Hello all. I have been looking through all the different posts on here and have learned alot. And I am not yet an investor! Although I do plan to get there in the near future, I need your feedback in a different way.
:biggrin PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT I AM ONLY SEEKING FEEDBACK AND NOT TRYING TO ADVERTISE MY PROGRAM TO YOU ON THIS BOARD! So I will not post specifics such as website addresses or phone #s.
I am a mortgage broker in NC and have put together a marketing program designed to help showcase local homes for sale in the area. My target audience for advertising the homes is FSBOs and local investors seeking to sell the properties they have. My target audience for buyers is first time home buyers, with or without credit issues.
The concept is not totally new, but it does provide a fresh twist on a tried and true concept of no money down using a catchy trademarked “brand name.” I provide directional and yard signs, a toll free call capture hotline and a website to showcase each home. I also provide a free pre-approval service. I am considering other forms of advertsing as finances permit. At present, I am charging a one time small administrative fee to help cover the expenses of signs, website and call capture hotline. I am not a real estate agent, so my service is mainly from an advertising perspective and therefore not carging any real estate commissions. My personal goal is to pre-qualify every phone call that comes in hoping to convert these potential buyers to home buyers I can write the mortgage for. My goal in the marketing is to also help make the homes advertise sell as quickly as possible so that I can show that it works and can get more in the program.
What I need feedback on is how to reach the investors in my area to let them know that this service exisits and to also find out if there is something of value that I am missing in my offering. If this service was in your area, what would you think of this and would you consider it? How should I approach you about it?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!!! I thank you in advance.
You’re basically offering some marketing for the house in exchange for the hope of processing the mortgage should someone buy it.
If you could lose the up-front fee, you could easily market this service by saying that you provide “FREE MARKETING” of the house in exchange for the chance to write the mortgage. That would be easy enough, I think.
If your fee is more than a hundred bucks, though, I would probably be more likely to use those dollars elsewhere. That’s just me.
If you can put your money where your mouth is, though, and absorb the up-front cost, you might get some interest. I’m sure I’d just spend my day calling all the FSBOs that I see.
Just to clairify… the marketing program is designed to help an investor seeking to SELL a home they already have, not to help them find other homes to buy (although some of the FSBOs that would use the system would probably be fair game!)
The small fee is one of the areas that I am open to suggestions.
I did a marketing program similar to this years ago, on a much smaller scale. When I offered it to FSBOs as a free marketing program I got NO interest! Once I charged a small fee, there was interests and got people on the program. However, I was new to the business and as I got busy, this fell by the wayside. Fast forward years later and now I know the ins and out of the mortgage business and can sustain this as a complete program.
Today though, I am finding that the investor is a different animal than the typical FSBO. So how much I could charge would be a good tip. If I offer it for free, will I be taken seriously? At the same time, although the signs and website are already paid for, the toll free hotline has not only a monthly fee, but also a usage fee. Since not every call on a seller’s home will result in a potential buyer that is not already pre-approved or working without a realtor, I am not guranteed any certain number of mortgages I can write. In addition, any fees collected would also allow me to do a greater bit of marketing to get the name out so that more people are looking for these particular homes.
So, could I charge a small monthly fee, a per home fee, or even a one time “lifetime” fee where an investor could advertise ALL their current and future homes using my system?
I understand that you’re trying to help sellers sell. But why investors, especially? And wouldn’t they still be FSBOs? I mean, investor or not, a house that’s being sold without a listing or a Realtor is a FSBO.
Why not just go to all Realtors and offer the service? Sure, some are aligned with a mortgage lender, but some aren’t. Also, you’re offering a service that maybe the Realtor would like and does not have access to.
I suppose I don’t follow the reason that you need to focus on investor/FSBOs.
Thanks for the input. I am not limiting the marketing to only investors or FSBO’s. I do plan to work with agents in the area as well. One big reason for my interest in investors is for the ability to always have a steady number of homes present on the website and to have a steady number of signs in yards. Obviously more signs means more calls, and more homes on the website lends more credibility to the system. Plus, they are in it to make money, not stroke their egos (well, not all anyway :biggrin)
I have a couple investors that I have done business with the past, and they have 3-5 properties at any given time. Those #'s alone beat the heck out of one FSBO at a time. However, a normal FSBO may also be willing to pay a marketing fee moreso that the professional investor… so I am trying to balance that out.
So, I am indeed looking at all avenues. But in the market I am in, the more homes I can get into my marketing system, the more opportunity I will have at success.
PS… Not to slam Realtors at all, but typically my experience with most is that they think that they are the only marketing experts in real estate. That may be due to the “training” they get telling them that everyone NEEDS a Realtor. So until I have a pool of qualified buyers in hand (which I expect I will soon), they may be a bit less receptive. However, with approved buyers, I should be able to pick and choose some of the agents I work with!
Nice plan,
Look up fsbo.com. You will find a very similiar plan. Add a Realtor to your plan , Charge $495. Pay your Realtor $295 to list on MLS. Realtor charges ala carte for services depending on sellers needs. Your are the sponser of program and goto guy for preaps…
As an investor I use my Mort Broker Team member to prapprove all my buyers before I sign their EM agreement, Could happen ! Darin
Darin,
Yes, this is similar to the FSBO sites out there, but with a slightly different concept and a few more added details. The local FSBO sites are owned and operated by real estate agents. This puts me in the driver’s seat. As I get more and more calls on the homes, I know only one of them can buy that home and there will be carry over. So either they can choose another home listed in the program (where they are guided) or I can take them to a preferred agent (or an agent I’d like to partner with). Either way, increased business for me, the investors (or sellers) get more exposure and I find new agents to work with. Win win for all.
I plan to charge a normal FSBO differently than an investor… mainly b/c I want the investor to partner with me more than just once.
That’s why I am seeking the advice and insight of professional investors such as you all.
I have thought about cold calling… guess any help with how to approach would be great advice as well.
One of the items I emailed you about was how forming partnerships with a lender could actually make you and save you thousands of dollars. I would like to be able to find investors in this area that understand the importance of working partnerships. Seems so many like the whole “one man show” thing… maybe I am wrong in that… that’s why I posted to this site, for your help.
I guess my concern is how do I approach them in a way that will get their attention and not come off as completely cheesy!
If you called one of my ads in the paper and said you were a mortgage broker looking to do business with investors, I’d most likely set an appointment to see you. Maybe some other investors won’t, but it’s really a number’s game.
Call them saying that you work with investors before to help them qualify buyers for the homes they are selling. You can get financing quickly and you are not here looking to waste anyone’s time.
Do you want to do business with me? yes / no? Move on to the next investor.
If you take the position that THEY NEED YOU instead of the other way around you will have a lot more success working with them.