How many letters to distressed homeowners must I send before I get a sale?
I am in the process of sending out letters with flyers regarding purchasing single family homes of distressed sellers. How many letters will I need to mail out, before I get one seller to sell his home to my group? (the law of averages or the ratio of success)
About 1 in 300-500.
I’m a real estate investor and do a lot of marketing using postcards and "yellow letters."
However, distressed homeowners aren’t you’re best target, if by "distressed" you mean those facing foreclosure. The problem is most don’t have any equity in their property. You may get calls, but they need to sell for way above fair market value. Example: They bought two years ago for $500,000. They owe $500,000. Their home is now worth $375,000. They can’t refinance, and their ARM is about to reset. A short sale is a possibility, but that’s complex, time-consuming, and uncertain.
If you mean "motivated" owners, look to out-of-state owners. (Any local Realtor can get that list for you.) Also target owners who’ve just evicted tenants. (That list is free from your county courthouse.) Or target people who’ve lived in their homes for 15 or more years. They’ll have a lot of equity.
Other distressed (motivated) homeowners are those getting divorces. Divorce documents are public information, so you can get those.
You might also target expired listings. Realtors do that a lot. Problem with those is that the listings may have expired because the property was overpriced. Many of these are on the market as a last-ditch effort before trying a short sale or going into foreclosure.
I’ve done a lot of direct marketing to motivated homeowners. Feel free to post any other questions you have.
Hope that helps.
If you are talking bank owned properties I’d say thousands. Banks don’t respond to letters. You need to meet with bank officers and negotiate with them face to face so that they know to contact you for a bid when they have a property in distress.
If you are talking about homes that are at risk of going into foreclosure, you’d actually have to have some way of knowing that the home is at risk well before the bank forecloses…. I’m not sure that info is available to the public.
I guess what I’m saying is that mailers aren’t going to get you any business unless you mass mail and get a couple of hits off of that.
References :
I wouldn’t send letters most people will just throw them away if they don’t know what they are thinking it is spam or something along those lines. I would set up an ad on Craiglists and see if you can find some people through that that actually need the help rather than wasting your time on flyers. Good luck.
References :
depends on what kind of offer you’re making - if you’re offering $10,000 below what they owe, chances are you’ll never get a sale
References :
About 1 in 300-500.
I’m a real estate investor and do a lot of marketing using postcards and "yellow letters."
However, distressed homeowners aren’t you’re best target, if by "distressed" you mean those facing foreclosure. The problem is most don’t have any equity in their property. You may get calls, but they need to sell for way above fair market value. Example: They bought two years ago for $500,000. They owe $500,000. Their home is now worth $375,000. They can’t refinance, and their ARM is about to reset. A short sale is a possibility, but that’s complex, time-consuming, and uncertain.
If you mean "motivated" owners, look to out-of-state owners. (Any local Realtor can get that list for you.) Also target owners who’ve just evicted tenants. (That list is free from your county courthouse.) Or target people who’ve lived in their homes for 15 or more years. They’ll have a lot of equity.
Other distressed (motivated) homeowners are those getting divorces. Divorce documents are public information, so you can get those.
You might also target expired listings. Realtors do that a lot. Problem with those is that the listings may have expired because the property was overpriced. Many of these are on the market as a last-ditch effort before trying a short sale or going into foreclosure.
I’ve done a lot of direct marketing to motivated homeowners. Feel free to post any other questions you have.
Hope that helps.
References :