How many deals are you doing

[troy 0]

I wanted to know how many CA's are you guys doing a month? I havent did a L/O yet but i have did wholesaling. Just been running into problems of trying to do L/O. Homeowners are not just motivated. I am located in indianapolis< IN. Could someone tell me what i am doing wrong? My goal is to do 2 Ca's per month with average profit of 4k-5k per deal.

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

None. I'm burned out! I can only take so many failed deals with aggrevating sellers in a row before I need a break.

 

My opinion about CA's

It's been about 2 years since I first came to this forum and discovered CA's. In that time I've determined that one of the following is true, either: a: my market cannot support a monthly stream of CA's at this time, or b: the marketing costs to locate enough motivated sellers would put the whole endeavor in the red.

 

Having said that, I still think CA's are absolutely the best way to get started in this business. They're extremely low risk and after you've called the required 200-300 sellers you will (hopefully) have gained an awful lot of street smarts. Also if your market so happens to be geared toward liking the concept then it's probably a great way to build up capital for other types of investing.

 

For me, after a lengthy rest I will probably return to my former ways of buying conventionally with partners and selling creatively.

[Adam King (MI) 1]

2 to 4 CAs a month in any market is possible. We have put over 8 properties under contract this month. Each has the potential of $5K or more. Two are straight term options (Cooperative Options) that are rehabs with a high equity potential.

 

Lesson for the month; Marketing.

 

If you get the phone to ring with sellers it has a tremendous advantage over cold calling people. Get your marketing out there and if you have no money, network with other investors. Offer them your services in exchange for CA leads. This is a sure way to get a deal. But, if you're not the networking type this can hurt you. You have to be courteous, excited and ambitious. Having a good attitude is EVERYTHING in this business!

 

Why Doug's right about CAs:

 

When you do a CA, you have limited liability because basically you're using an option, or contract of intent. You're not taking liability right off the bat. The reason you have tremendous leverage is two fold. One, you have the ability to take on TERMS. This means that someone only needs to produce enough cash to take over payments. Two, you are completing on your own, the hardest part of an acquisition, the paperwork. This makes the CA a turnkey system. If you want leverage over anyone else in the market the words "turnkey" need to be in your business model.

Just my two cents,

Adam

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

Adam, feel free to do it here, I'd love to be proven wrong! How many thousands of sellers have I talked to now? There is zero difference between those who you call and those who call you, the only difference is whether or not you spend money to talk to them.

 

In my experience the reason marketing doesn't work to screen and locate motivated sellers is because they don't read your marketing material. They see what they want to see "buy...fast" and ignore the screening elements like "take over payments". So the people who call are exactly as motivated as (maybe even less than) the people who spent their own money to advertise their house.

[MichaelC 160]

GUI, I have to agree with Adam. Two to four CA's a month is not a dream, but a very reachable goal. Mind you, it won't happen without the effort. But if you speak with enough sellers, and make enough offers, there is no reason you shouldn't be able to do just that.

Could someone tell me what i am doing wrong?

Impossible to say what you're doing wrong if we don't know what you're doing. Details, amigo.

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Adam, feel free to do it here, I'd love to be proven wrong!

 

http://www.naked-investor.com/forums/index...50&hl=challenge

 

I thought we did that once for you already?

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

That's not the way I remember it. I know you called a few sellers and gave up. Then we had a non-creative flip fall through from those signs I put up. Am I forgetting something?

 

LOL what the heck is that? You aren't taking credit for my deal are you? And notice I said consistent monthly stream, not a deal here or there. There's no way I can see to repeat deals like that on a regular basis, there simply aren't enough sellers.

[Adam King (MI) 1]

Doug,

It wasn't that I was there to sign the contracts for you, but we did have luck with getting two sellers interested. That was only out of 12 FSBO calls. What motivated you was the help and support from the site and you did a deal. That's the point dude.

 

You just need to get motivated again! And you're pretty unstoppable when that happens so stick to your guns!

Regards,

Adam

[pilot76180 51]

Doug, for what it's worth, I'll throw in my two cents. I don't know if they use cents in Canada, so I'll throw in my two whatever that converts to in Canadian money.

Do not cold call. That is the biggest waste of time. We pay two people to send out letters to listed homeowners every month. We also do CA's for investors, and they tell others about us. We get so many sellers calling that we drop some of them and can't call them back. If you can get 15-20 houses in an area then it makes it much easier to move them than if you only have 4 or 5.

I used to drive around writing down addresses of houses for sale, putting door flyers on houses, cold calling FSBO's, blah blah blah. That is not very profitable. You can also send out mass mailings. There are companies that will do that for a reasonable fee.

Also, check your letter you are sending out. If you are doing CA's, don't mislead in your letters by saying "fast..buy", or even stating "sell quick, we buy houses etc." Simply state that your company helps people through lease purchasing, and state the benifits to the seller, including no costs to the seller etc.

[MichaelC 160]

Doug, for what it's worth, I'll throw in my two cents. I don't know if they use cents in Canada, so I'll throw in my two whatever that converts to in Canadian money.

Do not cold call. That is the biggest waste of time. We pay two people to send out letters to listed homeowners every month. We also do CA's for investors, and they tell others about us. We get so many sellers calling that we drop some of them and can't call them back. If you can get 15-20 houses in an area then it makes it much easier to move them than if you only have 4 or 5.

I used to drive around writing down addresses of houses for sale, putting door flyers on houses, cold calling FSBO's, blah blah blah. That is not very profitable. You can also send out mass mailings. There are companies that will do that for a reasonable fee.

Also, check your letter you are sending out. If you are doing CA's, don't mislead in your letters by saying "fast..buy", or even stating "sell quick, we buy houses etc." Simply state that your company helps people through lease purchasing, and state the benifits to the seller, including no costs to the seller etc.

I, too, find steady replies when I send what I call my "introductory letter" to homeowners. That would be both FSBO and those who are listed. The call backs are consistent, more so with those properties that are already listed. Go figure. That call back gets your foot in the door. And when they are listed, it's an easy explanation as to how they can save $25K or $50K selling with a lease purchase.

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

I'd like to believe you guys but I mailed every listed house in the area and got zero deals. Sure I got lots of calls but everyone wanted cash at full price despite the fact that my postcard clearly stated I was looking to take over payments only.

 

You guys are the experts when it comes to mailing listed sellers, so tell me what I'm doing wrong.

[PokerNutter 0]

Allow me to chime in here. As a Canadian, I can attest to Dougs frustration. Sending out postcards and coldcalling may or may not be methods of finding sellers but we're forgetting an important factor. There is a societal aspect to these sort of creative deals that just hasn't caught on in Canada. That coupled with well appreciating markets and more stringent lending requirements make for a significantly less proportion of viable 'motivated sellers'.

 

Im not saying its not possible but highly unlikely given the circumstances to do as well here as is being done in the U.S. Remember that saying, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it -- the same applies.

 

I too am now in the process of setting up partnerships in order to acquire real estate and sell conventionally. It should work out alot better.

[megabucks41 0]

I'd like to believe you guys but I mailed every listed house in the area and got zero deals. Sure I got lots of calls but everyone wanted cash at full price despite the fact that my postcard clearly stated I was looking to take over payments only.

 

You guys are the experts when it comes to mailing listed sellers, so tell me what I'm doing wrong.

 

Just curious Doug where did the deals fall apart from the buyer end or the seller end.

[Doug Pretorius (ON) 9]

Seller end. They can't be bothered with renting to own.

 

I've always found the buyer end to be easy even when the market was slow. It took longer but I don't find it frustrating like dealing with sellers.

[megabucks41 0]

I must say that reading these posts reminds me of my own sitiuation down here in South fl. I have heard of this area being the # one state for scam artist to do business now with this in mind think of all those home sellers mind set even before we start to talk to them. Now add the fact that it's still a sellers market and on it's way down Who want to hear about making money in a year sound so long to wait, My friend next door sold his home in half a day with a pure profit of $30k cash out I want to do the same. Bla, Bla, Bla etc.

 

Advertising well as, I have stated in another post sending a bit of humor toward Adam and his luck, I have to say that with the small budget that I had for advertising our only means to talk to seller or FRBO was the news paper. The internet website I visited and sending e-mial to all these owners we have yet to see a deal from this effort and still we push on keep doing the walk.

 

Now after all that we managed to put together a few deals that after a few weeks past we just seem to not be able to put no one in these properties. And the deals fell apart. Still we pressed on. I figured that it would help if we put up a website and for what cost me to do that I just couldn't pass it up. I have placed different ads around the internet advertising our website. And lord and behold motion took place and a deal came about. Thus far I've been around the borad for a while and only have one deal to show for it. Well after placiing the normal way we do ads we placed some one in that property only to find out that after all the work that was put in it was just enough option fee to split between the all three partners.

 

Next came glory days wow everyone was happy after the smoked cleared our mind set got the better of us and we were looking to put deals together with option fees that were enough to cover all of us happly. Well it hasn't happen yet. I still am the bread winner of the family and I have to go to work each and everyday.

But I have never lost the hope or the feeling of that first deal which has kept me motovatiated enough to keep doing this business.

 

Since then as you could see on our website we have a few deals in the works hoping to close one tomorrow

and the rest we're waiting to screen T/B for them. I want to do more deals a month whereby I can say I am doing 4 a month then I will be happy an only for a bit because then I am going to want to do more. I also have had people calling me from as far as Calif. and TampaBay areas to find them homes so our website has done it's job I think? Any how it took this long to find out what the problem was as to why we were not closing more deals as I was told by MC. and the simple answer was we were chasing the highest option fee possible instead of focusing on helping others get what they want and the rest will follow. I am at the point right now whereby I am doing a deal to put a T/B in one of our T-home for an option fee of $3K but he wants me to put together a rent to own on the proprety they are leaving. So I could hold out for another $4K but why when I am getting another property to move. So looking back who gives a rip what my road was like to get the first deal as long as I got it and learned from all the work that was put in I am sure that no one on this borad started with a golden road map to the top maybe lucky Adam LOL. My point being that we all are going to go through ups and down but it how you handle the downs that counts.

 

I never got into this business because I want to be rich, I got into this business because it gave me the income a month that I needed to quit my job down the road and be free. But I knew that I had to learn alot both from the materials side and the hands on side but it didn't matter as long as I built a business that wanted to do for the long run. And everyday I learn something new so it motovates to keep learning if not from here on the borads then from anything and everything that has to do with real estate. Myslef I am going at this not for about 2 years but I have had a lot to learn both of myself and this business to the point where I could just see the gold at the end of the rainbow. So friend hang in there find what ever it takes to get you excited about this business and keep walking till you get where you want to be and don't let anyone still your dream. Good luck.