Gonna give this one more shot!

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

Ok, I'm going to run another classified ad, this time to attract straight options--specifically I want to get people to sign with me rather than with a realtor.

 

I don't need motivated sellers since I will be giving them full price in cash. But I do need to hook them so that they call me first.

 

Please critique the following ads or offer your own. I'm not sure how far I can go against the agents and with the whole "brokering without a license" thing, so any ideas on that are welcome as well.

 

I'm thinking of something along these lines...

 

Sell your house fast, no commissions.

 

Multiple offers. Never a commission.

 

Discover the ZERO commission home selling system.

[grannyguru 0]

How about:

 

We buy houses at full price...fast!

 

Or

 

We buy houses fast - at full price!

 

Or

 

Above full price!

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Doug,

My network is my strongest asset. Many investors bring leads in from their marketing and we work together to either do deals or get them a referral fee. I have also been putting my own ads in the paper for our locator service. That landed us several clients to find properties and a CA over the weekend. The CA was a cold call to a FSBO explaining the program. I had people looking at the house within hours of having the sign up. I actually started the marketing before I had it under contract.

Regards,

Adam

[Golflover 0]

Adam,

 

Whats the best way you have found to find an investor to work with?

[Jason (AL) 1]

So you're going for straight options huh?

 

You may have heard of him and might even have his course.

I have it and it's pretty good.

 

His course (an ebook, actually. So you can get it ASAP, if you don't have it.) is on straight options and get this.....HE LIVES IN CANADA! .

 

His name is Troy Trealeven...even has a site strickly about straight options.

www.straightoptions.com

I check in every now and then there at the site.

Come to think of it...have you been there?

 

Get in touch with him somehow and talk shop.

We've been over strategies via PM and on his discussion board.

He's pretty creative.

 

But if you've heard of him and have his material, then.......????

 

I just know that he does straight options (as well as L/Os) in Canada ....full time.

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

Jason, oh yes I've heard of him. This is really pretty sick (depressing) but I remember when Troy hadn't done a single deal, and emailed me asking for advice. I explained how L/Os and straight options work and how to do them.

 

Obviously he took that info and ran with it, and I'm sure he's gone well beyond what I told him. But I guess it just goes to show how far I haven't come along in the same time

[nck-mail 0]

I'm seriously considering doing the same thing. The L/O just isn't appealing to anyone here in my market. Neither is the CA; no one wants or needs tenants.

 

I've done some research (primarily on marketing) and this is what I've come up with so far (re: classified ads):

 

Sell Your House For a Fair Price on the Date of Your Choice... No Fee or Commission. Quick, Easy, Professional.

 

Maybe use a 24hr recording to bring in those curious and convert some of those curiosity seekers to leave their info.

 

Something else I've learned to help the ad get better readership is to actually place a space ad in the classifieds, so that it looks like somebody circled your classified ad. Just submit camera ready material to the classified ad dept. at your paper. Go to www.richardroop.com I learned a lot there.

 

NOTE: I haven't done this yet (still getting the $$$ together); I'm also working towards a postcard campaign toward higher end FSBO's whose houses haven't sold and expired listings, which, around here, are ONLY higher end homes.

 

Some ideas for ads...

 

-Naomi

[Jason (AL) 1]

Jason, oh yes I've heard of him. This is really pretty sick (depressing) but I remember when Troy hadn't done a single deal, and emailed me asking for advice. I explained how L/Os and straight options work and how to do them.

 

Obviously he took that info and ran with it, and I'm sure he's gone well beyond what I told him. But I guess it just goes to show how far I haven't come along in the same time 

 

Hmmm...

Goes to show ya you have "something" in ya, Doug.

I mean, if some newbie came up, asked for info, and ran with it...making $$$ where he lives...guess nothing is impossible, huh Doug?

 

I read over your words and agree with you 100%.

 

Don't worry though, I can assure you personally that you're not alone.

We'll make it through.

 

Talk soon.

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Golflover,

 

Whats the best way you have found to find an investor to work with?

 

I just network. Word gets around and I meet people through other people. I tell them what my company can do for them and they sign on. There's no magic to it. Just make sure you can produce and make them money.

Regards,

Adam

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Dear all,

I just have to put my two cents out there on this one. I simply can't believe that something can't work where you live. The truth to the matter is that I felt the same way when I started. I was into flipping and no one was playing ball. I made what seemed like a thousand offers but to no prevail. I finally gave up and bought another course on another form of investing. I tried that and came to the same conclusion once again. No one was interested in what I had to offer.

Well, that was a lot of deals ago. Now the only thing I have to think about is how to shorten my days because there's so much to do. I think I have done just about every form of investing except shortsales. And I'm doing two of those this week. You just have to find out what's inside of you that's blocking your potential and work with it. I see others all the time that I even work hand in hand with still "not get it". They never give up because they continue to see me closing something. They just stand there scratching their heads, but sooner or later believe it themselves and then bam....deals start getting done.

You guys just have to hang in there and keep pushing. What's good for me, may not be good for you. But I can assure you that with the support and knowledge on this site, there's no reason to not pull a deal off anywhere.

Just keep the faith,

Adam

[option8 0]

I agree with Adam here...

 

My network is my strongest asset

The network I have only begun to develop includes: mortgage brokers, sellers that love what I did for them, TBs that are thrilled for their opportunity to own a new home, other investors that I have helped find buyers (it gets my buyers a house), friends, family, birddogs, utility employees, etc is keeping me hopping. The success of this strategy makes me want to expend energy to develop it further.

Three of my birddogs want to put signs on their cars.

 

I can honestly say that since last Thursday I have received leads for properties that need to be moved to the tune of 74 houses! (to be sure, I just counted them!)

 

Some are sellers that I can just option at 30 to 50% discount and and sell my option, others are CA potential, one is an investor with a list of 15 that are up for CA, LO, LC or Sub2, another is a list of 15 units worth close to 1Million available for a retail sale. I even connected with a group of realtors that I haven't met with who do LOs and need buyers! I even did some listing research on possible CA and intend to mail to thoses stale listings I found.

 

I love checking my email box....There are always leads rolling in! The problem I have now is keeping the leads in order. Several of the birddogs have submitted the same property within 24 hours. (I think they will have to put them in online so I can track the date and time of submission. Out of all of these opportunities, something should pop off resulting in some sort of payday! I never dreamed that the networking I was doing would result in activity like this. I actually think I need to consider getting help!

 

hang in there, keep talking and asking for the business.

 

option8

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

First: Thanks for the ad suggestions everyone!

 

Second: I'd like to make it clear that although I'm now focusing on signing up houses on straight options, I'm not giving up on CAs. There are so many RTO buyers here that any marketing of any house with attract them. When one with a decent DP comes along I'll work with them on terms, and offer it to the seller, showing them in black and white how much more money they will make. If they refuse then I can still sell to a qualified buyer.

 

So I'm not really giving up on anything, I'm just repackaging it in a more appealing way for the seller, and opening up alternatives for myself.

 

 

Adam & option8, in one sentence, what do you tell people you can do for them/anyone? i.e.

 

I help people buy and sell houses with no commissions and no banks.

 

I buy houses above market price and sell them with no money down or rent to own.

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Doug,

This is just my opinion, but straight options to me are the easiest thing to get a signature on and the hardest thing to get to closing. You have to REALLY have your team together to make them work if you want to get paid with them. Sure, you can assign it to another investor, but if you "could' do that it would mean that you just put a straight option just for an assignment fee onto a real deal you could have negotiated for bigger dollars and less work. That to me means you took an easy way out of working with a true motivated seller. I only do straight options now if I don't have any other paperwork with me and need to get something on paper ASAP. Or, if I need something to prove I have principle interest in the property and need to get paid.

 

As for what I say to sellers, if it's a cold call I simply tell them that there may be interest in their property, but I need to ask a few questions. If they want to know what that "interest" is, I tell them that I/we may be interested in buying it, or helping someone else from out locator program buy it. Either way they can get two different possible solutions over the phone. I don't call people up anymore and tell them that I'm only calling because I'm a "problem solver". I tell them that I can solve their problems, but I get paid for it. Everyone seems to respect that now. I don't know if it's because they've just seen too many new investors begging for deals or what, but they seem less standoffish when I'm honest about my intentions.

Hope that helps a little,

Adam

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

Adam, investors aren't going to want the straight options I'm talking about here because there won't be any equity or terms. These are pure retail just like all the sales agents make.

 

Now if you're saying this isn't going to work (hard to close etc.) then I'm screwed. This is the last thing I can think of to try. Basically what's happened is, years ago I started with the understanding that there are lots of equity deals to be had ... that's BS, sellers want their equity and can get it without much trouble! So I switched to no equity deals, assured that they are around every corner ... that too is BS, in 7 years I've talked to 2 or 3 people who had less than 15% equity, and they told me to *$&@ off when they realized I was trying to make a living by solving their problem.

 

This year I found this site through you, and for a while I was excited that using CAs to give sellers even MORE than they want could land me some deals... nope, sellers don't want more money if it means having someone live in their house while they hold the mortgage.

 

So now I've back-pedaled all the way down to no equity, 100% retail, straight options in the hope that some seller somewhere will option their house to me instead of listing with an agent, and I can hopefully make a few thousand bucks.

 

 

I challenge you or anyone to prove me wrong! I'll give you a list of sellers and landlords here. You call them, convince them to do a creative deal, I'll do all the legwork for FREE just to see a deal happen right here in my own city.

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Doug,

 

I challenge you or anyone to prove me wrong! I'll give you a list of sellers and landlords here. You call them, convince them to do a creative deal, I'll do all the legwork for FREE just to see a deal happen right here in my own city.

 

You're on.

Adam