Class 100 - Getting Started Marketing
1) Targeted Demographics
When marketing real estate it is very important to know the demographics of your potential buyers. What are the household incomes of your area? What types of jobs are prevalent? What age groups are there and do they have disposable incomes? Be sure you have researched what the average residential property sells for in your area. Also know how to use location-based advantages to get the most out of your marketing efforts. Know where the busy intersections are, malls, shopping centers, and exit ramps of busy roads. These are just a few examples of location-based advantages for your marketing campaign.
2) Targeted Neighborhoods
A question commonly asked is what neighborhoods should you target for your marketing campaign? Before you get into your car to start driving, think about where you would most likely find motivated sellers. Low-income neighborhoods and moderately established neighborhoods are a good place to start. If you know what to look for there are all kinds of great deals in these neighborhoods. So how do you find these deals you ask? Here are a few indicators that there is a great deal waiting to be captured:
* An unkept lawn where the grass is really high is a big sign that the
property is vacant.
* Broken windows are another sign the property is in distress.
* You can also look for mail hanging out of the mailbox and lying on
the ground.
* Open doors are a clear sign that the house is vacant.
* Boarded up windows speak for themselves.
These are all potential opportunities that can lead to a big payday for you. Write down these addresses and if you can track down the homeowner through skip tracers or phone calls, then more often then not they will seriously consider any offer you place in front of them.
Nothing beats a frustrated landlord who is sick and tired of bad tenants and costly repairs. Look for large amounts of trash on the street corner. This is a great indicator that a tenant has been evicted. A landlord that has to deal with costly repairs with no cash flow coming in from a property may be in just the right frame of mind to throw in the towel and give you a great deal on a property. Also, grab the Sunday paper and go to the rental section, call some of the houses for rent ads and talk to the homeowners. Ask them if they might be interested in selling Once again, if they are in the right frame of mind, and the property has been a problem for them or they’re just looking to get out of the rental business they may be willing to accept far less than what the house is worth.
Neighbors are a great source to use to track down these homeowners. Many times they have the phone number of the homeowner or they can give you a mailing address to reach them. Often the homeowner has asked the neighbors to watch the house for him/her and has their contact information. If they won’t give it to you give them yours and they can call the homeowner for you to tell them someone is interested in the property.
City code enforcement posting is another big sign the property is no longer occupied. Get to know the mail carrier in the areas you want to buy and sell property. Think about it. The mail carrier can tell you which houses have been receiving a lot of legal notices (impending foreclosures and so forth) and they can also tell you what are good properties to target. Offer the mail carrier a finder fee of $150 for each property you buy from his recommendation.
3) MLS
An expired MLS listing is also a great way to land a good deal. The MLS is a great way to lock down subject-to properties. In order to do this, you must have access to the MLS or know a Realtor to feed you the listings. The MLS listing usually expires after 6 months with the Realtor. If the property has not sold in 6 months, the homeowner becomes much more motivated to get rid of their property.
Getting Started
6 step process
I. Get what you need: Computer, printer, printing company, Car,
Phone, Answering service, Call forwarding, Start up money,
Mailing list companies, Skip Tracer, High Speed internet
II. Decide what areas of town you want to target
III. What is your goal:
1) Short term (rehab/flipping)
2) Long term (lease option/rental)
IV. Put together a budget: decide what type of marketing you
want to start with.
V. Plan your time to maximize efficiency
VI. Take action on your plan
Flyers, Door Hangers and Brochures
Class 101 - Flyers
Fryers are a great way to boost your marketing campaign They are cheap and effective. When spending money on marketing, you must look at it as an investment not an expense. Your business will never get off the ground without an effective marketing campaign. Make sure your fliers are bold or neon colored to catch people’s attention You only have a couple of seconds to catch someone’s attention with your flier before it ends up going in the garbage can. Keep your message short and to the point. If they’re interested they will call you for more information. Fliers also often lay around for months before someone picks them up and calls you. Always have someone check the spelling before you print up fliers. No one will call if you do not spell properly. Make sure you utilize both sides of the flier as well. You can print up about 1,000 fliers for around a $324.99 on VistaPrints.com.
Once you have your fliers printed, where are you going to distribute them? Go anyplace where you will find a high volume of cars, malls, supermarkets, and shopping centers are a few examples. Grab a newspaper and find out where the big Saturday sales are. This is the best day to distribute fliers and where there are huge sales there are always lots of cars. Hit the same location twice, once in the morning and once in the late afternoon. Just one response from a flier could turn out to make all your efforts worthwhile.
It is absolutely crucial that you or someone is available to take the calls when you get a response. I can’t stress t to you enough how important that is. Whatever kind of marketing efforts you make will all go for nothing if you are not available to take calls. You can bet if they are looking for help that your number is not the only number they have written down. Chances are, if a potential buyer or a motivated seller calls and no one picks up the phone, they will simply move on to the next number they have written down. If it’s direct mail you can bet that yours isn’t the only one they have received If it’s bandit signs then they are writing down numbers from numerous signs not just yours so you need to seize the opportunity when it comes. Remember they generally are not interested in answering machines. They want to talk to a real person to explain their situation and ask how you might be able to help. The first one to take time and listen to them with empathy will be able to gain rapport to get the appointment. Remember, if you are using direct mail, fliers, door hangers, or brochures expect your calls to come 48-72 hours after you send them out.
Door Hangers
Door hangers are also a good way to let people know you’re out there and they are also cheap. It’s pretty straightforward. Once again use bold neon or multi-colors, choose your target market and do the footwork or pay someone else to do it for you. For those of you with a limited budget it is also very cheap. Purchase the perforated door hanger paper, use an ink-jet or laser printer, and remember to keep the wording short and to the point.
Brochures
You can also use brochures to market your business and let people know you’re out there. If you’re going to use brochures, it’s OK to go into a little bit more detail than you would with fliers. You still want to keep the sentences short, and once again use colors that will catch the eye. The main idea is emphasis on selling points; catching the reader’s attention is still the most important aspect of all advertising.
Class 102 - Driving For Cash
Driving For Cash and Bird-Dogging
Before you get into your car to start driving, think about where you would most likely find motivated sellers. Low-income neighborhoods and moderately established neighborhoods are a good place to start. If you know what to look for there are all kinds of great deals in these neighborhoods. So how do you find these deals you ask? Here are a few indicators that there is a great deal waiting to be captured:
* An unkept lawn where the grass is really high is a big sign that the property is vacant.
* Broken windows are another sign the property is in distress.
* You can also look for mail hanging out of the mailbox and laying on the ground.
* Open doors are a clear sign that the house is vacant.
* Boarded up windows speak for themselves.
When you first start out in real estate investing you will be doing the driving to look for the properties above. What you have to do is be creative and have a plan. Instead of driving to and from work the same way everyday, just change your route to drive in the neighborhoods you targeted.
If you see a property that looks like a good prospect then stop in to take a walk around it. Look for stickers or other notices that might give you a clue as to what is going on with it. The neighbors are a good resource so if you see them outside walk over and ask questions about the previous owner. Tell them you are interested in buying the property and you are looking for the owner. Believe me neighbors do not want that property sitting there empty and they will help out.
Most investors also call this bird-dogging.
Bird-dogging is when a person goes out and finds you, the investor, a great real estate deal. They use varying methods to find the deals but the most common is just driving around looking for abandoned properties.
My partner in real estate works out at Gold’s Gym in downtown Columbus. He has several people there that he talks to. One of the guys, we will name him Pete, came to my partner saying that a guy he works with has to get rid of his home ASAP and only wanted $40,000 cash for his property. We did some research and found out the property was worth $85,000. We gave Pete a finder’s fee of $700 for bringing us that deal.
If hiring a person to bird-dog there are some things you need to make sure you do.
1. Make sure you do a quick review of what areas you want to buy in and the types of properties. Nothing worse than bringing on someone to bird dog and they go out and waste their time going to the wrong neighborhoods.
2. Make sure the person bird-dogging has a general idea of rehabbing or they take a digital camera to take photos of each property. They should take a picture of the front, the back and inside pictures if they can get in (be careful doing this).
3. Set clear goals and number of deals you want from the person bird-dogging. If you are paying per lead and picture this information is very important because everything is written down and there will be no miss understanding later.
Class 103 - Car Signs
Car signs are another way for the fixed budget advertiser to market their real estate business. Magnetic signs on your vehicle do work and the cost is only around $100. Make sure the letters are big, bold and easy to see especially your phone number, you will again need bright colors to make your information stick out. You can probably find a local vendor in your area or if not iPrint.com is always a good source to use on the net.
You can also put the magnetic car signs on your contractors vehicles and give them a monthly payment to do it. Its like a moving billboard and your contractors will like the extra cash for just driving.
Advanced classes cost $19.95
a month and include these Marketing classes:
Class 200 - Bandit Signs
Class 201 - Magnetic Car Signs and Window Decals
Class 300 - Website and Internet Marketing
Class 400 - Skip Tracing
Class 500 - Billboards, Taxis, Bus Benches and Buses
Class 600 - Newspaper Ads
Class 700 - Craigslist
Class 800 - Radio & TV Ads
Plus you will get advanced classes
on short sales, landlording, flipping, wholesaling and much more all for just
$19.95 a month.
Cancel anytime there are
no obligations or contracts.