hey guys. i started pursing lease options (typically sandwhich leases) a few months back. i have a bunch of leads that came in that didn’t know what to do with.
i don’t want these to go stale. for those of you who are doing SLO’s, as soon as a buyers lead comes in…how do you handle it? do you refer them over to a mortgage broker immediately to analyze their situation and to see when they are eligible for a mortgage?
When seller who are motivated call you, you better have a system of calling them back quick or picking up the phone that shows you are on top of things or you will lose the lead. What is stale I think depends on each individual person. Here is what I typically do. Someone calls today at 6pm. Because of my call volume I spend a minute on the phone calling them back and SCHEDULING them in either that day or the day after. I don’t wait long to call them back. Usually within a 3 hour window if at all possible. People like and accept the fact that at the very least they are scheduled in I find, and it enables me to handle a large call volume and space out my calls on a schedule. I also find when I do this I can be organized and focused ready for negotiating when their time comes which takes some time to do. If someone calls you, and you have them waiting longer than a day until you call them back they will go somewhere else. Use my method and you have a seller while their eager to sell. Seems to work well for me.
thank you for your response. i should mention that the majority of leads i have are for tenant buyers. i have no problem responding to them quickly. i obtain their information and insert it into my database. i need to match sellers with these buyers, but first i want to make sure they will actually be able to perform. having that said, how should i have the tenant buyers prescreened before i start matching? right now they are just sitting in the db.
I don’t know man. I think that is the wrong approach, getting the tenant/buyer before getting the house. My experience has been that if you have a house that makes sense and you advertise it correctly, time is better spent, and you make money. No sense in my opinion wasting time with tenant/buyers. You’ll get frustrated also because their attention span is less than you want. For example, you ask them how much down payment they have today, they might say 5k, you find the house tomorrow and they spent that money. I don’t know, just my opinion on it. Building up ‘databases’ for me are a waste of time. I do keep records of previous calls, but almost always whenever I get a house I simply start the process over with advertising because I find those people who called from my ‘database’ even a couple of months ago move on with other things and aren’t motivated anymore. So why bother with them? One of the ways I do have them keep in touch with me is by letting every t/b candidate know that they can make big money everytime they refer t/bs to me. But even that doesn’t pay much dividend I find.
i hear what you’re saying and i think it’s defintely easier to find buyers for homes than the other way around, however, i have a web site which is open to both buyers and sellers. so instead of letting these buyer leads go to waste, i would like to find out the most efficient way to match these buyers with sellers.
It sounds like you have a start to a solid business. I strongly recommend bringing in an expert even if you have to give up the lionshare of the profit on the first one or two. You will get paid to learn and build your track record rather than sit on the sidelines trying for the home run. It is the best and fastest way to build a business.
Now, you definitely want a lender on your team that can evaluate these people and get them a loan when they execute the purchase contract. The biggest reason why purchase contracts are not executed with lease options is because they do not know how to improve their credit. Solution is simple, package it with a credit repair program and you will double the chance a purchase contract is executed.
If you already have a database of tenant-buyers, leverage it. Start marketing to owners of vacant homes. Speak to Realtors who has listings of vacant home that’s about to expire or has been on the market for 6 months or more. Tell them that you have ready buyers who are willing to do a rent-to-own. If their seller is willing to do that, the Realtor gets a rental commission.
Also, market direct to non-owner occupied homes. Explain to them that their land lording days are over. No more late night tenant calls and maintenance hassles.
You already have one part of the puzzle solved – Tenant/Buyers. Every landlord knows that finding good, quality tenants is not that easy. When property owners learn that you have good, qualified tenant/buyers ready to go as oppose to dealing with someone who proposes that same strategy but have yet to develop tenant/buyers, who do you think they would rather deal with?
As far as qualifying your applicants, there are a number of tenant screening services that you can use like tenant check.com, e-renter.com, etc… You can even pass on the costs of the tenant screening to your applicants. Those that are willing to pay it are the real serious ones.