10 days have past since I sent out the first batch of 530 postcards. My hope was to match the response I was getting from the yellow letter marketing I was doing before, 12%. Well, I must say I’m extremely disappointed with the response rate so far. We have gotten 1 call, yup just 1! The only interesting part of this call was that it was from a deaf person who was using some sort of service that translates …
If you have read my blog for any amount of time you know I’ve got a real estate investing partner. I usually don’t like to mention his name on my blog because he likes to keep some on the down low for when sellers search out his name on Google. His name is the name we use on our marketing pieces. I respect that so I keep his name private, although I may have slipped up a few times in …
Postcards Today my first postcard mailing from Postcardmania.com is being mailed. In total there are about 530 postcards. These will all be sent to first time recipients of my marketing. My “hand written” yellow letters usually pulled an average of about 12% response rate, so I’m interested to compare how the postcards do. Quick Little Game: If you can guess how many responses I get over the next two weeks, from this first batch of postcards, I’ll give you a …
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been trying to get re-engaged with the online real estate investing communities out there. For the past year plus, I took a back seat to that scene in order to concentrate on other parts of my life. Luckily I still have been able to keep my blog going or I would have been totally out of the loop. I had forgotten that a huge part of being successful was to surround yourself with like minded …
My partner and I market to a wide part of New Jersey, covering over 6 counties. Because of this we don’t really know the areas as well as we should. The ideal scenario is only marketing to areas that you know like the back of your hand and can pin point all the pockets of profit and disaster. To make sure we avoid the bad areas, we have to drive by the houses and look around the neighborhood. This gives …
I’m taking my Sharon Vornholt’s advice and ordered some postcards from Postcardmania.com. 5000 postcards to be exact!! That is basically a years worth of marketing for us. They are going to help design the postcard and base it off my friends postcard that has worked really well for her in Louisiana. All I have to do is upload the mailings lists and buy postage and they will do all the work of sending them out. Printing the recipients’ address making sure …
One of my best friends is in the process of buying a house and he currently is in need of a structural engineer to analyze a 250 year old barn that is on the property. Who the hell knows a structural engineer? I work for an engineering company that builds power plants and I still don’t know a structural engineer. Asking around, I think my company only has 1 of them right now but he doesn’t do houses. I …
I am always looking for the best, most efficient and biggest bang for my marketing buck. My current setup is that I send out “yellow letters” that I print from my lead management program using a custom font that I had created from my hand writing. This has worked great but is a tad labor intensive. My friend Sharon Vornholt told me about a company called PostcardMania that she has been using recently. She sends out all her marketing through this company …
Today is my wife’s first day back at work following 6 months off after the birth of our son Ben. It’s a tough and emotional time for her for sure. I’ve tried to think of a way to make it easier for her, but the reality is that nothing I can say or do will make her feel better about having to leave Ben for the first time in 6 months. That bond between mother and child is something us …
The Winner of the Deal #4 Closing Give Away Is… Greg As pertaining to the rules of just posting a comment to enter, He posted this comment… You will be getting a great e-book course written by my good friend Steph Davis called Flip This REO. Send me an email to scott@strugglinginvestor.com and I’ll send you out the course. Thanks again for reading my blog and taking the time out to comment.
I got back from my vacation this past Monday and the news that deal #4 has finally closed was awaiting me. I don’t know if it was just summer time or what, but this deal took forever to get from accepted contract to closing. To be honest I even forget when the contract was officially signed and accepted, it must have been in early June. In fact, our original contact with this seller was way back in March. At that …
From time to time my partner will forward me voice mail messages he gets from our marketing efforts. They are usually from crazy people with crazy things to say. The most recent voice mail he sent me was actually part of about 40 messages he received that day. The calls where pretty much clogging his phone line. All the messages were just beeps, sorta like that irritating fax machine noise (or the old dialup modem sounds when you would connect …
From time to time I won’t have one specific thing that I’m working on, but an assortment of thoughts and ideas that are running through my head. As part of the process to help myself organize I like to right down all of these thoughts. It really helps in refocusing on what is most important and what can wait for later. I’m just got put together a post with some random things that are going on… Latest deal has still …
My partner and I go out every few weeks to put out bandit signs. In the past we would put them up using metal H-Stakes or hang them on telephone polls using a sign stapler. We found that the signs would only stay up for as little as a week end in some areas and a max of a month in other areas. The signs we H-Staked into the ground would either get blown down by the wind, covered by snow …
I just got word from my partner that the assignment papers have been signed and our check has been handed to us! This is the 3rd payday for me and the 2nd one this year (new record). Like I said before, this deal resulted in the smallest paycheck to date, but who cares right? Not every deal will be a home run. I say, in the beginning of your career beggars can’t be choosers, so TAKE THAT MONEY! Some big players …