down the president, holy freaking out of control criminals. And all this Russian crap and attacks on the prez and I’m hearing sh=t about shadow government. and deep state, and fake news and on an on, take me home grandma.
And then this economy, up to 50 frikin million unemployed, what in the heck is going down?
My biggest fear looks like a possibility. Total economic collapse.
Is this the only way they get Biden to win?

265

My 15 month old German Shepard puppy is a caged animal in my small back yard, but his new hobby is to get those possums that have made under the shed their breeding grounds.
He also likes to catch big rats and chases birds that come in for a doggy nugget. I had to set the turtle free in the pond across the street cuz Rambo wudnt leave him alone.

If I can just keep my mind off this economy and virus. Gardening puts me in a mindless bliss, and watching my fav vids on You Tube, 4K drone footage over some orgasmic terrain including mountains and deserts lakes and waterfalls and beaches.
Soon we will be able to wear Nano micro receivers and be completely immersed, maybe have them implanted.
With a tiny camera your entire life will be recorded, anything you want to experience, also perfect for government control.

But here is my main thought, how do we get some deals going? Direct mail, driving neighborhoods, bandit signs, bird dogs, door hangers?
Or is it to too soon to swoop in like vultures that can smell blood from miles away?

266

I’ve had enuf of this CV19 news. Let’s go to a more cheerful subject. I’m hearing about massive amounts of car loan defaults, and the projected foreclosures in retail is staggering. But it seems Single Family Homes are holding value and yet buyers are hesitating. Cuz of a little job loss?
Let me do some simple math here cuz a few of the neurons are still partially connected.
A third of the population is not working and have no income, the other 2/3rds are on Welfare or Social Security.
Nobody is buying goods, including cars, except for a surge on big screen TV’s when the trailer park residents got their Trump dollars.
The people just want to go back to their jobs and consume gas while driving to work and back and they can use the office toilet paper.
I want to have a positive outlook on all this, that stores will open next week, everybody goes back to their old job, oil starts flowing, the virus dies out, restaurants are full and theaters and everybody is buying and buying. and I can go get a haircut.

267

My barber is named Andy, he’s single, in his early 70’s and friendly as all get out, he has hundreds of regulars of old chewed up white guys like me. Andy is very political and always has the talk radio station going, and u will never hear music. He’s religious but don’t talk about it cept my clue is he has these signs around the shop that says, no cursing. His shop is decorated like a man cave, historical photos, a wooden Indian and even a stuffed dog, he keeps a pin board with every bodies business card.
Andy takes a long time on each haircut, maybe 20 minutes even when the waiting room has 10 customers. His shop is on a busy street in the back with a laundromat and dog grooming business.
Andy has a big closed sign on his barber shop window, he hasn’t been there for 6 weeks or longer. I’m trying to calculate how much money Andy earns, or used to, I estimate he cud probably do 20 haircuts a day each paying 12 buks. Then he’s got this expensive retail shop that cud be $1,000 a month in rents. Then he has utilities and license and taxes and holy crap, how’s he paying his home mortgage? cuz I’m thinking, he was probably struggling b4 the SHTF.
Now multiply Andy’s plight and imagine every shop owner in America experiencing an economical
sh-t storm and maybe emotional trauma.
I’m a bit worried of this picture. All orders for Chinese products has stopped. Can you say worldwide financial disaster?

268

I predict that by mid to late summer we are going to be seeing these housing prices start dropping.
And retail, we know they will be distressed, let’s wholesale some retail buildings.
And, Let’s “Sub To” some of these pre-foreclosure single fam homes.
That’s how I got my house, took over an existing loan. Seller was transferred out of state, realtor cudnt sell it and seller walked away, was happy to have it gone, and we got it with no frikin cash.
I’ve also put together a few of these deals for credit challenged buyers and made a good chunk of profit in the middle.
Of course most or many of the homeowners will stay put after they stop paying their mortgage. But we can’t help them.
Some defaulters will cut and run b4 they lose it all with just a handful of survival cash or none. That’s the target.
My hand has been itching, some opportunities coming.

269

Rando, that is a great point. There’s a sweet spot in seller motivation.

270

I’m embarrassed to say that I sometimes read the National Enquirer, I had a subscription awhile back but wud only receive it half the time cuz unknow perps wud be grabn them, so anyways, after Trump got elected they ran multiple stories about how Obama and Hilary wer trying to take down the Prez.
So later with 3 yrs of this Russian crap and Impeachment farce and now with Shiff and Polosy and Comey and FBI and on and on. I’m gona renew my subscription so I can get some real fake news.
Now the media is saying this innocent black jogger is gunned down by 2 trailer park escapees.
I’m remembering the Trevon Marten case, at first he was an innocent child going to get candy for his Grandma, then later we find out he was a thug and probably going out for something stronger than Tootsie Rolls, and this security guard was being violently attacked.
So cud I say without being labeled a raciest that maybe this black jogger was up to no good? He was stopping at a new const house to do what, scope out the place? And if you approach some angry white okies with guns, why wud you attack them?
Maybe we’ll get more news leaked out about how this jogger had prior police intervention, and I wonder, how many GF’s and how many children he’s not supporting? Has he ever had a job?

I’m getting ready to do my once weekly trip to Walmart tomorrow morning. They let seniors in between 7am - 8am to keep us from the virus carrying zombies. But I aint getting up that early.
My buddy Jimbo says they closed the lake parking lot and are giving out tickets to cars parked along the road.
If we don’t go kayaking soon we may suffer irreparable mental harm.

271

At 10 PM the power went out, outside it was some serious wind. I had a roast in the slow cooker, I dug out my dual fuel camp lantern and fired it up in the living room, it was some bright light but it was smelly. The power company txted me that the power was interrupted and shud be back on by 2 AM. HOW DID THEY GET MY NUMBER? I had purchased a battery bank for times like this, but it was dead, suppose to hold a friking charge.
In the morning the power was on, the roast was cooked and I had to re-set some of the clocks. My gas oven had an error reading and had stopped working months ago, top burners worked fine. Then I noticed it was suddenly working. What kind of sorcery is this? I celebrated by baking some choco chip cookies w coffee. Today the wind is still blowing and it’s cold, it was 98 degrees a few days ago.
Now my security DVR is not outputting a signal and the world is going to pot, literally.
Our knowing all Government set out some rules for the newly opened beaches here in CA for the sheep, no bike riding, no sitting, no towels or sunbathing, no stopping, no this, no that.
On the upside, when I got to Walmart at 10 AM there was toilet paper, and I got another 20 pound sack of rice and beans.
The outlook for fast economic recovery looks bleak, in fact we prob wont hit bottom till late summer and fall and even 2021.
It’s time to take action, cept I don’t know what. Home buyers are waiting for the big price drop, sellers are holding their prices waiting for the virus to fade away and the economy to jumpstart.
Landlords are stuck between the rock and the proverbial hard place.
I’m in limbo here.

272

I learned a new word recently, Forbearance, and it might give homeowners a way to defer their mortgage payments for 90 days but I believe the interest will still accrue.
I don’t think 90 days is enuf or even 1 year.
I also read a report this morning that says, housing prices will begin to tank in July.
Meanwhile our government is fighting like mad dogs amongst themselves w accusations flying.
Food lines, angry protesters, 50 million citizens unemployed, police state, virus.
My cave in Idaho might be accessible now if its not already occupied by doomsday preppers.

273

My barber Andy died, His shop was cleaned out and owner of the laundromat next door said he had a heart attack. What a way to go. I can imagine the horrific pain and knowing for a few minutes your a goner. Hopefully his belief in god and heaven helped. I wish I cud believe in all that.
The thought of me dying and being dead forever is a mind blowing concept.
My ol wholesaling partner showed up yesterday wearing a surgical mask, he wudn’t come in and he stood 6’ away. He wanted to know how I’ve been. I tell him, well I’m kinda depressed, my barber just died and I got no deals. He says, tell me about it.
I just applied online for general relief, or in layman’s terms, frikin welfare. I got a phone call that I was going to have a phone interview this Tuesday. I’m embarrassed. My brother gets 930 buks in food credit per month, I think they just upped it cuz of the virus. He has 3 school aged kids, his wife works part time, & my bro still does const part time, is this the American way?
Meanwhile back at the funny farm, a NY guy gets arrested after posting on Instagram himself surfing and going places in Hawaii. The Governor wrote a new law that says all tourists must quarantine for 14 days b4 froliking on the beach. Also a CA couple was arrested on their honeymoon.
I’m afraid to go kayaking, some crazy times. at least I’m not dead like my buddy Andy.

274

It seems this CV19 is some serious sh-t. I sure as hell don’t want it.
I was reading about millions of late mortgages and rumors of a retail crash expected.
Some retails are opening, if my nearby malls open will I want to go there where the germs are running rampant?
And Trillions of paper money printed and handed out like it was candy. And all the goods piling up that few are buying cuz they holding on to the money which may become worthless or severely devalued anyway.
The humans are becoming restless, these rules and restrictions are getting old.
I yearn for the old days when life was simpler.
And back at the funny farm, my ol buddy Thad calls, he tells me some insane stories of his bi-polar behavior. His new home is a garage in his sisters back yard and it was raided by police cuz his nephew left his stolen car parked there. His kids are angrily confronting him and now the wife’s sister is calling him suggesting he go to seek help and the local hospital wud put him on suicide watch, he don’t know wat to do with his 3 remaining dogs. It seems wen the cops came Thad came running out buk naked, he’s overweight, got scraggly long hair and grey beard down to his testies, he looks straight out of the deep and dark amazon, and the cops tased him, and then called paramedics and they tried to get him admitted into the 3rd floor of the hospital where all the crazies are. But Thad refused to go.
I can’t do anything for him cept offer to let him stay with me, and that aint happening.

275

How often and how many times are you mailing the same list of properties or the same area? Do you notice you get more deals the more times you hit the same list?

276

How often and how many times you mail to the same list depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. For example, you can’t brand yourself with a one-off mailing. At the same time, the quality of your list, or how well-sifted the list is, makes a huge difference in the quality and number of responses …and subsequent conversions you’ll experience.

Meantime, direct mail is the best way to get motivated prospects to respond without informing the competition. Also, with repetitive exposures (mailings) you catch the fruit as it ripens. Otherwise, one mailing might net one conversion on the first go round, but it might take three or four exposures to capture the next ripening fruit as it falls. So, it’s about consistent exposures (mailings).

The point is to become familiar to the prospect, with repetitive exposures, so that when he finally decides to sell, he calls you first, and not the guy that also sent out his own one-off postcard ‘campaign’ that week.

One of the issues inexperienced marketers face is failing to remain consistent at exposing their message to their market. They give up too soon. Especially when their (false) expectations aren’t met.

Otherwise, if their list is well sifted, and the market is active, consistent exposures will produce responses and conversions. However, if it’s a dead market and the mentality is to ‘hold,’ then you can expect a depressed response rate. On the other hand, if you’ve become familiar with your prospects, and mailed consistently, when the market turns around and the mentality changes, you’ll be the go-to buyer that ‘everyone’ is calling for a solution. Direct mail is more or less a long term investment.

So, pay attention to the market activity, and let that inform your expectations.

*** As for the number of mailings to the same market and same list, I would say anywhere from once a month to every six weeks. If things are slow, perhaps every two months. However, market mentality can change on a dime, so if ‘something’ happens in your market that sends a signal to your prospects to sell, then you’ll be ahead of the game. Never mind if you’re mailing regularly, you’re likely to be the first to know what exactly is happening in your farm.

277

I’ve been watching these economist vids on YouTube.
I want to see a positive forecast, a quick bounce back, print more dollars no problem, but wat I’m seeing is so far south of that.
Perhaps it’s about time to scrape up some money and start that direct mail.
The last list I purchased was about 2 yrs ago and was all high equity owners in my city, but I only got one call from a sweet old lady saying she gets these in the mail all the time and she was giving the house to her relative.
I think I lost about $2,500 from mailing to this list and also an absentee owner list.

But as we all know, times are a changing.
I’m gonna start small, I’ll get 200 buks in stamps and start cranking them out.
But now I need to compose a nice sweet handwritten,“I’m here to help” but then go for the throat letter.

Mr. Johnson,
My name is Rando and I wud like to buy your house. I have cash.
Behind in payments or in forbearance? no problem.
Call me.
Thank you, Rando 5555555

278

My wholesaling buddy Bob and I had both given up on direct mail for 2 yrs now. Housing prices were climbing fast and nobody was responding to our postcards…
But then lately, I just started to get my mind back on track.
I decided to kick start direct mail again and was getting ready to send a txt to Bob about just that.
A few seconds b4 I hit send I get a Txt from Bob that he was thinking the same exact thing.
What a freaking coincidence,.
Is our brains hooked up in some kind of telepathic wavelength or, is it we both just smell blood in the water.
Bob mentioned that list companies were sending him offers, I tell him, wudn’t it be badass if we cud get a list of new unemployment filings?

Bob is checking with the list companies. I’m also thinking absentee owners that are not getting rents are going to be desperate as all get out soon, and also high equity owners may want to bail b4 they lose all their equity.
I’m starting to think, higher end homes, there are going to be millions of high end homes headed for disaster. And farms, and retail.
Shud I be this excited? Am I a morbid gutless wholesaler looking forward to this real estate mess unfolding?

279

My buddy Bob checked with the list company that has been emailing him offers.
What they got are not specific lists of recent job loss and unemployment filings.
But instead, they got LSI lists. Low Stability Indicators. I’m not sure exactly what this is but logic tells me, most probably it is consumers that have stopped or late paying their bills, like credit cards, car loans and possibly utilities or heaven forbid, facing imminent foreclosure.
In which seems like ther wud be a good percentage of homeowners who just might seek our help to cut their losses and bail.
This list company is called Listability, at info@listability.com
Also they are running specials for 1800 names and addresses for the low low cost of only 100 buks.
My buddy Bob lives an hour away in a dif county but I luv his area and we might be at odds fighting over the same prospects which cud be detrimental to profit. Maybe we’ll split the lists in half or ther may be so many names in this county ther be plenty of meat for everybody.
It still may be a little soon to go for the jugular, I’m seeing reports that real estate lags 9-10 months behind what the economy is doing.
But then, early birds most always get the worms, and this vulture is hungry.

280

Is this a good time to be prospecting for distressed sellers during these insane times?
A virus is attacking and killing the people and now crowds of criminal thugs looting and rioting and worse.
Millions are jobless and not paying their bills.
So is it a good time to look for some real estate deals, is a ducks ass water tight?
But I want to get a bit deeper in the crisis b4 I pounce, cuz real estate prices hav to start dropping.
Patience is a virtue, but we want it now.