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omies13

Direct Mail Lists

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I need some help putting together my first direct mail list, I am going to use listsource and create my own Yellow Letters. I'm a bit suck on who to market to though, I don't want to market to absentee owners because they won't be a good L/O candidates but preforclosures arent a great option either. Any suggestions?

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absentees might not be bad. i pulled expired listings off the mls one time and mailed them. got a few calls no deals, but it did get postcards in the handsof people thinking about selling their house.

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I need some help putting together my first direct mail list, I am going to use listsource and create my own Yellow Letters. I'm a bit suck on who to market to though, I don't want to market to absentee owners because they won't be a good L/O candidates but preforclosures arent a great option either. Any suggestions?

 

Why no love for absentee owners?

I agree that preforeclosures and lease options aren't a good fit because the loan must be brought current. Have you tried blanketing a particular zip code that you want to work?

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I need some help putting together my first direct mail list, I am going to use listsource and create my own Yellow Letters. I'm a bit suck on who to market to though, I don't want to market to absentee owners because they won't be a good L/O candidates but preforclosures arent a great option either. Any suggestions?

 

Why no love for absentee owners?

I agree that preforeclosures and lease options aren't a good fit because the loan must be brought current. Have you tried blanketing a particular zip code that you want to work?

I haven't tried that MC, but I feel like that could be a waste of marketing $$ because if I don't target a specific group I'm going tot get a lot of people who are just no interested.

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Targeting a market via zip code is a shotgun approach, but if the numbers are great enough you will receive replies. However, if you want to take a more focused approach, then you can choose from lists such as absentee owners, expired listings, eviction records. Or search for real estate mailing lists via Google or Bing. You'll find no shortage of companies selling this info and you can probably come up with some good ideas.

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I like the MLS expireds. I'm not sure why, though, because I haven't gotten anything to close from that list. You would think that would be a hot list.

 

Lynn (FL)

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Here's a post card I sent to absentee owners. "Hi, My name it Mike Thomas. My wife Joan and I would like to BUY your house located at 123 non-motivated lane." please call xxxxxxx." I sent out a 1000 and got around 150 calls. Here's how the calls went.

Me ; hello

caller; I got a card saying you want to buy my house

Me; Are you interested in selling it?

caller; Sure, I'll sell for full retail price plus 10% .

Thats about the gist of most of the calls.

What ever you do don't send out a thousand at one time. Unless you have a system in place to screen the calls by some sort of live answering service. You just simply can't keep up with them the first three days after the cards hit. I would usually get two beeps while I was talking to a caller. I turned my phone off one day at 7pm and my voice mail was full when I got up the next morning.Non motivated callers will wear you out after awhile.I'm going to start sending letters to 60, 90,and 120 day mortgage lates next week. At least maybe they will have a reason to sell. Most of the absentees have got a property management company looking after their house and things seem to be going well for them. The only two motivated people I talked to was a lady that owned a condo. She was willing to do a sandwich L/O. But in my due diligence I learned she had an hoa rider that prevented her from renting the house out. The other girl I found that was motivated but had already walked away from the home and filed BK.

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Mike, what about fine tuning the message on your cards? A generic message saying that you'll buy someone's house will surely bring the kinds of replies you're getting. Perhaps adding some bullet points to make the homeowner understand you are looking for motivated sellers, homeowners with some kind of pressing issue. Also, a voice mail with a recording that let's the homeowner know you're not a retail buyer so the dreamers looking to sell above market won't bother to leave messages and waste your time.

Your reply rate was very good. But you need to screen out the kooks who will gladly waste your time if you'll allow them.

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Michael, What I eventually started doing was to let some of the calls go to a new voice mail I set up which mentioned my web site info and also a reference to Lease/options. That really cut down on the folks in a coma expecting full retail price. Something else that I think would help get an even better response is to have the letter coming from my wife instead of me. I think people would feel more at ease talking to a woman rather than a man. Just my opinion. If I send out another absentee owner mailing I'm going to stretch it out, maybe a hundred a week. I'm also going to look into getting some sort of answering service. Maybe just someone sitting around home not doing anything anyway to ask a few questions to test motivation. I just can't talk but so much at a time. (I have a bad case of GERD, acid reflux) and If I talk much more than an hour I start to get a sore throat and loose my voice. Bummer!!!! But you got to play the hand you're dealt.

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Michael, What I eventually started doing was to let some of the calls go to a new voice mail I set up which mentioned my web site info and also a reference to Lease/options. That really cut down on the folks in a coma expecting full retail price.

Exactly. Weed out the curious from the serious.

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