Doug Pretorius (ON)

Any ideas on the wording? I'm thinking: I Buy Houses Like This One Call Doug! 1-800-000-0000

I got into an interesting discussion today with a couple of friends who are also self-employed/business owners. We were talking about the image we project in each of our businesses. What we can and cannot get away with. What's appropriate in different settings. And what works. We covered everything from our marketing materials to the way we dress. All 3 of us work from home and 2 of us are the only employee of our business. The first is an accountant. Everything about his image screams "professional". He wears dress clothes including a tie and often a jacket even when he's not meeting with clients. It could be argued that he needs to present a competent professional business-type image at all times or people might question his ability to carry out the service he provides. His marketing material is of high-quality and presented with equal professionalism. The second is a consultant. She dresses up for business meetings but wears house clothes when she's working from home since her clients don't just drop by 'the office', and she likes to be comfortable. Her business is mostly by email and phone so she's able to present a professional image without always demonstrating it visually. She basically has one big client so she doesn't have a need for marketing material. Then there's me, the real estate investor. As I explained (much to their shock and horror!) I've tried all that professional stuff and it just doesn't work for me. Either it's a matter of my personality, or the personalities of my clientele. For meeting with both buyers and sellers I dress down. My marketing material looks home-made. And overall I present myself as unintimidating and easy going rather than professional. I personally find that the LESS professional my image the easier it is to buy and sell houses. I'm curious about my fellow Naked Investors. What business image do you find works for you, your personality, your market?

Amen, Chris!

I've been having a great time recently. Loads of quality leads and 2 absolutely fantastic meetings with sellers in a row. With my back turned I failed to notice a cantankerous seller sneaking up behind me We've had a lovely little exchange of emails, this was my last one: I responded to your ad because the property looked like something I'd be interested in. Unfortunately you disqualified yourself by suggesting that you would be doing me a favour by sitting down to discuss an "inflated price". I gave you one more chance after that and you replied with a snide remark. And you expect me to answer your questions? May I remind you that YOU are the one who's trying to SELL. I hope you will do a better job with your next prospective buyer.

There's one other thing you can do with listed properties. Market directly to the owner and do an L/O when the listing expires. Realtors go to a lot of trouble to build a very targeted list of prospects for us, we shouldn't let their hard work go to waste

Considering all the grief they add to it, it just doesn't seem worth it even if you could figure out a way to pay them, does it Gary?

This is Cananda, Jonathan, you can add another zero to the price Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah I'll test it out with plastic and if it yields results I'll get my uncle (sign-writer) to make one out of steel or whatever they make permanent signs out of these days

I replied to an ad on my local kijiji that made no mention of being an agent. In her reply she STILL didn't say she was an agent, instead she wanted to set up a meeting for the usual "discuss financing options" When I suggested that she disclose that she's an agent in her ads she sent a snotty reply about how she's been selling real estate for 21 years LOL! I ALMOST replied back: "Well then you should know the law." But I bit my fingers. Arguing with a moron is so not worth it.

I should be signing up a house next week on a fairly busy street and it got me thinking about finally testing out a marketing idea I've toyed with for ages. Namely, keeping a permanent "we buy houses" type sign in the yard. The sign will have a unique number for tracking purposes and that's exactly how I'm going to pitch it to my T/B: "Keep this sign in your yard and I'll pay you $X for every house I buy from it." I'm also going to throw in a bonus rent credit as a thank you. My question is, to anyone who has done this or uses bandit signs for buying in general. Which do you find more effective preprinted or handwritten signs? I know for selling handwritten is the way to go. But it's been so long since I used signs for buying, I have no idea...and I don't think I ever tested handwritten anyway.

Ever get the feeling when talking to a realtor that you're just listening to the same recording that the last one played for you? LOL! It's uncanny how every single one has the same spiel. Literally WORD for WORD! Investor: Would your client be open to a lease option? Realtor: I have a great mortgage broker who can help you get financing. Investor: If I was looking for financing I would have called my own mortgage broker. Realtor: Mortgage brokers can do amazing things these days with private lenders even. Investor: I don't need a private lender. I have perfect credit. Realtor: I know it seems impossible with your bad credit, but really, you too can own your own home. Why rent? Investor: Because renting with the option to buy is better than any mortgage. Realtor: Huh? Did you say something?

That's totally up to you. I know MC likes to ask how much they have saved. I prefer to quote a specific amount, oddly enough, they usually offer me more But that just gives me the opportunity to be nice to them and gain some goodwill, so I'll let them pre-pay the rent to lower their payments. i.e. if they put down an extra $2400 then their payments will be $200 less per month.

Maybe you'd also benefit from a sample phone conversation with a T/B.: ME: Hi I'm returning your call about the house. TB: Yes! I'd like to see it. ME: First, have you driven by yet? If NO: Go do that and call me back if you're still interested. If YES: Great, and have you visited the website and looked at the pictures of the inside? TB: Yes, it looks beautiful! If NO: Go do that and call back. ME: Can you comfortably afford the $2,500/month rent? TB: No problem. If NO: Call back when you can, I'll have other houses. ME: And you have the $20,000 I need down? TB: Got the check all ready to go. If ANYTHING other than YES: Go get it. ME: I can show you the house at 6pm tonight. Please bring $500 in cash or certified(cashiers?) check for a deposit if you decide you want the house. I'm convinced however that success lies mainly in how you approach them. In my experience the more you push them away the more they want to do the deal. And one of the things I like to say before getting off the phone is: "Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE you want this house?" They usually yell YES!!! I love that

You're doing just fine, Chris! Keep learning and don't beat yourself up too much about those minor (and yes they really are minor) mistakes. The first house I sold RTO I thought I had it sold 3 times, and signed 2 contracts. The first one just never showed up to give me the money and I never heard from her again! I got really worried about the whole thing because I owned the house and had another payment coming up. At least you don't have that to worry about. But eventually I found my T/B and she was a dream...offered me more money than I was asking down, and paid on time every month for 3 years, closed on schedule. That deal went like clockwork after the initial stress of marketing. After that I really got into the groove with buyers. Now I typically sell to the second person who views it. I'm really tough on buyers though, if they don't answer all of my questions to my satisfaction I tell them to come back when they're serious. One bit of specific advice I can offer you is that when you had those 2 potential T/Bs at the house. I would have brought them both in and said: "Look guys, I hate to do this to you, but you both want the house and as far as I can tell you're equally qualified. So I'm going to make this easy. Whoever gets me the money first--wins."

I know we all do this, sometimes get so caught up in trying to eliminate ALL the risk involved in lease options that we forget how good we actually have it compared to traditional investors. I was just thinking about this over the past week and thought I'd share a little example based on the numbers in my local market. Mr. Traditional wants to buy a rental property. The average single family home is about 1400sqft with 3 bed, 2 bath, 1 car garage. It sells for just shy of $300,000 and rents for about $1,500. To buy this house as an investment property, he will need to put 20% down or $60,000, pay for an inspection, appraisal, attorney, land transfer tax, loan origination fees, and possibly a survey, which all comes to around $6-7,000. The good news is that interest rates are low so he'll be able to get a payment of about $1,266/month, plus $250 for taxes and $50 for insurance...oops, that seems to be more than the $1,500 it'll rent for In this scenario the investor is on the hook from day one for the payments until he pays it off or sells it. And as we can see he's going to be eating a negative cash flow every month. He's also responsible for 100% of any repairs and maintenance. And he only has tenants with renter mentalities to choose from. Here we are occasionally getting into a debate about how to reduce or eliminate our risk as far as repairs and payments on a property go. But that's ALL we have to worry about. We didn't put any money into the deal. And at worst we're liable for 12 months of payments (should really be more like 1 month if our contracts are properly written). The guy above is liable indefinitely and if he has to walk away he'll lose to the tune of $70,000 of his hard earned cash that he invested. Ouch!

And just like the first: "Would you be interested in doing a lease purchase?" screens your leads, so too does the: "I'm an investor" ... usually In theory we should be talking only to people who are cool with us renting the place and making a profit while doing so.

That's a good point as I used to just let it come up whenever (and it always does) and often had the problem of the seller thinking I was trying to pull something. But now I send a second email that explains who I am, what I do, and a couple of the advantages. That email goes over really well most of the time.

Free first.

If you guys aren't having a problem with this then it must be the way I'm explaining it. As I'm sure I've posted a hundred times before, I've yet to find a smooth transition from the initial email/call asking if they'd be open to renting the place (where they immediately assume I'm asking for myself to live there); to the fact that I do this for a living. If I could I'd close a lot more deals because up until now I've just had to write those off and look for the sellers who have no problem with it either way.

Weird. I've only been asked this by one T/B. I just said: "I'm managing the property."

Well she was fine but the seller doesn't want to rent to own to a company, only direct to the person who's going to live there. This has always been a huge problem for me in my market. Sellers who will do a rent to own with me, but not allow me to sublet or assign. Oh well, on to the next lead!

Very strange things going on around here. First, last week I meet with a seller who immediately refers me to a friend. This evening I get a hold of that friend and she refers me to her sister! I've rarely ever got referrals before now suddenly 2 in one week, cool Then today I'm emailing ads and see one listed by a realtor as "New Price" and I figure why not, it's only a 5 second email. She emails be back and says: "I just spoke with the owners and yes they would be willing to do a rent to own." So I'm supposed to call her back and set up a time to look at the house and you know what? Despite all the houses I've seen and all the sellers I've met, I have to admit I'm at a loss as to how to handle this. Any advice from you good folks?

You might as well just call (as unpleasant as it is) the FSBO/FRBOs, you'll have a better response and it won't cost you anything but some time.

I've never done fliers but I did do a lot of research into them. There's a realtor marketing trainer who claims to have farming with fliers down to a science, here's what he recommends: 1. Pick a median priced neighborhood with a high turn over of properties. 2. Blanket every home that you want to list (buy) in the target area. 3. Every week for 8 weeks in a row. 4. Then switch to every 3 weeks for the rest of your life. Doing it every week for 8 weeks establishes you as THE go-to expert in the area. By the end of that period people will think that you have been doing business in the neighborhood for years, and everyone will know who you are. Then you simply maintain that status in their minds with the every-3-weeks program.

Anybody doing deals in and around Los Angeles? I have a prospective seller here who's moving down there and would like to L/O instead of just renting. They're also open to Long Beach, Cypress, or possibly other surrounding areas. And they're moving in September.