by Richard Roop

Imagine Mailing 3000 Real Estate Marketing Pieces,
Targeted to Ideal Neighborhoods, for only $900!

This article will show you how to mail a three-page sales letter to sellers for only 30 cents each. That’s for everything including postage, list, labor, and printing. By only getting a .3% to .5% response, you’d get 9 to 15 sellers calling you from your mailing. And if you know how to buy houses creatively, that means one or two deals. In my opinion, if you cannot make $15,000 to $30,000 in cash and equity buying a house, it is not a deal. Now imagine doing that:

* Without printing envelopes.

* Without printing three pages.

* Without folding.

* Without stuffing.

* Without sealing envelopes.

* Without hand addressing.

* Without applying stamps.

* Without paying 37 cents for postage.

* Without trying to make it look personal.

* Without trying to get the prospect to open it.

* And without paying 3 to 10 cents per name.

I love direct mail because it can be narrowly targeted. Normally I suggest using personal-looking letters in plain white #10 envelopes, handwritten, or typewritten (or typewriter looking laser font) address, live stamp, and a very targeted list. Your cost for printing a three-page sales letter, folding, inserting, sealing, posting, and addressing will run you 70 to 95 cents each, including hiring someone to assemble and mail your package.

This is a good strategy for a good, targeted list of sellers. However, it may prove too costly for a shotgun blast to occupants or homeowners from tax records. By reducing the work and money needed to get your message out, you now can hit every home in a targeted neighborhood. You can dominate your “farm” area by re-mailing over and over to the same areas and enjoy these advantages:

Become a “Big Fish in a Small Pond”

* Become the first option sellers explore when they decide to sell.

* Hit the best neighborhoods or parts of town you want to dominate.

* Put your lead generating system on automatic pilot.

* Create a powerful presence and ongoing relationship with your targeted market.

* Follow up on past inflexible or unmotivated callers automatically.

* Callers will be higher quality and more prescreened, already knowing the benefits you can offer.

* Buy more houses from fewer leads.

* Qualify for the lowest postage rates available, usually around 15.2 cents each.

* Control how many sellers call you each week. Crank it up when you want…or slow it down when you’re on vacation.

* Focus your time on talking to sellers, prescreening deals, making offers and getting your houses occupied fast.

* Avoid the need to study, create, test, and setup different ways to get your phone ringing.

* Eliminate the need to call sellers off ads or signs, or compete for the killer “cash” deals listed with agents.

* Easily expand your marketing with the intent of flipping “excess” deals to other investors for quick cash.

* Avoid competing with other ads in the newspaper or yellow pages.

* Avoid paying more because another investor made a competing offer.

* Become a property value expert, increasing your confidence when making offers.

* Know how easy and quickly you’ll be able to get a house occupied from recent experience in your market.

* Build up and use an in-house “buyer’s list” each time you get a new house.

Form a solid “dream team” of professionals, which can simplify your life because they prefer to work in your farm area. These may include title companies, insurance agents, house cleaners, landscapers, handymen, contractors, real estate agents, property managers, appraisers, inspectors, fellow investors to flip to, etc. Save time and get a lot done with less effort. By cost effectively farming, you’ll be able to check on your houses, replenish flyers, meet with buyers, follow up on a contractor, and visit with a few sellers… all on one trip!

Create instant credibility. Sellers will see your message numerous times. And that might be the compelling reason they finally call you. The way you do all this for only 30 cents each is to saturate targeted neighborhoods with “oversized” postcards. Here is how to do it step by step:

Step 1

Write a lengthy message to sellers explaining the benefits and reasons why they should call you. Long ad copy works as long it talks about the benefits to the seller and it is not boring.

Use a letter that has already worked for you. Or check your inventory of courses that sit on your bookshelf. Or perhaps start from scratch. Your message should talk about all the different problems you solve for sellers and the benefits they get when you buy their house. Owners of my marketing course, How to Collect 5-Figure Paychecks Buying & Selling Houses, have a license to use the proven “ad text” that I now use in my postcards.

Step 2

Make sure you have a good headline to get attention and get your prospect to read further. In the past, I’ve used “Sell your house in nine days or less at no cost to you.”

I have since improved and tested my headline and I now use, “How to sell your house ‘as is’ at a fair price on the date of your choice.” This approach attracts many lease option, owner financing, and “subject to” deals. If your intent is to target lower-priced homes, likely to be fixer-upper deals bought with all cash, then your headline may be “We buy houses cash.” Your message should take on a personal tone. It should read as if you were sitting in front of the prospects talking to them one on one. Avoid having it read like a broadcast to a group of people.

Step 3

Lay out your message to look like a newspaper article. Design in a multiple column format. You can use a “drop cap” to guide the eye to the first paragraph. Avoid logos, photos, and graphics. I conclude with a signature line to make it more personal. Adding a P.S. is also good. Here is a sample lay out of my 11″ x 5.66″ oversized postcard:

In the example, you can see a few handwritten notes I added to the artwork before it is printed. This is a little trick to get more attention. More details on laying out your postcard are in Step 8.

Step 4

Choose your media. For this system we are going to use an oversized postcard. Postcards are cheaper to print, don’t have to be folded, inserted, and sealed. They don’t have to look personal to get opened like a letter. I’d never send letters bulk rate (now called Standard Mail) to save postage. My letters always get live stamps. However, you can use bulk rate for postcards, even use a bulk rate indicia (permit stamp).

And since you want address changes when mailing letters to a very targeted (hot) list, you’d use first class mail. For this postcard system we do not need these address changes since we are going to use a residential occupant (saturation) list of just addresses, not names. The result: you save time and money not having to pay first class or pay to have stamps applied.

I like using 11″ x 5.66″ card. The printer can get 3 on an 11″ x 17″ sheet. After calling a number of printers for bids I was able to get printing costs down to 5 cents a card. Another standard size you can use is 8.5″ x 5/5″ (half sheet) if you can get your entire message on it, but the larger size is costing me the same. Mailed first class, this card would cost 37 cents postage. Mailed bulk, it averages 15.2 cents.

Step 5

Choose which neighborhoods, subdivisions, or parts of town you want to dominate. I suggest 30,000 homes or fewer. It might even be better to choose 15,000-20,000. Since I know my marketing message works (six years of experience), and I know that using oversized postcards mailed to a saturation list works for getting the message out cost effectively, the only other element that has a major impact on your results is the areas you target.

Do you want ugly, low cost fixer-upper properties? Do you want newer homes with less in repairs and less equity so you buy them “subject to” for no money down? Do you want to expand your activities where you already have bought houses? Target the property you want by targeting the types of neighborhoods or parts of town which match your preferences. I would not target areas where most houses move very fast and lack enough motivated sellers or high priced areas, unless that was part of my buying plan.

Step 6

Find a source for “residential saturation” or “residential occupant” lists. My source is only about 1 cent each ($100 for 10,000 addresses) discussed shortly. Some investors can get lists of “homeowners” from county tax records for free. But you’ll pay more for postage when mailed bulk (18 or 19 cents each) and a lot of these are outdated (up to 30%) and will never reach the owner. Saturation mailings have one piece delivered to each house on a postal carrier route. So the downside is your message will go to both renters (a waste, except for referrals) and owners.

Plus, owners of vacant houses will not get your card unless their mail is still being delivered to their mailbox and they pick it up at some point. We can live with this drawback since we’ve kept are costs down super low. One way mitigate this is to add a pre-headline “Are you or someone you know looking to sell a house?” You can instantly get list counts and carrier route counts for a zip code or for a radius surrounding an address you provide. You can exclude apartments and post office box holders if you like, but be careful.

You want to eliminate entire carrier routes if they have a lot of apartments, perhaps more than 20%. You need to mail to every address in the carrier route you select to get the lowest postage.

* Click “Search by Zip Code.”

* Enter a zip code.

* Exclude PO Boxes. (if you wish)

* Click Get Count.

The result is a the number of carrier routes in the zip code you entered, plus the number of apartments and the total number of addresses. Now click “Select Carrier Routes” at the bottom. Copy and paste route numbers and counts into a spreadsheet (like Excel). Now go back and do it again excluding apartments. Copy and paste side by side into your spreadsheet.

Add formulas to calculate the difference in the counts and percentage of apartments. You’ll be able to identify which carrier routes have a lot of apartments. Deselect those routes when ordering your list.

Another way to identify targeted carrier routes is using a “carrier route map.” You can order them online by searching the Internet. A map like this can help you eliminate carrier routes close to industrial areas, busy streets or higher crime areas. In most cases, this step is unnecessary.

Step 7

Find a letter shop, mailing house, or printer who offers mailing services. You can look up in the yellow pages or online. Researching this may take time.You’ll want to get multiple bids and pricing for your project. Once you find someone it will be easy to repeat for future mailings… unless, of course, you’re unhappy with them and need to find a new one. Besides printing, the mailing charges will include:

* Addressing via labels or ink jet.

* Adding their mailing permit to your postcard artwork.

* Counting out and sorting by carrier routes.

* Completing the required postal reports.

* Delivering the sorted trays of mail to the post office.

Order your list on labels (extra cost), CD-Rom, or preferably, downloaded over the net. Then forward to your mailing house. Addresses in carrier routes change so you’ll order a new list each time you mail.

Step 8

Find a printer for your postcards. We’ve been quoted 4 to 9 cents each depending on printer, size, and quantity. You are doing good at 5 or 6 cents each. Here are some standard “oversize postcard” dimensions, again, standard depending on the printer:

8.50″ x 5.50″ (1/2 sheet or 2 up on 8.5 x 11, easy and low cost) 6.00″ x 11.00″ (bigger and more expensive but same postage rate) 5.66″ x 11.00″ (1/3 sheet or 3 up on 11 x 17, my preference)

The maximum size allowed by the post office is 6.125″ x 11.5″ but that’s a non-standard size and can unnecessarily increase your printing costs. Get bids using yellow card stock (10 point), double-sided, black ink. It works great.

Step 9

Mail only 3,000 to 10,000 cards at a time so you know you can handle the response and effectively follow up. I was a little overwhelmed last time I mailed 10,000 (bought five houses and captured $146,000 in equity), so I prefer to space out two 5,000 piece mailings over two weeks.

Step 10

Track your response. If you don’t buy a house or two from each 5,000 cards mailed or if you don’t get at least 10-15 sellers calling, you may want to test different areas.

Step 11

Make offers. Buy houses. Bottom line: I love the postcard system and all the advantages of it. It’s the main marketing I will be doing for myself, even though I have a half dozen other cost effective, proven ways to get the phone ringing.

Dear Fellow Investor,

What I would like to address in this article is something that can really make a huge difference in your business. All of us to some extent have used and still use ads, direct mail and flyers as part of our marketing campaign to attract highly qualified motivated sellers.

Here is an exercise:

• Grab the nearest paper and look at the section where your ad and all the other investor ads appear.
• If the ads look similar and states the same thing, then this is going to spell huge opportunity and profits for you.
• If there are no testimonials of happy customers to be seen in these ads then you need to get one in your ad as soon as possible.
• If you can only afford classified ads at this time, then that is OK.
• Maybe you can try to incorporate this strategy in your direct mail and flyer campaigns.

Here is what a good testimonial will say:

“Gerhard and his team helped our family avoid foreclosure and saved our credit allowing us to move on with our lives. Not only did they save us money but he is very professional and caring. I will be telling all my friends and family of his great company.”

Let’s look at this testimonial closer…

It is crucial that your testimonial will convey genuineness, credibility and results. People do business with people they trust and value. If your testimonial is positioned bearing these three criteria in mind, you will dominate your ad space in the paper.

This same principle can be applied with postcards, letters and flyers. Please use it and let me know your results. Always emphasize that students use testimonials to overcome objections and establish their credibility.

by Gerhard Cronje

There is still some time to kick that marketing system of yours into high gear and make this your most profitable year ever. I would like to ask you a big favor. If you are struggling to get your phone ringing with motivated sellers calling you then you might be guilty of lacking focus. Do this. If you have been marketing for a while then look back at the actions and marketing strategies that have supplied you with your most deals and or qualified leads in the past.

Write Down the Top Three

Now, disregard all the marketing that you are doing at present and just focus on implementing these 3 strategies. Have you ever heard of the 80/20 principle? Of all the marketing efforts that you are putting forth - only 20% of certain efforts are producing your best results. Does it not make sense to focus on the small percentage of effective activities that are giving you your best results Absolutely! Let me give you an example.

Mr. Investor Has the Following Monthly Marketing Budget:

$200 per month on bandit signs = 10 leads
$300 per month on classified ads = 5 leads
3 birddogs, $0 per month = 6 leads
$500 per month direct mail = 12 leads
$0 for 2 assistants knocking on doors of pre-foreclosures = 1 deal per month.

From the above figures, we can detract that the most effective cost per lead is as a result from bandit signs, knocking on doors of pre-foreclosures and birddogs. If Mr. Investor is smart he needs to double his efforts on these strategies and spend less or no money on all the other strategies.

His New Marketing Plan Would Then Look Like This:

$400 per month on bandit signs.
6 birddogs seeking deals ( find 3 new ones).
4 assistants knocking on doors of pre-foreclosures( find 2 new ones).

By doing this he should get double the leads he was getting before from his previous actions and he has slashed his marketing expenses by $600 per month. His goal should be through the law of “Massive Action = Massive Results” to double his efforts every 3 months and constantly put money back into his marketing from real estate profits to exponentially grow his business. Whenever I review my mentoring students marketing plans it is always very clear that they lack focus and do not capitalize on the strategies that have given them their best results in the past. Learn from the mistakes from others and make this your best year ever.

by Ben Innes-Ker

How did you get into real estate investing? Did you read a book on it? Was it a seminar? A meeting of some sort with speakers selling courses? Did you get really, really jazzed and pumped up by these simple (”not easy”) concepts that were delivered to you in parable form from the stage by a charismatic speaker? Did you find yourself levitating to the back of the room, powerless but to slap down your plastic to buy the kits that were being sold there? Like…

“Yes Mr. Ker, we do take traveler’s checks. Yes, cash is okay, too. HEY BARNEY, DO YOU HAVE CHANGE FOR A HUNDRED? There’s your kit Mr. Ker. Good Luck!”

I have to admit that’s where I began. I attended a “conference” and dropped over a grand in two days. What I ended up with was a very funny course about Paper (i.e. discounted mortgages) and a more sober account of making a million five in eighteen months buying and rehabbing multi-units. I listened to tapes for about four days straight, then went out and bought an HP12C financial calculator.

I loved paper (the units can wait a while). I really got my head around it. I loved discounting on the calculator, I loved calculating yields. And the guy on these tapes was so funny! I spent a fun couple of weeks learning the courses and I knew more than most bankers because the guy on the tapes told me so. I wanted to get started and get a note-closing-sweatshop going just like he described. I knew this stuff inside and out. Two deals a week would be OK with me you know, I’m not greedy. Now where was it in the book that it showed how to find the deals. OK…here we go … Look up names at the courthouse, call Accountants, call Contractors, call Attorneys……hmmm.

To cut a long story short, I looked up five hundred names at the courthouse and sent letters to them, I made about five hundred phone calls to Accountants and Lawyers (setting up my “network”), and finally I found one note holder who was interested in selling. I made an offer, he said “no”, and I went home and went to bed for two weeks, too depressed to function. All that work, and this guy just said “no”. That was my introduction to the wonderful world of real estate investing. From there, I got into low income apartments and completely flushed myself down the toilet!

Five years later, after buying and giving back about 50 units, nearly penniless, I discovered this thing called creative real estate. Control without ownership, solving people problems, use your brain to buy property - not your cash. I had an acute appreciation for it, given my (expensive, and painful) landlording odyssey, but it seemed even with all this wonderful knowledge, I was still in very much the same position I had been in when I first got started. The same position I stayed in, until I wised up, and the same position most real estate investors struggle with year after year because they don’t know any better.

That is: “I know all this stuff inside and out. I know 100 different creative ways to buy a property. But I’ve got to suffer through things like lackluster advertising results, cold-calling, talking to hundreds of testy uninterested people, and dead ends, before I even get the chance to talk to someone who is half way motivated to sell. This is a crossroads. The proverbial “brick wall” for most of us.

And this brings up an important point. Possibly the most important point to really “get” here. Knowing how to find motivated sellers is far more important than knowing 100 different ways to buy a house. You see, your business (and therefore your life) is going to be frustrating, stressful and unfulfilling unless you find a way to create a non-stop flow of motivated sellers calling you, every day. Now, that’s obvious isn’t it? Well it can’t be that obvious because not many people actually do it. You see, what I’m trying to point out here that there is a mental shift that needs to occur in your mind, a paradigm shift if you will, before you are going to make any serious money as a Real Estate Entrepreneur.

And What is This Paradigm Shift?

Instead of being a real estate entrepreneur, you must become a marketer of your real estate entrepreneurial business. That’s what it comes down to. If you are in business, you need to make this shift in your thinking. Because no business is going to prosper, or be successful without a lot of customers.

Making this shift in thinking, in orientation, about who you are, focuses you on the singularly most important and financially rewarding aspect of business: marketing. The money is in marketing the business, not in doing the business. It may take a while before you really absorb this. You may have to think about it for a while before it really sinks in. Read it again. Take a minute. Once you change your thinking to accept that you are a marketer first, and a Real Estate Entrepreneur second, you’ll finally be able to start making the kind of money you really want to make.

Accepting your role as a marketer is the thing that will move you out of the rut of occasional mediocre deals and up into a level of sustained success that would not otherwise be possible for you. And this is true of anyone in any other business or industry. The person or company who is most on top of their marketing, makes all the money, and dominates their market.

Look at Domino’s

A marketing machine! Very average pizza. But aggressive marketers, and they virtually own their market. Look at Bill Gates (yes, I know, everyone cites BG). If you saw Accidental Empires though, a PBS documentary by Robert Cringley, you’d know that Gates was just one of hundreds of fanatical “techies” who were trying to make this computer thing work somehow. With his astute positioning and relentless marketing he rode Microsoft up over IBM to the $80B company it is today.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you just market better and let your buying, negotiating and selling skills go to pot. You’ve got to be the very best property buyer you can be and run your office well too. After all, your sellers and buyers deserve the very best treatment from you. But more importantly, doing what you do so well that people can’t resist telling others about you, is the purest type of marketing in and of itself. Remember, it doesn’t matter how good you are if you have no Motivated Sellers to talk to. Buying houses from Motivated Sellers with little or no money out of your pocket is the name of the game, and marketing is the thing that brings in the Motivated Sellers.

OK, so, marketing. Really fabulous! But, what does it mean? So far it’s just a word I’ve said 10 or twenty times, right? Well, there are two types of marketing people typically use.

The traditional approach which, for want of any better way to go, usually involves just going out after randomly selected sellers. They haven’t been screened or qualified in any way. We just know they have a house to sell. We run up big phone and classified ad bills to get to talk to them. In communicating with them we usually talk to them about our financing, and how great it is, and if they will just sell to us their “problems” will go away. We do it manually; call by call, door by door. We talk about us, rather than inquire about them. We chase, they run. When we stop, the marketing stops. The cost per deal is very high, both financially and emotionally.

The second approach is the targeted, low-cost, systemized, response-oriented approach that, through a variety of media (such as direct mail, lead generating classified ads, flyers, signs, radio, cable TV) states or implies a benefit for the seller, calls for a response from them, and positions you as “the solution” for the sellers who want that. The sellers step forward and select you. The marketing is automated, and it is an operating system that works whether you are there or not.

I don’t want to shock you, but we are not going with the first choice here. Pick up just about any book or course about real estate investing or creative real estate and you’ll find the choice #1 approach to finding motivated sellers, if any. What you won’t find anywhere in those books or courses is the choice #2 approach, which is direct response marketing. Direct response marketing targets a specific group of most-desired prospects that you have defined as those most likely to respond to your offer (e.g. out-of-state homeowners, or expired listings), then it advertises for or delivers a message to only those people via a media (e.g. personal-looking hand-addressed #10 envelope mailed first class) that will reach them and get their attention. Once in front of the target, direct response delivers the following:

1) benefit-telegraphic headline

2) true marketing message

3) offer, or offers

4) reason to respond immediately

5) precise response instructions and mechanisms

With these five elements in place, you set yourself up to be called only by motivated, partially pre-sold sellers, continually, day after day! So now you can be freed to do the most productive thing possible for you as an investor: make offers to motivated sellers!

Hopefully you can see the picture here. Direct response marketing cuts your advertising expense in half. It sifts, sorts and screens your prospects so that only the most qualified and most motivated respond and get to talk to you. In short, it allows you to make more while working less, with more predictability, consistency and control than anything else you could do to find deals. Is that something you want? Think about it. Is there anyone you know of who is buying and selling a boatload of houses every month?

They are still doing a ton of business. Now, why is that? They don’t offer sellers anything more outstanding than you, do they? They certainly don’t offer sellers anything more creative than you are capable of offering. They don’t have any better phone manner than you. Not at all. The only thing that very successful Real Estate Entrepreneurs do better than anyone else is: Create a reliable, consistent flow of motivated sellers calling in each day! That’s it! That’s the difference. So did you get the message here? I hope so. If you want to change your experience in real estate investing from one of anxiety, frustration and disappointment to working less and making more, you’ll make the change.

by Scott Rister

There are actually two engines that drive my personal real estate business as I continually ask myself these questions: Is this marketing technique geared toward finding a person with a problem or a property. I’ve found that I always look for people with problems and the properties come. Is this marketing technique significantly different than the next guy or gal? See, I’m just not going to let myself get grouped together in the middle of the pack of other real estate investors. In this group at times you’ll find everyone trying to sell the same flavor of ice cream: Vanilla!! I like chocolate myself.

You want proof of what I’m talking about? Open up your Sunday classifieds and just count how many “I Buy House” ads there are. Are you starting to see my point? It is the above #2 listed pulse check that prompts me to do things smarter and more effective for bottom-line more sellers. This business is absolutely so much about marketing. In fact if you’re into buying and selling real estate for big profits, then your primary operating procedure should start and end with finding truly motivated sellers. Period!

If you’re with me thus far then what I’ve stated is all in “theory” and sounds great, right? What you as an investor really need is not only to show you where the water is but also how to drink it. Let’s get to some nitty-gritty details on exactly what I’m getting to and want you to have a truly great opportunity to find more motivated sellers than you ever have. What I want to give you an overview of is what I call my “Check In The Mail” program. What does that mean? Well, I can assure you it is not about sending anyone money in the mail but making sure this happens:

Your Letters Get Opened and Not Trashed

The potential seller turns into a really motivated seller after receiving a check with their name on it. Complete instructions on how that seller can turn the check already in their hand into cash and real soon. There is absolutely something magically special to many, many potential sellers when they have a check in their hand with their name on it. About now you’re probably thinking that you’re not a billion dollar endowment fund to be throwing around money to get people to sell their house…..its not about that.

It is all about marketing with a significantly different and highly effective approach that I’ve used with many direct mail targets. Here it is in summary what you should very much key into if you’re really into big profits and many motivated sellers to choose from. I use Versa Check Form #1000 check stock that can be picked up at any Staples, Office Max or Office Depot. This is check card stock that has a blank check at the very top 1/4 portion of the page. The remaining part of the page is white and blank. That is the section of the check where I fully explain my marketing angle with all the seller benefit laden solutions why they should call me immediately.

It will probably take you some “tweaking” with a standard Word document but all the letters and numbers will match up easily. I just make the check out to them and having my name signed on the bottom. The amount of the check and is simply stated “To Be Negotiated”. I always start the letter out, “This check and more could be yours…..” Then dependent upon the target market the written marketing of the text will be read by the seller.

I use standard double window envelopes so the person can see the color of the paper. You know, that check color paper. They just have to open it because they weren’t expecting this money. Yes some people are a little “peeved” after opening the letter and “yes” it is a marketing ploy to get your letter opened.. but it works!!!! I also simply stamp on the outside of the letter too “Check Enclosed!” in red ink. Costs about $15 to get one of these stamps set up from like Staples/Office Max.

I’ve found that this technique works best on direct mail targets such as: Absentee Owners, Code Compliance, Bankruptcy, especially Pre-Foreclosure. You need somewhat “softer” approaches in direct mail to probate and divorce situations so I wouldn’t advise it within those two areas. It is all about getting your letters opened to the target market you’re mailing to. I simply don’t have a response rate to report to you yet, but I can definitely tell a difference in recent months from deals coming my way.

This entire biz in real estate is all about working smarter, and not necessarily harder. Time is the most important commodity you have as a real estate investor and this simple technique maximizes the best use of your marketing dollars and bottom-line the amount of time spent on putting those deals together for big paydays. Give this approach a try and starting getting your phone ringing off the hook with motivated sellers. Good hunting as luck has absolutely nothing to do with it!

by Scott Rister

Do you have any mutual fund in your portfolio giving you a 1000% return on your investment? I didn’t mistakenly enter the wrong figure. That is one-thousand percent and in addition what I’m talking about is for ONE month so annualized that’s… well, I’ll let all the bean counters figure that out. It is very attainable for that 10:1 return on your investment with prudent selection of where to place those marketing dollars that end results in truly great deals coming your way.

So many people are flocking to real estate seeking higher returns on their investments in recent years and especially since ‘00. Why? Well, the big fat 401K’s have turned into 201K’s and many people realized that really what people had banked on being there financially became all of a sudden money evaporating with every downturn of the stock market.

So, where are people now putting their money for investments? Real estate! Real estate has been a time-tested vehicle for short and long-term wealth and income and that was LONG before the .com and tech stock busts. Ok, probably nothing you don’t know and haven’t heard of right? So, now that we probably all know the actual and potential income for the average “Joe” through real estate the question is always “how do I get there?”.

There are so many, many ways to profit in real estate and I’m never surprised from all those I meet at my speaking engagements as well as online students who make BIG money in real estate. I personally take notes on about successful characteristics of some that I would like to share with you:

* Average time is about two years to transition from corporate jobs to fulltime real estate investor.

* Both spouses contribute in some way to the real estate business.

* Investor possesses more than one profit-centered technique to make money in real estate. (wholesaling, landlording, etc…)

* Keeps accurate and ethical financial records.

* Live within their means on a personal financial level.

* Commits to a continued investment in their real estate education.

* One or both spouses have at one time or another been “downsized” being caught in corporate America crosshairs.

* Primary reason for investing in real estate is to have more time to spend with family and take control of their financial future.

* Feel that you DO NOT have to possess credit or money to make money in real estate.

* DESIRE to succeed…probably greatest succeed along with that positive attitude and don’t listen to the naysayers.

In fact I had one student tell me their former manager in their corporate world stated that, “real estate investing is only for a tax write off”. I’m not going to cast my pearls before swine and neither am I going to try to lead a horse to water that doesn’t want to drink. Bottom-line is that this that now full-time real estate investor makes 2-3 times as much as the corporate executive.

With some of the general traits I’ve shared with you for fellow full-time real estate investors along with the absolute need for you to take control of your financial destiny means I’ve saved the biggest trait for last. Probably for many of you this may not be earth-shattering but the truth is that they all have a bona-fide marketing program fit to their budget, experience, short-term and long-term goals in real estate, coinciding with their profit-centered techniques.

Many stockbrokers make their living in speculating on undervalued stock and buying them in bulk. Corporate purchasing department executives will have their income tied into being able to make large gross profit buys on items their company may retail. Its all called the art of a deal and it simply doesn’t matter which industry one is focused in when you’re talking about moving a commodity its about being able to buy (and/or control) at the lowest price and sell at highest price possible. Difference in the middle is called a profit and is our motto in real estate: FIND A GREAT DEAL!!!

You may know 1002 creative ways to purchase and/or control properties but if its not a truly great deal to begin with then you only have a burden. So in having a system that locates truly motivated sellers to contact you on a consistent basis is what our whole business is about. It all starts with marketing and an investment that you feel comfortable with.

If you’re not satisfied with the returns on your investment and you’re in real estate or considering to be aggressive in real estate, then divert those funds into launching your own marketing IPO! Being able to control your own financial destiny if you’re a competent real estate investor will result in what many of us already know….marketing is the best return on your investment!!

Good hunting as luck has absolutely nothing to do with it.

by Steve Cook

As most of you already know, marketing is the key to succeeding in this business. We have to market to buy and sell homes. Those who are best at marketing to buy a house, have a lot less work to do when it comes to selling their homes because buying right is 90% of the battle. You don’t need to be flashy, you don’t need to be an expert, you just need to be out there. It is pretty much common knowledge among most successful investors that “bandit signs” really work. You know the little signs attached to telephone poles or stuck on the side of the road that say “We Buy Houses”. They are one of the most effective forms of marketing that you can do and one of the cheapest.

But many of us have an ethical dilemma when it comes to bandit signs. They are illegal to use in most areas of the country. I can relate the concerns of you all because I have the same ones. As a result, I haven’t been putting out bandit signs because I don’t want to break the law. Some investors have decided to chance it and are willing to pay the fines because the rewards are so great. But there is a way.

First, I put bandit signs in the yards of all of my properties. If I control 10 properties at a time, I can get my signs out into all of those yards. I’m not always getting the best locations, but believe it or not, this works. I get calls from within the neighborhoods and, to tell you the truth, this may be the most effective place I’ve ever placed signs. They don’t get torn down and removed when they are in my yard. You can also consider asking friends and family to allow you to put your sign in their yard, or even pay someone to allow you to keep your sign in their yard if they have a high exposure location. Perhaps you can offer to keep the debris in the street clean in exchange for having your sign in their yard on the corner.

But more importantly, for those of you who want to plaster your signs all around town, there is a way to do so without having the sign police chasing after you. In most jurisdictions across the country, there is an unwritten rule that you can put signs out on the weekends. You can put them out Friday evening (after the sign police are off for the weekend) and take them back up by Monday morning (before the sign police come back to work).

New home builders use this technique everywhere, all the time. There are companies that have formed businesses around this. They go out Friday evening and put signs out all over town for the new home developments that are going up. When you see clusters for about 12 builders all in one spot at an intersection, chances are that one person put up the signs for all 12 of those builders. As an investor on a limited budget, you could put up your own signs on Friday evenings, and then take them up on Sunday. Of if you have the extra money to spend, track down one of the guys who is putting out the signs for the new home builders, and ask them to put your signs out as well.

by Russ Dalbey

ROI, or “Return On Investment,” is a key financial measurement that correlates the cost of business expenditures to their actual value in the “real world.” Generally, ROI is expressed as a percentage, or the ratio of net benefits over costs. This is a common formula for Return On Investment:

ROI = [(Documented Monetary Benefit - Cost of Marketing) / Cost of Marketing] x 100

Let’s look at a simple example. Let’s assume a six-month marketing campaign cost $2,000.00, but resulted in $8,000.00 in profit. $8,000.00 - $2,000.00 = $6,000.00. $6,000.00 divided by $2,000.00 is 3, which calculates to a 300% ROI after multiplying it by 100.
The lower the cost and the higher the benefits, the larger your ROI percentage will be, which – all else being equal – is better of course. Enough with the math! The most important thing for every business owner – from a one-person LLC to the board of directors for a monster corporation – is maximum return for every dollar invested in marketing.

Here are the best ways to ensure that your advertising, marketing, and sales techniques are giving you the best “bang for the buck.” After all, you are in business to make money, right?

Plan and Consider Carefully for Best Marketing Results (Be Smart!)

Perhaps you already know that in order to achieve success, you must have both a direction and a way to get there. Business planning is as important as conducting business. But, many business owners do neglect to sit down and create an action plan for making the most out of their efforts. And even more do write out a plan, but not one specific enough. Or they don’t follow through or hold themselves accountable to it.

“S.M.A.R.T.” stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely. These are descriptors for any targets that you set for your marketing efforts. Meeting just one or two of these requirements isn’t tough. But making sure your proposed benchmarks meet all five terms of “SMART” goal setting is a little more involved. In other words, it’s not much use to say “I will raise net revenue by 20%” if you don’t have any vision on how you will achieve this, how long it should take to meet this mark, or if your company is currently having trouble making a profit. Also, there’s no “F” in “smart,” but if there was, it should stand for “Flexible.” The business world moves fast, and you must be quick on your feet to keep up. There’s no point in sticking to outdated business plans if you’re faced with new information that necessitates a change in direction. Don’t be afraid to modify your path along the way if all signs point to the fact that it’s the best course of action.

Consider Migrating to Lower-Cost Advertisement Formats

If you’re looking to boost your income while keeping your marketing costs constant, it makes sense to explore options with cheaper forms of marketing. Are you currently putting a lot of money into a yellow pages ad, radio spot, or newspaper print ads? There’s a chance that you might be able to find a better way to bring customers to you.

Big yellow page ads work well for certain types of “gotta find someone now” businesses, such as plumbers, lawyers or car repair shops. It isn’t necessarily the best way to attract new customers for other types of businesses. Moving the costs of a phone directory listing to an unconventional advertising method could make a noticeable improvement in your bottom line (see tip #8 below). The cost of large print ads in newspapers or other periodicals really adds up over time. Explore the advertising rates of competing publications. You might even be able to negotiate a better price with your existing ad agent if you know that the rates of another paper with similar circulation and demographics are lower.

If you’re currently mailing out flyers, letters, or other complex advertising pieces, consider switching to postcards. Postcards have lower postage rates and have a surprisingly high readership (there’s no effort involved with opening an envelope, and the small size keeps the message short and sweet). Post cards can be extremely effective to promote new products or specials, offer discounts or coupons, generate website traffic and new leads, or send a follow up message to an existing customer.

Make Sure Your CTA is the Best It Can Be

This is especially important for direct mail, print ads, or online advertising, but the concept is critical for all forms of marketing. The CTA – “call to action” – is arguably the most critical part of your marketing pitch, because this is what actually directs your potential customer to take the intended action – whatever that may be. A poorly thought-out or poorly worded CTA can actually turn off your customer and “lose them,” even if the rest of your advertising piece is successful. Identify with your customers and their mindset when they’re thinking about committing. Write the CTA so that what you’re telling them to do is the most appropriate and logical response to the problem your product addresses. Be the voice inside their head. Make sure the CTA is clear and action-oriented! This is the worst possible time to confuse your customers and raise questions in their minds – or give them the impression that it’s OK to “sleep on it.” Also, make sure it is easy to follow your recommended course of action. If you’re telling them to “call or go online now to reserve your seat,” make sure the phone number and website address is right there.

Improve Your Print Copy

It should be obvious that any marketing materials should be clear, powerful, and 100% free from typos and grammatical errors. Yes, details do matter. Judging by the technical problems found in many small business’ websites and advertising materials, many businesses apparently still haven’t realized this. Don’t just use an electronic spell check – many word substitutions won’t be caught (such as using “your” instead of “you’re”). After you’ve checked it yourself repeatedly and think it’s perfect, run it past some friends and family and tell them you’ll give them a dollar for every legitimate error they find. That will give them some real incentive! Your copy has to do more than just “sell” by hyping features and benefits. In fact, leading off with a headline that touts how amazing and wonderful your product is might have the opposite effect and instantly turn off the reader. If you use a headline or sub-headline, remember that the purpose is only to grab the reader’s attention and compel him to keep reading – not to deliver information.

Once you have succeeded to at least getting your potential client to continue scanning your text, the following copy must make some kind of emotional connection with your prospect. Otherwise, the customer’s sales resistance stays up, and so do the odds that your message is headed to the garbage can soon. You might consider starting off with a story or anecdote that seems to have nothing to do with what you’re pitching. An involving story (one with people or animals in it) sucks your reader in and makes him forget that he’s reading an advertisement. It also plays to the most powerful part of the consumer decision-making part of the brain – the emotional part (see # 6). Make sure whatever you’ve written isn’t too long. Again, try it out on acquaintances and get their input. Ask them how it makes them feel, or if they got bored or easily distracted while reading it. Ask them if they came up with any objections to performing the call to action. What do they think about the company behind the ad after reading your piece?

Perform More Follow-up on Every “Live” Lead

In a perfect world, everyone who received your marketing message would immediately respond and become a loyal customer for life. In reality, this isn’t the case. A certain percentage of those who get your “pitch” will ignore it or never follow through on the call to action. Depending on your advertising method and your product, it might be the large majority of your target market. So, it stands to reason that those who do make the call, visit, or click to get more information or the free introductory offer should be regarded as a great potential source of income. Don’t make the mistake of letting a qualified lead go to waste. Polite and personalized follow-ups after a prospect contacts you can win a prospective client over and prevent losing their business to a competitor.

Focus Your Efforts on Understanding and Targeting the Emotional Reasons that Drive Your Customers

We’d all like to think of ourselves as highly rational and intelligent beings. But . . . the fact remains that it’s our emotional side that often spurs us into action. Design your marketing to invoke your target customer’s emotions. Firing up feelings of desire, curiosity, hope, fear, surprise, respect, humor, or even anger can make your message (or what you want them to do - #3 from above) that much more powerful and memorable. Rational arguments will help your prospect to convince himself that all of your information is logical and reasonable. It will help him to remain convinced that he made the right decision after the sale is made. But the triggers that keep a person reading before they’re “sold” and compel the reader towards the purchase decision are almost always emotional.

The best thing is to paint a picture your customers can completely empathize with, voices their true desires for them, and allows them to completely realize their frustration or dissatisfaction with their current situation. Then make the offer of the perfect solution – but only after those pre-conditions are satisfied. When you correctly identify the driving emotions behind your customers’ decision-making process, you’ll convert more prospects to clients. Even better, you’ll also build a stronger perceived value for your service or product, which means you’ll be able to convert more customers at a higher price, or rely less on discounting to close sales.

Follow Industry Trends and Monitor the Competition

There’s nothing wrong with keeping up with what other businesses in your field are up to. In fact, it’s part of your job as a smart businessperson! Always monitor your competitors’ advertising, and check out their stores and product selection. If you don’t have time or the inclination, you can pay for the information by hiring a competitive intelligence (CI) firm to find out for you. By learning about your direct competition and researching the history and past actions of its management, you will be more likely to anticipate their next move. You can even take cues from companies in other industries or large corporations that aren’t your competition. Changes in the big market caused by trends such as rising oil prices, the ever-expanding online markets, or the spread of smoking bans across the country might mean something for you in your neck of the woods.

Consider Unconventional Marketing Techniques

There’s more you can do than print, direct mail, web, and phone directory advertising. Today, you can put your business name and contact information almost anywhere – on the back of a cab, on the side of a bus, on a bus station bench, in a restaurant bathroom. All of these could be a low-cost way to boost your return on investment figure. Don’t neglect to think outside of the box. Contemplate who your customers are, where they are, and what you could easily do to make a meaningful, positive impact.

Sponsor a local youth athletic league if your target market is composed of parents or baby boomers. Volunteer your services or products for a fundraiser raffle. Do an inexpensive “thank you” gift basket to remind your top repeat customers that you appreciate their patronage. If your business is a restaurant in a busy area dominated by offices and other businesses, bring a sample tray and menus to their locations – just before lunchtime. If your clients are typically web-savvy and a specialized niche, find the top online discussion forums or chat boards that focus on your topics relevant to your business. Find out what pay-per-click advertising on these websites might cost, or if you have more time than money, create an online user ID and participate in the discussion threads as a “resident expert.” Most online forums are free to join.

Just make sure your posts are informative, unbiased and impartial. Don’t openly advertise your business, but always include a link to your company website (or at least your business contact information) at the bottom of every post. Soon, the others on these forums – your ideal target customers – will recognize your expertise and flock to you, even though you never directly asked for their business.

Listen to Your Customers (or Customers you Lost)

Survey them for how they feel your representatives, your products and your services performed. Ask them how you can improve, or why they chose a competitor instead. Offer a discount coupon for future purchases or a chance to win a randomly selected prize (DO make good on the offer after you’ve completed your market study) as an incentive to bring in replies. You’ll need answers to specific questions in order to get good information out of your survey, such as “which of the following reasons was the biggest factor in choosing my company?” But, give your customers the opportunity to speak their minds without prompting as well. You should also ask this question:

“What product or service that I don’t currently offer would you be interested in?”

You just might discover a niche customer or product that could be your real “cash cow.”

Initiate, Revamp, or Improve Your Online Presence and Marketing

If you don’t have a website, you should. After all, if you’re reading this article, you must be fully aware of how you can find almost anything you’re seeking – information or products – via the Internet. Millions of others like you know this, and more and more people are realizing this truth every day.

Many businesses make the mistake of throwing up a website, and then doing nothing to keep it current or improve it. An outdated or unprofessional-looking website will scare away more customers than you imagine. Ideally, your website should provide anything your customer would like it to do – give more information, provide a variety of pictures of your products and services, and give them the means to contact you, easily find your physical location, or place an order online. Your website’s attractiveness, layout and ease of operation are critical as well. Internet customers are typically impatient. If they can’t figure out how to get what they want out of your website in the first ten seconds, the odds are good that they will move on, seeking what they could have purchased from you from another merchant.

Finally, optimizing your website’s content for search engine optimization can have a huge impact on your overall visibility on the World Wide Web. Do the research to find out how to do it yourself, or pay someone to do it for you. Either way, it will be well worth the time or money spent.

by Lou Castillo

Here’s another short tip in my success series. I have always said that marketing is the cornerstone of your business. If there is one place that you really want to place your best efforts, it’s in your marketing. But the question I hear most often from my students is, “How do I write great ad copy?”

Writing great copy is a state of mind. It’s really just about you talking to your potential sellers about why they should contact you to buy their house. No one knows you like you know yourself. And no one can communicate who you are and what you have to offer better than you. It is best, therefore, if you write the ads yourself so the true you comes out – the one that the customers are going to meet in person when they call. Here are some tips that will help:

1. Determine what type of customer you’re trying to attract. What is their situation? What are their immediate wants (remember we always seek out what we want, not necessarily what we need? Put yourself in their shoes. What are they thinking?

2. Write down who you are. Why should someone call you? Are you a friendly person? Do you focus on service? Are you easy to talk to? Do you have a lot of experience?

3. Have a USP – Unique Selling Proposition. What makes you better than all of the rest? It can be that all your phone calls are answered by a real person. Or that you will always make an offer within 24 hours. Whatever it is that you do that makes you unique to the competition.

4. Compare the two lists and the USP. Write down some phrases that match what you have to offer with what they want. For instance, they’re intimidated to call and talk to anyone about their situation. They’re afraid of being judged. You feel that you are a nice person who is easy to talk to. A phrase you might use is: “If you’re looking for a down-to-earth person who will take the time to make you the best offer on your house, then call me now at _______.”

5. Since composing the copy is difficult for most people, consider just talking it out into a tape recorder. Just talk to your customers in everyday English. Tell them what you can do for them. Then re-play your recording and write it down.

6. After that, put it away. Come back a day or two later, and read what you wrote, and make revisions that make it a stronger message. You may want to repeat this step a few times.

7. Be confident and proud of what you have to offer, but don’t let it become cocky, and do not over promise. It is much better to under promise and over deliver.

8. Be excited when you record your message, and allow that excitement to come through in the writing. You want your target customers to feel that excitement, and know that you are the person to call.

9. Test. Test. Test. Don’t feel that you have to get your copy perfect before you can send it out. Test it. See what kind of results you get. Then make improvements, and test again. Keep which ever version pulled the best results. Then test again with a new message, always keeping the best one as your control piece.

If you feel that your advertising is not pulling the number of leads it should, you may have one of the following trouble spots with your marketing. Critique your marketing and see if any of these apply. Or ask someone you trust and respect to review your marketing and provide their feedback.

1. You are not working in a good farm area for your service.

2. Your message is not clear.

3. Your headline does not grab their attention.

4. You are not building credibility & rapport with the readers - Do you have testimonials?

5. You have not clearly communicated the WIIFM - What’s In It For Me.

6. You have not made it easy for them to see your phone number to call.

7. You do not have a live person answering the phone and you are losing lead calls - most will not leave a message.

8. You have not differentiated yourself from the competition.

The key is just get started. The hardest word is the first one, after that, each one is much easier. Just follow these steps and you’ll write some killer copy.

by Thomas Lucier

In this article, you’ll learn how to use inexpensive property search methods that don’t require your physical presence in order to be effective, but which allow you to be at the right place at the right time by:

1. Using the Internet.

2. Placing classified property wanted ads in daily newspapers.

3. Mailing letters to owners of vacant properties.

4. Obtaining insider information on properties that aren’t advertised from your
own spy network of paid informants, commonly known as bird-dogs.

5. Paying finder’s fees to people who tell you about properties that you buy.

Develop an Aggressive Five-Pronged Property Search Plan

In order to beat your competitors to the most profitable properties in your local real estate market, you need to develop an aggressive property search plan that involves the following five property search methods:

1. The Internet.

2. Property Wanted ads.

3. Bird-dogs.

4. Finder’s fees.

5. Direct mail.

Use a Property Wanted Web Page to Find Properties Online

First and foremost, use what I commonly refer to as the great equalizer–the Internet–to search online for small, mismanaged rental properties. The most efficient way I know to do this is by having a property wanted Web page on your Web site that uses URL forwarding for a property wanted domain name. If you already have an existing Web site online, for an annual fee of around $50, you can have your property wanted domain name forwarded to a specific Web page on your Web site.

For example, when you use URL forwarding, or domain redirection, you can link your property wanted domain name, directly to a property wanted Web page on your existing Web site. This way, you avoid the cost and aggravation of building an entirely new Web site for your property wanted domain name. As an example, my company, Home Equities Corp, owns the URL or domain name, www.rentalpropertywanted.com, which has URL forwarding to the Property Wanted Web page at www.homeequitiescorp.com.

This means that whenever the domain name, www.rentalpropertywanted.com is typed into a browser, the URL is automatically forwarded to the Home Equities Corp Web site, which is the destination domain.

Link Your Property Wanted Web Page to Other Web Sites

Also, link your property wanted Web page to other Web sites that you, or your friends and business associates own. For example, on my Web site www.floridalandlord.com, there’s a Tampa Rental Property Wanted button that’s linked to the Home Equities Corp Property Wanted Web page. By doing this, I’m placing an online property wanted ad right under the nose of all of the residential rental property owners in the Tampa Bay Area who visit www.floridalandlord.com and want to sell their property.

All they have to do is click on the Tampa Rental Property Wanted button and follow the instructions to submit their property for consideration.

Use Classified Property Wanted Ads to Find Properties

I’ve been pretty successful over the years using classified property wanted ads to find non-advertised properties to buy. Most people call me because they don’t have the time, desire or money to market their properties themselves. Or they don’t want the hassle of listing their property with a real estate broker. Sure, I’ve received more than my fair share of calls from flakes, loonies and other assorted crazies. But I’ve been willing to put up with the hassle and inconvenience because I’ve usually found the type of property that I was looking for.

How to Write a Classified Property Wanted Ad

When writing your classified property wanted ad, use as few words as possible to get your message across. Nowadays, most papers have a four-line minimum with each line consisting of no more than twenty-six characters. To keep your ad right at three lines, write it out on graph paper that comes already divided into small squares. This way, you won’t have to waste time dilly-dallying around trying to layout your ad.

The Best Place to List Your Property Wanted Ad

To ensure you get the best possible response from your classified property wanted ad, place it in the classified real estate section under various headings such as:

1. Rental property wanted.

2. Income property wanted.

3. Investment property wanted.

4. Property wanted.

5. Real estate wanted.

When to Run Your Property Wanted Ad

When’s the best time to run your classified property wanted ad? You’ll have to experiment by running your ad on various days in order to find out what works best in your area. For example, in Tampa, when I run one of my property wanted ads, it’s usually only in the Sunday edition of The Tampa Tribune. Why do I run my ad only on Sunday? Because I’ve found that I get pretty much the same response whether I run the same ad for thirty consecutive days or just on Sundays. Plus, I save a small fortune in advertising costs. The kind of response that you’ll get from your classified property wanted ad depends upon four things:

1. How well your ad is written.

2. The classified heading under which it’s placed.

3. The size of the paper’s circulation.

4. What you say in your ad.

Test Run Your Property Wanted Ad to See Which Ad Pulls the Best Response

I highly recommend that you test run the same property wanted ad for four consecutive weeks, and then change or tweak the ad copy, and run it another four weeks to see what variation of the ad pulls the best response.

Use Bird-Dogs to Find Properties That Aren’t Advertised

What’s a bird-dog? It’s usually someone who comes into frequent contact with problem property owners within a specific neighborhood or area, and is in a position to learn about non-advertised rental properties that are for sale there. These types of hidden properties are never formally advertised as being for sale; their availability is only made known by word-of-mouth. A neighbor, a relative, or an acquaintance may be the only one who knows of a property owner’s willingness or need to sell a small rental property.

Once you recruit these type of people into your bird-dog spy network of paid informants, you’ll be in a position to receive valuable insider information on non-advertised rental properties without the general public, your competitors, ever knowing of their availability.

How to Recruit Bird-Dogs into Your Spy Network of Paid Informants

The best way to find bird-dogs to join your spy network of paid informants is to tell everyone that you come into frequent contact with, that you’re looking to buy small, residential rental properties, and that you’re willing to pay your bird-dogs a finder’s fee when you buy a property that they’ve told you about. Here’s a listing of the type of people you want to recruit into your network as bird-dogs:

1. Mail carriers
2. Trash collectors
3. Doctors
4. Dentists
5. Employees
6. Fellow club members
7. Fellow church members
8. Door-to-door salespeople
9. Delivery truck drivers
10. Tradesmen
11. Repairmen
12. Business colleagues
13. Co-workers
14. Neighbors
15. Friends
16. Tenants
17. Taxicab drivers
18. Utility meter readers

Offer to Pay a Finder’s Fee

The best way I’ve found to motivate people to contact me with valuable information on non-advertised rental properties, is to offer to pay a finder’s fee to anyone who tells me about a property that I buy. For example, my standard finder’s fee is $500 cash, payable on the day that I buy the property. Why $500? That’s because $500 seems to be the figure that gets the attention of most people.

I use to offer $300, but since I’ve upped the ante to $500, I’ve more that doubled the number of leads I get monthly from people calling to tell me about small rental properties. The thing I like best about using finder’s fees is that I only have to pay them when I buy a rental property. In the meantime, I’ve got the benefit of a lot of people looking for small rental properties for me without the cost of a weekly payroll.

Use the Internet to Advertise Your Finder Fee Online

On my real estate investment company’s Web site, www.homeequitiescorp.com Property Wanted Web page, there’s a $500 Cash Reward button that visitors can click on to learn about how they can earn a finder’s fee of $500 in cash by simply contacting me with information that results in the purchase of a dirty, neglected, run-down two to twelve-unit residential rental property in the Tampa Bay Area. I also have my $500 cash reward printed on the backside of my business cards.

Four Reasons Why I Use Direct Mail to Contact Property Owners

Here are four very good reasons why I use direct mail to contact property owners:

1. Direct mail is easy to use. All I have to do is sit at my computer, point and click, hit a couple of keys and it’ll crank out one of my standard letters to property owners that just needs to be signed, folded and inserted into an envelope. I use Microsoft Office Word 2003 that can merge names and addresses with letters. And, I use window envelopes so I don’t have to fiddle around addressing them.

2. Direct mail is relatively cheap to use. I’m a penny pincher. Direct mail gives me the most bang for my buck. For example, I can mail out one hundred letters first class mail for right around $60. This includes the cost of letterheads, envelopes and postage, the whole shebang.

3. Direct mail is quick. I usually get responses from owners interested in selling within two weeks from the date I mailed the letters out.

4. Direct mail is effective. It allows me to make direct contact with owners of small, mismanaged rental properties without having to go through third parties such as real estate agents.