Hi guys, I have been an investor for quite sometime, and you guys hav always given me great ideas to continue on regardless of the wall one could run up agains, thanks!
But with the declining housing market :bangheadand people digg there heals in :evil, how much advertising do you recommend?
should i advertise in the city paper every day with a larger add in the weekend addition?
I do have 2 web sites - buyers and sellers.
local magazines?
what about morning radio while people are traveling to work?
bill-bourds, bus add (on the back of city busses) buss benches?
I live in ontario cananda so we have no forclosure or pre-forclosure lists here, so i guess that kill the direct mail idea to forclosure people.
how about direct mail to people or post card, flyers in news papers
thanks for the response,
I am aiming for single family 3-4 bdroom homes first time home buyer but anything that is a deal will do!
i have to have at least 25% equity possition
i would perfer 35% but wouldnt we all!..lololol
but it comes will a deal by deal basis nothing in spacific i can do almost anthing multifam or single family its all good but it has to be a motivated seller i do like vtbs or 2nd note take backs, well i am sure you get the picture.
a good deal is a deal and i just want to find the motivated seller with there tongue hanging out so we can make a deal!
hope this helps
Take it from me, that’s VERY hard to do in Ontario. You will probably go bankrupt with advertising before you find a single deal with 25% equity. Maybe 1 seller in 1,000. You need to think FREE.
so why do you think that, what type of experience have you had with this. As for myself i have found the southwesten-Ontario market is very crappy even realitors have poor addittudes and to be quite frank with you I would rather not speak to a realitor about any thing around here, This is just my experience with them but i would consider 99.90% all lie’rs and completely uneducated in the field of real estate, maybe some good ones but i have runn into very few. With that said, why is it so hard to find someone with 25% equity and is it better other places, The next place i started doing business in is las Vegas, But the few realitors i spoke to told me to do short sales, ( thats fine with me) but then they told me to put down $1000. earnist money deposit… What the heck is that! This is a poor as hell sellers market, where the banks are bleeding dry and you tell me to put down $1000, ya right, the banks might tell you that and they do the same here but i put my offers in with $25 apon removel of MY conditions.
Sorry off topic abit… so have you advertised in ontario before and what was your expereince and why?..
I am very interested to know, since around here there are no investors at all to talk to.
I’ve been investing in Southern Ontario for the past 7 years. I’ve done pretty much every kind of marketing you can do, except radio and TV.
If you’re in the Windsor area then buying 25% below market will be a little easier, but then again 25% isn’t that great in a buyer’s market unless the house is in perfect condition. A few years back when Sarnia was in bad shape I was buying at 40-60% of FMV for houses that needed paint and carpet. Then I sold them on a rent to own for full market or a bit above. Good times!
I don’t think Windsor is quite there yet but some sellers may be getting close to that level of desperation. Of course to get those deals you need to pay cash, no creative financing, which is how I prefer to buy whenever possible.
If you’re going to buy through agents you have to put down a decent deposit for your offer to be taken seriously (by the agent). If you want to put down $25 then you need to deal with owners directly. When buying through agents you also need either cash or bank financing lined up, don’t even bother looking for creative deals through them, that’s a complete waste of time.
Start with free sites. Google and Trulia are the heavy hitters and you can upload listings. The key point about google is that they allow others to search the data. So you listings get to other web sites. Most people when searching for real estate go to google first.
I am not a big fan of MLS. They are really not good for consumers and are anti agent. While they are a needed evil for the industry, I hope their demise comes quick.
I am not real familiar with the Canadian market, but have you tried pay per click specific to your target area? I am more of a believer in TV myself, but again…not familiar with Canada. I do know that just about everywhere you will get what you pay for. I have tried every form of marketing imagineable (plus some) and the results when trying to buy undervalued properties with free advertising are always the same. You may find a deal every once in a blue moon, but if you are looking for better than poor results I would consider at least spending some money on your marketing campaign.
I’m sure it’s not the most popular topic on this board, but bandit signs worked good for me when I was working on a smaller budget. Have you tried them?
Post flyers in local grocery stores on their bulletin boards, put a sign on your car, call every rental house listed in the newspaper, go on FSBO sites and send an email to every one you are interested in, look for for sale by owner, call remodeling contractors, etc.
Start as cheap as you can. One deal will change all that. Then start to spend a bit. Work your @#$ off at first and it will come. Remember: Persistence Pays!
Let me shed some light on what i have experianced in my area and maybe some idea’s might pop up that could work.
All the suggestion on top have been done, :rolleyes I have spend 3-6 months calling every rental ad in our city paper, every fisbo sign, I have a list and i track every property till sold, every rental sign which i track too, I email every 30 days every mls listing and there agents direct, Signs up in all types of store, large ads in city paper (cost me over $2000 dallars a month :help) still very little responce. I advertise in local magazines “IBUY HOUSES FAST!!!” local internet classifieds i pay for featured ads every time and in multiple sections ( http://windsor.kijiji.ca/f-housing-house-rental-W0QQCatIdZ43 ) (this is one of my ads) still very little responce :evil …
Now i know realestate is local am i just in such a poor market of seller verses buyer that what-ever i do nothing will provail. now dont get me wrong i do this full time and i get the occational deal that keeps me a float, but come on here, what gives? :banghead
This is what i have experianceing for the last year, i noticed that local internet ads work better but still no smoken deals.
now what i meen buy a smoken deal is = buy for $40k and appraises for min. $120k (with out doing any repairs, remeber we are investor not home biulders we should be able to use our noodles to make $$$ not a hammer)… I dont think i am stretching hear I have heard about these deals and heck even one of my business partners purchase him home for $460k and appraised out at $820k now thats a deal!.. but nothing since that good.
i believe the deals are there but i am just not getting to them… so what do my brothers here think.
I love this site, this is great to bounce ideas off one another, we can always grow faster…
so my friends any ideas, what the heck is going on… I did notice one person said that if i advertise in south ontario “i will go bankrupt before i get a good deal my way” why is that? is it just our local “lunch bucket thinking :anon” here with all the factories :flush?
looking forward to anything… thanks guys for everything!!!
Have you tried looking into Google? I know they have various advertising mediums that you can use to gather targeted prospects (i.e. text ads, radio ads and video ads). Granted, I have never tried radio or video ads, but I have had some good success with text ads. If you’re not familiar with it, you only pay each time a person clicks on your advertisement.