I have been researching many articles that have helped me understand how to create yellow letters, but am stil looking for advice on the following questions. I am interested in generating leads to with the purpose to wholesale and/or flip.
That being said:
Who are the best groups to send to? (Mortgage Lates (NOD), Absentee landlords?, other?)
If I started with one list, which would you recommend?
How frequently do I want to mail to a NOD or Absentee landlord?
Is there a specific science to which days I do mailings on?
Do I want to vary the media I send them and/or the message the yellow letter contains?
Scouring NOD’s for flips/wholesale deals is a dead end.
Forget that.
Instead find the C- grade areas and make a “farm” out of it, and then prospect for all the vacant/abandoned wrecks. Put up bandit signs on the weekends to attract sellers, and put up other bandit signs at the same time, to uncover buyers. Send the sellers to your phone, and send everyone else to a voice-mail.
Meantime, mail to all the absentee landlords and give them only one way to contact you; by phone. Now, you’ll know that anyone who calls you, is interested in selling. And those that leave voice mail messages want to buy.
Meantime, we can’t steal in slow motion. And putting sellers to voice mail or websites is the recipe for lost deals.
We don’t like the amateurish overtones of sending gimmicky “yellow letters” to prospects either. What person with any capacity sends a yellow-lined note to someone claiming they’re a “real” cash buyer? Really. None.
So, as a result, we simply send personal mail with a hand-addressed, stamped envelope, and call it a day. This includes sending typewritten (sometimes personalized, merged documents) on white paper, mailed in a #10 envelope.
We do prefer to hand address the envelope, when possible; always putting our personal name and PO in the return address area and affixing a first class stamp.
Otherwise, we don’t want to have to rebuild our credibility, and overcome the impression that we’re fly-by-night operators, only because we’re sending out phoney-boloney, pre-printed, yellow-lined ad copy. So, we don’t do that.
If you’ve got a big list, you might consider hiring the addressing out to a retiree for some extra cash.
Meantime, your exposure rate should be every 30 days. Also you should consider aging the mail pieces by referencing the season, holiday, or month, so that after multiple exposures, the recipient begins to recognize how long he’s failed to take action on your offer.
Websites are very useful to create and establish credibility. You should collect contact information from both buyers and sellers so that you can maintain contact with them. We believe that sending useful information and updates on the market, or other interesting things is a way to remain a friendly presence, and not become a nuisance.
Thank you so much for your time and thoughtful response! These are great suggestions and very helpful.
Just for clarity, you suggest mailing to Absentee Landlords on a monthly basis? I think it is a great idea to have some kind of seasonal theme as you suggest as well.
I am in the process of developing a website and will study bandit signs as I see many articles of this here.
BTW, Buyers need a homespun approach regarding Bandit signs. I’ve found that the uglier the bandit signs, the better response rate from Buyers. One of my friends told me that his signs look like they were written by a third-grader, because those seem to capture more responses. They are atrocious looking.
The bandit signs we use to prospect for sellers are just plain-jane text. We use professionally printed, blue on white, signs (for extended display) and use plain, old, yellow with black lettering for post-and-run display. However, we write more than “We Buy Houses” on the yellow signs, to separate ourselves from the recent seminar graduates.
Somebody posted the funniest video on this forum about this marketer that wrote, “Sleep With Me” on his (Buyer finding) bandit signs. We’ve never done this, but it meets our criteria for “being different.” Experiment to see what works best in your farm.
For sellers I like,
“Want Out?” Close In 48-hours. Call…
Or, “Failed Escrow?” Call me for sure closing 555-5555.
Or, “Dump Your Ugly House On Me” Call Wicked Witch at…
Of course there’s a million versions of ad copy you can try. Just don’t blend in by looking like a copycat.
I hope you will forgive me for butting in, but Javipa what sort of phrases do you use on bandit signs to attract investors?
Also I will second the notion on beat up signs get more calls from investors. I had some that I had left outside on accident, and the ink was running a bit, there was dirt stains I couldnt wash out, and I actually had to change the ARV of the house so I had to cross out the old ARV and put the new ARV in with permanent marker. It looked so bad. But I decided I would put them out anyways since I had already spent $80 on them. To my surprise my phone went off the hook!
I think when Investors see the beat up signs, they think it might be the distressed home seller that posted the sign.
So funny! Yes, investors are trained to look for distress. And what looks more distressed than a sign with cross-outs, and updates…stains, water marks and 'weathering…? I love that. Buyers love that, too.
It’s just like spotting a stale listing, or seeing a price mark-down on a store merchandise…! :beer
I recently saw your example on a bandit sign with this actual ‘mark-down’ scheme used. They crossed out the price (which genuinely appeared to have been there a while), and wrote in a new one. This is like catnip to investors.
Also, when you talk about Farming a specific area, do you mean I should be targeting 1-2 towns/cities, or go as big as counties? It seems smarter to target a smaller areas for marketing strength (espeically with low capital for marketing). However, if going too small, wouldn’t it limit potential inventory?
I send yellow letters. They are very generic, yellow lined, handwritten in red, simple message: I am interested in buying your house, if you would like to sell, call me. I mail to absentee landlords. I get a decent response rate. I have been mailing for 5 months now, and have finished 1 wholesale deal. I get a lot of leads that I pass on to my real estate agent (she in turn helps me with comps).
I create my handwritten letters and envelopes on my pc. You can get your handwriting made into a font for as cheap as $10 at myfonts.com. Then write the letter in Word and print on yellow paper. (my husband gets credit for this idea).To make it look like a notebook page, google notebook template for word and use it.
Once I started doing my letters this way, I went from mailing 50 per week to 200 per week.
I hope you will forgive me for butting in, but Javipa what sort of phrases do you use on bandit signs to attract investors?
End/user buyers want benefits and amenities listed. Investors want facts. “Cash only” separates the sheep from the goats I think.
Otherwise, there’s no “trick” ad copy that works other than keeping it simple. That said, I guess investors don’t want to wade through crap like, “This home boasts of…blah, blah, and blah.” Or “Enjoy lovely evenings in your own…blahty-blah…” They want an address, a price, and the terms.
The guy I referenced earlier that wrote, “Sleep With Me,” wasn’t attempting to sift buyers, so I guess anything goes as long as you capture buyer’s attention.
Yes, ideally you should keep the farm as small as possible. That said, I know an investor whose farm is wide geographically, but he maintains a very small, but highly filtered mailing list. He says he closes on at least two deals every month. So, I guess it all about the list, not the geography.
Ideally, you’d want a highly filtered list with a critical mass of prospects out of a small area. However, that’s not always possible.
Yes. I just got done printing up a new yellow letter. This one is more targeted in that it talks about me being a real estate “problem-solver” not just an investor, I want to buy their house but also help, etc. And I put 50 in 5.75 x 8.75 ivory envelopes, and 50 in multicolored invitation envelopes. Next I am going to get specialty stamps and mail them out.
I usually use a plain white small sized envelope, and the liberty bell or other generic stamp. But I heard on a webinar today that the fancy envelope and stamp get more responses. It is not the first time I had heard about that but I always felt it seemed gimicky, but I will try it, and if it works, hey, who ever said gimicky is bad?
I am also looking forward to seeing the response to the more targeted letter. I will let you know how it goes.