Hi Fellow Investors,
I am new to real estate investing and I want to start with pre-foreclosure market. Can you please help me with the template letter that I can send to property owner.
Thank you so much
Just a simple letter explaining your sympathy on their situation and how you can help them.
The problem with letters to pre-foreclosures is that the vast majority get tossed. At least with post cards there is nothing to open. Your marketing and sales strategy is by far the most important part of the biz.
Letters and Postcards both works. Its all a matter of timing. You are not the only one sending these folks letters or post cards. If you do decide to use a post card refrain from mentioning anything about foreclosure. There may be a family members who are unaware of the problem and you don’t want to be responsible for letting them know.
- DarvinM
I would respectfully disagree about not using the word foreclosure on post cards. I use it on every post card and have had very good results. I don’t see how you can market to folks in foreclosure without mentioning foreclosure. How would they know what the post card was about?
I would think on your mailings you might want to focus on who your intended market is. If you’re mailing to folks in foreclosure concentrate on what you can do for those in foreclosure. And hopefully, it’s more than just you can buy their house. Folks in foreclosure view the “we want to buy your house” folks as vultures on their misfortune. Also you might want to consider what the responce is you’re looking for. Do you want them to keep your card, or do you want them to call you. Just some food for thought. You might look in the marketing forum for some ideas.
Greetings,
So in your best investing experience, it is better to send out postcards rather than letters? I ask because I’ve already sent out many of them and have not received a response yet.
In addition, as a beginnning investor, what is the best place to look for pre-foreclosures? Is it with a title company, the court house, real estate agents, banks or what? The newspaper seldom has what I’m looking for. Please help. Terell
Hi Terell,
In my opinion postcards are more effective because there is nothing to open.
It may increase your response rate over letters. I also send out letters but I use a more focused approach with letters.
I’ve sent out post cards and did not get a response for two months then again I’ve sent them out and got a response the next day. Its a matter of motivation level of the homeowner and having a post card that stands out from the others like using flourescent cards.
good luck,
Tony
You might want to look in the marketing forum for ideas to get better responces. After all…it’s a marketing issue.
I use the yellow stock card for my postcards, but when you mentioned to look into the marketing forum, are you refering to this site or another?
<--------------------------- If you look in the direction of the arrow there are various forums, this one is foreclosure, short sales, etc. At the bottom of the list of forums is RE Marketing.
When letters get sent to a homeowner who is facing foreclosure, most of the time, the mail piles up on their counter or gets thrown in the trash. In my case, I’ve even had homeowners tell me that they opened our letter because they were at their wits end, trying to figure out how not to lose their house.
Sometimes sending a letter to the same homeowner once a week helps. Might want to type up a couple of different letters regarding what you can do.
Here is one tip you might want to try. “Address Service Requested” on your envelope under the return address and if the letter gets forwarded, you will know the new address of where the owner is. (In case you didn’t know how it works, the PO sends you a copy of the envelope and where it got sent to) It costs us 70 cents each time a letter got forwarded but if the homeowner is motivated enough, they will call. Some unfortunately wait til it’s too late. I’ve even had one homeowner tell me she wished she had called sooner. If you do get one of those envelopes back, chances are you got an empty house, chances are the owners took off and abandoned the property. Then you can go from there and try to find out all the info. you can.
Hope this helps.