Gary (MO)

With the understanding that different parts of the country have different, unique "flavors", I'd sure be interested in seeing the "marketing plans" of those of you who are out there doing this on a regular basis. I'm in the process of 're-grouping' my thought process and have decided to begin with a rock solid "in" system. I'd like to dissect this business, into parts and fine tune each part so that the whole is a finely tuned machine. Got a web site? How's it working for you (in terms of % of deals brought to you)? Same way with your "warm" calls, Mr. Saint's doorknob campaign. It sounds like Adam has the whole town working for him ( )! Option8 sounds like she has a "finely tuned mean marketing machine"! I think this would help many of us? Thanks! Gary

Welcome to the Naked Investor forum! One of the best things you could do at this stage in your real estate career would be to purchase "The Manual". It covers the basics and then some and provides you with the contracts you need to do this business. You get the contracts "hard copy" and Michael also emails them to you in Word format so you can customize them to fit your business. At only $97. for the whole thing, you simply can't beat it. You also get all of the support you could ever want on these forums and tons of advice! I wish you the best! Gary

Adam, I posted about this in another forum. Quite a "first" deal for me! Although I didn't profit - yet, I sure learned a ton! Although the "old" me would have been discouraged, strangely enough, I'm looking forward to getting back in the game..."older and a little wiser"

Adam, Through all of this experience with these two houses, I suspected this. I had a $53K house that attracted folks who weren't of the buyer mind-set. In fact, this was one of the assumptions I was making that I knew I had yet to test. MC says there's an old saying "ugly houses attract ugly tenants"... Thanks Adam

Certainly a lot to ponder over Adam... I believe you are right. It almost seems that a person who is umemployed with lots of time has a better shot at getting going in this business than does someone who is employed full time. (Of course, that could be me telling myself another excuse too! ) Exactly. OK...7 of the 10 don't have any money for an option fee. Why would you schedule appointments with them? How would you pick those 7 from the other 72? Thanks Adam! Gary

Adam Perhaps it's my area. I've run exactly the same ad, gotten probably 75 calls and had a total of 3 people that actually had option money saved. (None were interested in the house I had )

Just wanted to update you guys on this deal and it's sister deal (I signed two at the same time from the same seller; this one was the "better" house, signed as a CA, the 'sister' deal was a "fixer upper", a sandwich L/O with a 4 year lease and a sale price below appraised value.) that were signed in May with a lease start date 8/01/04. I haven't been able to market the fixer-upper because she first had to evict the tenant (took 10 days) and then had to haul trash off, clean carpets, etc... With the CA, I finally put the sign in the yard and ran the newspaper ads anyway even though, after a month, she had not done anything to bring the house up to showing speed (painting, cleaning, replacing linoleum, etc... ) as we had agreed. Consequently, I learned that the few folks out of the myriad of calls that we received that did have any kind of option money saved, really weren't interested in spending it on a house that was in such rough shape. The kicker though was that I got a call from the seller on my voice mail yesterday letting me know that she was 'ready' for the fixer upper to show (she got the carpets cleaned finally yesterday) but that she had decided that she had made a mistake "tying up the two properties" like that and that she wanted out of the contract! Can you believe it?! As we speak, there is still linoleum left to be glued in the kitchen of the CA and the yard hasn't been mowed since May, etc... Of the folks that didn't have the option money, they weren't really interested in financing the option money over a period of time; most weren't sure they could afford the $550 a month lease! One guy that called last night was calling from a pay phone I'm going to need some time to sort all of this out. I'm not sure what to totally make of this whole scenario but I'm sure there are MANY lessons here for me. I guess this post is mostly vent but also, I'm thinking that this experience might also help one of you guys too...at least that's my wish.

Good Job Kurt!!

Thanks everyone for your ideas! I will keep you posted as to the outcome of this deal. Since the seller has very little equity (she owes 48K and it appraised at 53K) and even with the option price at 59K, there wouldn't be enough in the till (on a conventional 80/20) to clear the first mortgage - even if the seller were willing to take back a 2nd. It looks like the only possible way to move this house with a win/win/win is to stick with the L/O - at least long enough for there to be enough to clear that 1st mortgage. Thanks again everyone! Gary

Adam Do you mean you assign a CA back to the seller?

Hi Tony, Naw - no superhero here, I just like to kid around too much ! As far as the tights... no, I'm just an ordinary human; unlike you and the caped crusader of motivated sellers. I like Jason's avatar because I believe it reflects a pretty cool personality behind it I actually had planned a "cool avatar" contest right here on the ole forum but Jason pulled his cool gyrating one and kinda took the wind out of my sails. (I also signed up two deals about that same time and got distracted ) Flash? Flash Gordon? Hmmmm.......now there's a thought......hmmmmm....... Is there room for yet another superhero?

Man Pete! That's pretty good - what do you think is the secret of your success with that? Perhaps that's normal? Your marketing on the sell side is simply a yard sign and newspaper ads - right? Gary

Count me in too! I appreciate the reminder Jason that I've pulled what MC calls a "typical Newbie mistake" - I've stopped marketing for new deals once I signed two up! This is the boost I needed!

Uh Oh! Here we go again! I just looked at the compass on this thread and it just turned ..... south! Can the Caped Crusader save the day? It's good to see you back on the forum MC! Hope your computer woes weren't too costly.

Jason..."headed south" is Missouri talk meaning "hit the bottom". I was thinking ole MC may have secretly been sabatoging the threads and cunningly placed the blame on you! :ph34r: I mean we hadn't had a "bottomed out thread" since his computer crashed! Who knows, that "cape envy" thing may have hit a little too close to home!

Here's an update on this house: I've got a potential buyer who has been approved for a conventional loan at 80% (presumeably from the appraisal). He wants the seller to carry back a 2nd - basically a 'no money down' deal for him. When speaking about the l/o the 'non-refundable option fee' didn't phase him at all so I'm thinking.... Any ideas would be most welcome!

THANKS Jason, that offer is really kind of you! I'm still trying to find that 'fit' for me as far as an avatar is concerned. Yours are really cool! I understand what you mean with the suit -n- cape thing. Ya gotta remember though, they wouldn't tease ya if they didn't like ya! Thanks again! Gary

Anyone notice ole MC hasn't been around the old forum the last couple days? I've also noticed that there haven't been any threads headed south over the last couple days? Coincidence? Now's your chance to defend yourself Jason!

Thanks Pete - It all seems to boil down to MARKETING!

Wow Pete - that's GREAT! Was this a result of your billboard? How do you market for T/Bs that brings them in? I'm having difficulty finding someone with $2,500. let alone $7K! I'm thinking it's related to the price of the house - like MC says, "ugly houses attract ugly tenants". What was the sale price of your house? Congrats again! Gary

Yeah Adam, I know those Avatar Gnomes are pretty bad this time of year but I never dreamed they would mess with a superhero like Jason's! What is this world coming to?

TRY... I was going to TRY to come up with a better one! (My bad...)

So Jason, you never did share what happened to the cool gyrating avatar that you had last month? I was going try to come up with a better one but just as I got started, yours....vanished!

Let's see if I've got the hang of this. "Roses are now red, Violets are now blue too, 'Cause their tights are too"

I've got this house under lease that I'm trying to L/O before the lease begins 8/01/04. The yard sign has outpulled the newspaper ad 5:1 - at the very least. What I'm running in to is that the house is less than optimal at an appraised value of 53K (we're asking a L/O price of 59K) and the pool of T/Bs I seem to be attracting have no money saved (or very little). I haven't done the flyers yet or the directional signs but plan to over the holiday weekend perhaps. Does anyone else have any other ideas? Thanks for the help! Gary