Glenn (MI)

Great postcard idea Jonathon! Who are you sending these cards to exactly? If they're ex-homeowners (in transit?), how are you getting the mailing addresses so your getting a good response rate on your leads to make it worth your while? Glenn

Brian- I'm in mid-sw-Mich and I was very interested in doing some "deals on wheels" - at one time. I even went to a "convention" down in Atlanta a few years back and ended up having dinner with Lonnie and his wife (her name slips my mind at the moment) seated w/ me and a friend, just the four of us, at our table. Ya think I managed to ask Lonnie some questions between mouthfuls? You bet I was going to take advantage of asking "the grandfather of doing Deals on Wheels" as many questions as I could think of at the time. I came back home, bought a very nice 2/2 w/ a covered 12x20 deck, central A/C, clean appliances....a very nice 1987 14x70 in a park about 3 wks later. I paid $2k and put $500 into it powerwashing it, painting the inside, hired a gal to wipe down all the walls and paneling and other woodwork, carpets cleaned, furnace cleaned, etc. I was into it for $2500. The scary part for me was the lot rent was $399 mo. I knew that would add up fast if I couldn't move it quickly so I had to price it right. It was right about that time the RE market turned south and the job market here went south as well. With stick-bult foreclosures increasing, so did the vacancies in the mobile home parks here. People just started walking away and leaving them - usually trashed. So here I was selling my nice single-wide-all-spruced-up-and-shiny mobile home for $8100 w/ owner financing, $1000 down, $200 mo + the parks lot rent of $399 mo. That's $600 a month. At that time people could buy a freakin house for that, or less. My marketing drew some real interesting prospects, mostly losers who didn't have $1k to put down. Or $200 mo for that matter. I knew if I let them in I'd be cleaning the place out again in months. Not going to happen. I'd let it sit empty and rot before I let that happen. And that's what eventually happened. All the money I spent on ads in the local papers, flyers, etc , my results were pretty dismal. I lowered the price as the months went by (x $399 mo lot rent adding up) and about 7 months later I had it down to $5900. By the 9th month of paying $399 mo lot rent I was getting pretty fed up and anxious to move on. I even called Lonnie up and told him of my dilema. (Yes, the man is an unbeleiveable gentleman and was kind enough to give me his office # when we were seated togther at dinner in Atlanta a year earlier). I answered all of Lonnie's questions..."yep, been doing that...yep, tried that too....yep, did that....yep, just like you said in your book...." You get the picture. I was striking out with everything I was doing w/ my marketing. Just couldn't find a good enough qualified candidate. I even lowered my downpayment requirement to $500 and the monthly payment to $175mo. Then $150 mo. Zilch. By the 9th month I had moved out of town and had to travel 80 miles each way just to check on the place and meet ocassional applicants. I was selling it at that time for $5300, $500 down and $150 mo owner financing just to move it. I was in the red now. And due to the rising unemployment in my area, the park I happened to have my home in was getting them back from the bank and were selling many of them for $1.00. That's right, a dollar. Sure, they were trashed and needed work and they'd sell them for a dollar and lock you into a 2 year lot rent deal. But that sure didn't help my cause at all when I'm selling my place in the park for $5k and the park is selling repos for $1. I broke down and listed it with a mobile home realtor. 3 months later they sold it for me for $4500. They took a $1900 commission out of that, leaving me with just over $2000 after all the misc costs that were tacked on. 12 months earlier I paid a total of $2500. I hung onto that baby for 12 months at $399 mo lot rent ($4788) plus other monthly related expenses of about $75 mo ($900). Do the math. I was into that deal for almost $6k and walked away with a tad over $2k a year later. The realtor made almost $2k and he was only in the loop for 3 mos! I was glad to finally get rid of it and put it all behind me. My first (and so far my last) Lonnie deal was a bust for me. After that battle I wasn't to excited to jump into another one regardless of how cheap I could get one. Not to say I would never say never...but I'd like to know what your doing differently. You're in Ohio so your economy isn't really any better for the most part than ours is here. But then again, we're highest in the nation in unemployemnt and pretty much have been dependent on auto manufactoring forever. Well, we know what happened to that. If you have some deep pockets or have the connections, right now is certinately a buyers market here in stick-built homes and in mobile homes. I'd be interested in opening up some lines of communication as to how I can benefit you and your investors looking for real estate or mobile home investments in this area, as a "birddog" of sorts. Sorry Michael for getting so long winded but the initial paragraphs turned into a chapter to get my story across. Regards, Glenn

What a great blast-from-the-past memory. Like Michael mentioned, it sounds like you were describing my neighborhood. Guys and girls all playing softball till dark, choosing teams and playing basketball in someones driveway the next night, and the only siren we ever heard was the fire station warning siren at noontime on Fridays. Those were definately the good 'ole days to me. Thanks for the flashback Bev!

USFreeAds.com (owned by Google) IggysPlace.com Hoobly.com Kijiji.com RehabList.com Local.com Where do I sign up? Good luck! ...Rock On

How 'bout "We Buy Houses!" Plain to the point and effective. Put your website and ph # on it and roll.

That homeowner in pre-fore might be a real good short sale candidate for ya Bev.

JR- He said somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$60k. The house is currently for sale for $144,900 and assessed in the mid-$160's. He wants to do the regular conv rote so I can be done with it and move on but all things considered in this market I would consider the "a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush" theory. Thanks.

Ok Michael, thanks alot for responding so quickly. Hey, where's Adam been, he'd might know being from Mich?

Howdy! I'm in the process of selling a probate property I've landed and fixed up in a very nice area. Now the market where the property is has over 11,000 homes for sale right now and the entire state is in the dumpster. Nonetheless, after marketing it for a little less than a month I have an interested couple but due to his current debt-to-income and rental properties he doesn't think a conventional loan is an option. He asked if I'd consider a land contract. I had advertised early on as a lease-option I told him so I'd consider it. But like me, he didn't know what the difference was between a lease option and land contract. Any legal differences? What would be more beneficial? I'm in Michigan. Thanks for your help.

Very kewl. I'm struggling trying to get leads from my marketing and might need to look into this. Another site I'm considering is AmazingMail.com . You can take a pic of the homeowners house, go to the site, download it and they'll put it on a postcard with your pitch and mail it for you. One or 1000 it doesn't matter but it has to get a better response I'm thinking than my $100 mo newspaper advertising I'm spending that flat out sucks no matter how often I test and tweak it. My phone hasn't rang in over 3 weeks from that ad so I have to look into something like this maybe.

Wow, that sure simplifies things. Sounds more practical than going from room-to-room and adding up. Thanks for the answer Michael. I'll try to swing by here more often to see what I've been missing. Glenn

Greetings y'all, Been awhile since I swung by this neighborhood. Nice to see Bev has surfaced again after eons. Here's my dilema. I'm trying to market and sell a 3 bdrm 1.5 ba ranch in a nice subdivision. Assessed value is $166k. My price is $154,900 to move it in this bleak RE market here in West Mich. I've been advertising 1300 sq ft and that to me just doesn't seem right. I think the house is bigger than that so I re-measured again. A 10 x 14 room is 140 sq ft right? Measuring all the rooms upstairs comes to around 1290 sq ft. Do I include the garage dimensions? Hallways? Closets? What about the full unfinished basement? What is the correct way to measure a house for the sq ft? I put up a site to market it along with a 24/7 vm. Tell me what you think and if I possibly added (or didn't add) wrong. Go to www.glencreek6923.com. I put all the room dimensions on there as well but something seems to tell me I thought the house was closer to 1500 sq ft, I dunno. Thanks

I have had a elluva time getting money lined up through HML's. The 2 most recent inquiries into my credit lowered my FICO by 33 points. I haven't been fortunate enough to find a HML who doesn't inquire about my credit score and is more concerned with that than any deal I come across so I stay on the sidelines and read about those who have access to the money to do the deals.

Ditto to what Patty and Brian said. I'd be extremely reluctant as well leasing back a property to a homeowner who can't make the payments as it is before you step in and attempt to rescue them.

Yip, sho have...