In my market I am consistently mailing postcards twice a month to the same apartment complexes within 5 miles of my houses, keeping my ads running in the papers and put out 50 signs each week. As a result of all this I get about 200 callers each month with about 400 website visitors. I also use craigslist and a flat fee listing to get on MLS.
What items in addition to these are you guys and gals doing to get your pretty houses sold?
Thats too many leads. are you turning them into deals yet?
that number is for retail tire kickers. I need to adjust the verbage in my ads to indicate good credit and down payments are needed. Out of all the responders only about 2% can actually get a deal done
I wish i had that many on the wholesale side.
I am wondering because that sounds like an expensive marketing campaign to find buyers when they are not turning into deals. it would be as good to market to them only after you find the house.
You need to make sure you can find the deals for them to begin with, and the trick with end-buyers, specially those with good credit and down payment is that even if they indicate interest, they don’t follow through.
That’s the hard part about about retailing (selling fully remodeled homes for owner occupants). It forces you to start with the inventory first and not the buyer. For wholesaling and optioning it is the opposite (start with the buyer)
Signs
Flyers
Website with Video of home.
What messages are you using on the advertising to get a better quality of homebuyer? I have been adding little hints like “$5,500 Moves You In” And “Got Credit? Got House!” plus my contact info. The goal being to get people with at least 5% for down payment and good credit to cash me out.
I still get riff-raff responding. What are you guys and gals using?
How about “Credit Doesn’t Matter! You can buy my house!” although those who know me, know i believe in sales letters and not just slogans.
The adea here is to send them to your mortgage broker who will qualify them. Those who qualify can buy right away, those who don’t will go through credit repair and qualify later. If they have a large down, then you can find them owner financed home.
If they are broke, bad credit, and no job skip 
Fadi
You and I both know that the more lenient the terms you advertise, the poorer the quality of the potential buyer you attract. I’m trying to avoid that and get people to self screen.
I try to get a higher quality of buyer because it costs my loan officers money everytime they pull credit and i don’t want to burden them too much (they might choose not to work with me). I’m also trying to lower my holding costs and minimize the number of houses I am forced to sell on lease option.
I use the same system as you do for attracting buyers, just want to tweak it for higher quality of buyer, even though it will result in a lower quantity of calls.
Hassan - something that came to mind when I read the below statement.
I try to get a higher quality of buyer because it costs my loan officers money everytime they pull credit and i don't want to burden them too much (they might choose not to work with me).
Have you asked the loan officers you work with if they want to get as many potential clients as possible, or if they rather have fewer potential clients with better prospects? what I mean is that you may be making an assumption that they get frustrated if you send them a lot of people. They may think very differently than you. they actually may like the opportunity to talk with as many people as possible - even if that particular client is not ready now, he may be ready to buy in a few months/years or may know someone that is. Just something to think about. good luck!
it costs $30 bucs a head for each trimerge credit report they pull, so just sending everyone that applies to me there way isnt going to fly. I prescreen them anyway for cash, credit issues and income anyway before I send the 1003 application’s to the loan officers (been doing this for a couple years now).
What I’m trying to pull out from the folks on this forum is best methods that have been working for you to get a HIGHER QUALITY of potential buyer from the marketing you’re doing.
Hi,
Are your pretty homes usually starter homes or can you possibly target move-up buyers? Also, maybe target a higher end apartment building where they have to have a higher income or two person income. What about holding seminars for buyers? Are you having open houses at the properties and letting the neigbors know to invite people they know that want the area? As a real estate agent I have to tell you- as you probably realize most (I believe around 90-95%) of the serious qualified buyers are working with agents. Your best option in all honesty would be listing the properties with a full service real estate broker that will actively look for buyers for you. If these are wholesale deals I guess you’ll have to stick with some of the other methods.Hope this helps.
This is how I sell retail (move in ready) homes to owner occupants.
I sell beautifully remodeled 3,4 and 5 bed room homes with at least 2 baths and between 1200 and 2500 sqft of livable space.
All homes are no older than 30 years old with prices ranging from $140k-$200k
All are in areas with great school districts, low crime rates and with good paying jobs nearby
All have modern amenities
Some I sell on lease option, even though I prefer to cash out
To catch the attention of buyers I use a combination of ads, signs, direct mail and flyers to drive interested parties to my website and 24 hr info line. I also list all houses on a flat fee listing service and place them all on my home selling site, www.ourhomeiscalling.com. All of these efforts perform as expected, getting hundreds of callers and website visitors each month
No offense intended, but I have never had any luck dealing with a realtor to sell houses because they tend not to do the amount of work I do. Most that I have met seem to think that just because they put the house on their website, post it on mls, place an ad and stick a sign out front, that the house will automatically get sold. Oh yeah, there’s also that myth that price sells houses; it doesn’t. Consistent and massive marketing does. Most realtors are not the active marketers that investors need to move houses.
I don’t have an issue getting potential buyers, or qualified ones. It just takes a little longer than it used to to find qualified ones.
The purpose of this post was to find out what has been working out there in addition to the things mentioned above.
What terms or words are you guys and gals putting in your ads, signs and direct mail that gets more higher quality buyers to call you and visit your houses?
What incentives are working? How are you convincing folks that don’t have a chance in heck of ever getting a loan from bothering you?
How does your home selling system work?( I modelled mine after Ron Legrand and Kris Kirshner’s to sell on autopilot.)
I agree as well that you should only invite those who qualify.
There are two issues at hand:
Copy and clean list go hand in hand. In general, the copy will depend on the list. If the list is solid, why not invite them all and see who bites. If the list not too clear, or cannot be narrowed down then you need to specify who should call AND who should not call (indirectly ofcourse).
There are so many variables here, but I would look into the following in my list:
The idea is that the chances of finding someone who would qualify among narrower list are higher than those in a larger open list. That way you can use the saved budget on larger and more qualified list.
You already target pretty good area, the closer they are to the house the more likely they are to want it. Statistics show that people tend to move within 13 miles from their current residence. So 5 is perfect.
Now, if the list cannot be segmented and cannot be narrowed down and you want to get reduced number of calls, then you would need to exclude those who don’t qualify…
One way is to state something like:
“If you have no late payments in the past 12 months, and have combined income of $40,…etc”
You could add credit or downpayment requirements as well, but most of those who live in apartments never seen credit report to know how their credit, and if they end up with good credit, they could get in with zero down. you could say “and own one or more credit cards”.
if you use strong language than that, then you need strong invitation as well because you don’t want them to wonder, or hesitate on rigit rules. Some risk free sweet talk usually does it. Or add “Find out which houses you qualify for at www.mywebsite.com now!” on the website, you sell them more on filling out the form that asks them some qualifying questions.
you are free to call them back, or ignore the deadbeats. Your mortgage broker might be interested in the list as well. some of them would love to get good income people with bad credit then fix their credit for a fee and finance them.
Hope this helps!
I guess I am not really concerned on selling retail. But if I was it would be priced below market and LISTED.
Most of the buyers I have always dealt with here are BUY HERE PAY HERE.
Fadi
where do you get your lists from? I use melissadata for apartment dwellers and the tax rolls for landlords in the area for the addresses of tenants
How are you able to segment the lists?
hassan,
I don’t market to renters, at least I have not done so yet. Melissa Data should be able to segment the list for you any way you like it. If you cannot do it on their website, call them and they will do it for you and mail you the list.
Hi Friend,
I try to get a higher quality of buyer because it costs my loan officers money everytime they pull credit and i don’t want to burden them too much (they might choose not to work with me). I’m also trying to lower my holding costs and minimize the number of houses I am forced to sell on lease option.