Many people feel overwhelmed when searching for real estate as a possible source of income. In addition to the nervousness and hesitancy of constantly posting legal contracts, there is a hurdle before they can make an offer on a single property. That hurdle is in the quest to find motivated sellers.
Leads are the bread and butter of any successful real estate wholesaler. Without leads, the would-be investor will spin his wheels. He’ll find that cash buyers are pretty easy to find compared to motivated sellers who contact you.
Lead generation is your answer. Over the next few minutes, you’ll discover some amazing ways to attract those motivated leads. You will discover the business secrets of a 20+ year internet marketing veteran who happens to be a real estate wholesaler. Let us begin!
Do you find sellers, or do sellers find you?
There are many methods wholesalers use to reach motivated sellers. Many of them require you to contact them. Others will allow them to communicate with you. I’m a big fan of being contacted by the motivated seller. Because? Because if they contact me, then I know that they are more likely to be motivated in the traditional sense. They will be much more open to a discount offer, or even creative financing terms, or subject 2 if there is little or no equity in the property.
While I prefer the seller to contact me, I’m not one to shut the door on a gift horse. Every lead is a good lead and a potential match fee. That’s why I’m going to recommend that you use as many of these techniques as your time, budget, and determination allow.
Before you begin, you’ll want to follow a standard format for your ads. Here’s an example…
We Buy Houses
ANY area, ANY condition.
Zero Closing Costs, “AS IS”
Call now! (555)-555-5555
However, this will not necessarily be the case for postcards and letters. You can find that format by googling “yellow letter”.
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Yellow letters and postcards.
The “yellow letter” or postcard are excellent sources of closed deals. The problem is that a mass mailing can be expensive, even at a single piece cost of $0.40 cents per postcard. You will need to send between 1000 and 2000 to secure a couple of deals. Also, the best method is to send it 6 times to the same people before moving on to the next list. That’s about $400 to $800 per shipment for 6. When you’re already established in the wholesale game, that cost is easy to absorb thanks to the many allocation fees you’ve charged. However, when you first start out, you may not be able to handle that.
The yellow letter is for a direct mailing list of homeowners with equity and other factors. ListSource is a popular provider of these types of lists. I have obtained “little lists” of about 180 addresses and names for about $50 or so. You can import the list into a yellow letter or postcard mailing service, such as BigYellowLetter or any of the others.
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Top Websites
As someone who started in the website design and internet marketing business as a teenager, I am always building websites whenever I feel like starting a business or collecting leads. One of the backbones of my favorite website is WordPress because of its ease of use, ability to optimize for search engines, and the mere fact that I can create multiple variations of homepages that target different campaigns.
A wholesaler without a main website is not a wholesaler at all. Not everyone wants or has the option to call you. Simply providing a phone number in advertising materials is not enough. A URL should always be provided as an option, and the visitor should be able to contact you via an intricate contact form that collects information about the house you want to sell them.
When creating your main site, be sure to ask all the right questions so you can analyze the deal before any discussion with the seller. I have an example below. I like to collect address, contact information, property type and information, description of needed repairs, etc. I even include an option for them to tell me whether or not they would be willing to keep a note for everyone, or a portion of their principal. This leaves the option of creative financing in case the property is not ideal for an all-cash offer (low or no value).
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social media
I spend hours every day on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites interacting with others, promoting and simply trying to increase traffic to my website and drive conversions.
However, be careful to provide the correct ratio of content to ads. Excessive posting of ads can be annoying for followers and friends. It would be a good idea to provide new articles, resources, ideas, quotes, and other things to keep a follower interested long enough to convert in the future.
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Newsletter
As an internet marketer, I know the value of building a list. But who’s going to want to just hand out their name and email address to a stranger? Someone who is getting something for free, of course!
To create a newsletter, you must first offer something of value for free in exchange for your name and email address. This is usually an e-book, or even something smaller, like a 10 page “report”. Your report would contain some simple information that teaches them something they want to know. To gain access to the report, they must first submit their name and email address. They can then download the report via a confirmation email that is automatically sent to them afterwards. This is email list building 101. Follow this plan and you can have a massive list in 30 days or less.
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blog
Don’t just have one main site. I blog about it regularly. You can write articles in advance and schedule them to be published week after week. This way, they get new content on a regular basis.
In addition to the value to your readers, blogs are great for search engine traffic. Content is king. This means that every time you publish a new article, you risk appearing on the first page of Google or another search engine for your target search terms. This will drive motivated sellers to your main site (if you convert them), and can also attract cash buyers if you target them as well.
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Forums
As before with social media, I must warn you not to spam the forums either. But forums can be great sources of leads if you’re smart about it and really contribute. Forums give you a place to add your URL and contact information in a signature. This signature will appear every time you post on the forum, and interested parties can follow you.
I like to join credit repair, bankruptcy and back tax forums, and give advice. You can get motivated sellers who are in foreclosure this way. Just avoid posting URLs while giving your advice, as that is considered spam. Trust the firm completely, be their goose that lays the golden eggs, and you can’t go wrong!
You can also join real estate investing forums like BiggerPockets and interact with other investors. This may be an opportunity for co-wholesale agreements with other wholesalers who may not have a cash buyer for a given property. You may be able to help them out and share the assignment fee.
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newspapers
I’m sure you’ve seen a newspaper before. They still exist, and many people read them. In the classifieds section, you will see other ads like the one I mentioned above. Give it a try and see how quickly you get calls or leads through your website.
Newspapers can be expensive, but there are some smaller ones with more manageable rates.
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podcast
I’ve done quite a few commercials and played them on live and recorded podcasts. They were bought and paid for through Fiverr, and certainly affordable. You can play an ad for $5, or a bit more for larger podcasts. You can get gig extras that also have your ad featured on the podcast’s social media accounts, permalinks on your podcast website, and other perks.
You can also create your own real estate podcast and gain a bunch of new listeners to promote here and there.
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Youtube
YouTube channels have to be one of the best methods to build a following and convert them into leads. You can manage to make a simple 15 minute video every week and post it, right?
It may take some time to build a following, but soon you’ll see thousands of new followers ready to absorb what you’re posting. They will share your content and spread the word. Don’t fall asleep on YouTube marketing. He really is a great hitter.
Put your creative juices to work and come up with some great lead generation ideas. You might be surprised at what you come up with!
