Comping The Odd Ball House

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 2 Comments

It seems like more times then not when I’m looking up comps for a property, the results of my searches leave me with nothing solid.  I had one particular scenario come up the other day where the house was larger then anything else in the neighborhood.   This had me scratching my head for a bit because i wasn’t really sure how to properly put a price on this home.   Let me break it down for you and then …

How I Don’t Offend Sellers With My Low Offers

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 1 Comment

Bloomfield Offer After talking with Lance and going over our list of repair costs with our coaches, I called up the owner of the house and pitched my offer. It was significantly lower then the 250k that I mentioned in a previous post. Enough so that it might insult the owners big time. But hey, as they say if you aren’t insulting someone with your offer it is probably to high. I haven’t made a lot of offers on houses, …

Marketing Monday: Building Momentum With 19%

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Marketing 4 Comments

I’ve said this before and I am sure to say it again, but momentum is a very powerful thing in real estate investing.  This past week I felt like I really got the momentum moving in the positive direction and I need to keep on it First Round Out-of-State owners result I am starting to see results from the first round of mailers. There were 28 mailings in that batch and I’m happy to say that I’ve gotten 5 calls. …

5 Tips for Printing Yellow Letters Better

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 17 Comments

Over the past two weeks I’ve been struggling through certain aspects of creating my yellow letter marketing campaigns.  I wanted to share with you some tips that helped me produce better yellow letters quicker and with less frustration. 1) Use thick enough yellow or white lined paper This is something I never thought about before buying a lot of yellow lined notebook paper. I ended up purchasing the cheapest pads I could find off of amazon ( Yellow Notebook Pads). …

Deal or No Deal? The 100 Year Old House

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 14 Comments

Went to look at a house today that I got a call on from a bandit sign.   In fact the owner of the house lives in DC and got my number when a friend of her’s saw my sign and suggested she call.  I later found out that she had talked to Lance back in December first and then called back this weekend. The house is currently listed at 329k and has been on the market for 160 days …

Marketing Monday: Getting Buyers on the List

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Marketing 4 Comments

Coaching Call On my coaching call last Monday I found out that Kasey read my blog post prior to calling.   She really liked the idea of  putting down my weekly goals on “paper” and was thinking of recommending it to the rest of the coaching group.  Part of my reasoning for writing these posts, was to prepare for the call and give me a clear plan of attack. I call these posts “Marketing Monday” because my main focus is …

How Much Is My Time Worth?

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 1 Comment

This is going to be a short post today, one that is however very important to think about. How much is your time worth? Sure it’s invaluable in terms of in life and living sense, but I’m talking about strait moola, bread, scratch, dough, dinero, cash! As I meet more people because of my real estate investing, and these people get to know that I’m proficient with computers and setting up websites, I get asked for help.  Do you know …

5 Tips For Using Your Tax Records Site

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 4 Comments

Yesterday I spent a few hours pulling lists of Out-of-State owners from the New Jersey tax records website.  It is more of a tedious task then anything else for sure.  After using the New Jersey tax site for a bit I figured out some useful features that helped me access the data I wanted more quickly. These tips work specifically for the New Jersey Tax Site at NJActB.org.  The idea and concept may also apply to other state tax sites …

Marketing Monday: Plan To Success

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Marketing 5 Comments

In order for me to stay on point and treat real estate investing more as a business and less like a hobby, I’m going to be creating a weekly marketing plan.  This plan will be based off my $200 budget and 2 hours a day (9 to 11) that I have.   I may be able to spend more then 2 hours a day on REI, but from 9pm to 11pm that is what I will be doing. I’ve tried …

No More Probate List…Wait, Say What?

Scott CostelloAll, Blog, Probate Investing 5 Comments

Real estate investing is full of road blocks for sure and I just ran into one that sort of blindsided me.   Yesterday afternoon I got an email from my probate list supplier informing me that he will no longer be able to give me the probate list I’ve been getting.  Ah CRAP!!  (actually what I said was &@%#^@&$!, and that is a direct quote.) I asked if it was just my county that he was not going to be able …

40 Money Making Activities

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 6 Comments

Being a 9-to-5er trying to break free, it is important that I concentrate all my available time to activities that will put me in position to make money.  I’ll be the first to admit, that many times I get caught up in things that are just a waste of time right now.  For those times when I’m searching for something to do, this post is going to serve as a check list of things that I could be doing. Buyers …

So, How Was My Real Estate Investing Follow Along?

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Let me start off by thanking Jon Zorrer and Kasey Smith for putting on one hell of a 3 day training.  They held nothing back and literally walked us through every part of their business model.  Everything from which lead types they are targeting to how they comp properties and make the offers.  With out a doubt they showed us what works and how to make it work.  As Jon said a few times,  this weekend was like drinking water through a …

The Follow Along Program

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 1 Comment

Have you ever wished you could follow a successful investor around while they handle their business conducting deals and dealing with sellers, buyers and everything in between?  At the current stage I’m at, I still have a lot of questions when it comes to what happens after you find that motivated seller and make the offer.  My questions are simple, and they pretty much just cover my nervousness towards the unknown… What is the first thing you should do after the …

Finally! I Can Feed The Addiction Again

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 3 Comments

I am typing this message on my brand new HP Pavilion Elite HPE-570t Desktop PC that took about 3 weeks to arrive from my order date.  I can finally get back to a normal computer nerds routine, haha!  For those interested, here are the specs for my new computer… Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 quad-core processor with Turbo-Boost [up to 3.8GHz, 8MB cache] 12GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs] 2TB RAID 0 (2 x 1TB SATA HDDs) – …

A Simple Way to Prevent Time Wasting

Scott CostelloAll, Blog 2 Comments

Working a full time job and then trying to fit real estate investing in between eating, sleeping, exercising and spending time with family and friends is a very difficult thing.  I have to make sure I use all my free time wisely and make sure I can concentrate on one task at a time.  Like most people I tend to lose track of time and underestimate or over estimate how long certain tasks actually take. Talking with Kasey last week we …