Well, it's been a little over three days since the tenants officiallymoved in and no real significant news to report. I did get a call from them last night regarding the sewer account. I told them that they would have to call the city to have the bill transferred to them. I'll follow up today with both the city and the tenants on this. According to the husband, the gas was supposed to be turned on either yesterday or today. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed all goes well with that. My agent sent me the finalized lease paperwork and I paid her for her services, so the proverbial line between us is now severed. Now I need to find another agent.
I am also going to start a new marketing campaign. I admit I've slacked off a lot in this area. About the only marketing I've done these last few weeks is place magnetic signs on my car wherever I go. This has produced -0- calls. I'll put out some bandit signs this weekend again, too.
I have a question for investors who are reading my blog regarding direct mail marketing ... I plan to get some postcards made and send them out to my farm area (in staged sectoins). I can pay a service to give me a list of people who may be in a situation where they need to sell their house quickly (i.e., divorce, behind on payments, moving, double payments, and so on). I can pay for this list and send postcards to these people only. Conversely, I can get a list of addresses in my farm area from the county web site and send postcards out to select individuals - for instance, every 3rd or 4th person - regardless of their current situation. I guess there are pros and cons to each, but I wonder which technique would be more beneficial to me in the end?
I'm also going to subscribe to a service that sends out bulk coupons every 2-3 months to select areas. This will go to every household in a select area, but since it's packaged with other advertisements for services, the price is a LOT cheaper (about 4.5 cents each). Likewise, I am going to call the Greensheet and ask how much a custom ad would cost to run on a monthly basis. I know one local investor who has a nice ad in the Greensheet and he says he gets a lot of calls, so I think I'll try it, too. And as a fourth marketing technique, I NEED to get some custom biz cards made. I don't know how many times an opportunity has come along where I could have advertised my services to people with a biz card.
7 comments:
'Rich Dad' guru turns cautious on buying real estate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/24/REGKEDRPF11.DTL&hw=rich+dad&sn=001&sc=1000
Maybe find out where those list vendors get their data. Does your county have a website you can access that lists recorded documents? You can then get divorces, bankrupcies, etc. on your own. This is how I did it.
Personally, I throw out those envelopes of advertisements without opening them. In fact, I contact the company and get my name off their mailing list. But that's just me. People must read them, because they are still in business...
anonymous - From the article:
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Curious about why one of the foremost real estate boosters has begun to sound like a survivalist in the Utah desert, I caught up with Kiyosaki by phone at his home on Waikiki beach.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm still buying real estate," he told me, adding that he was in the process of buying seven new properties but that he wasn't buying anything in expectation of appreciation. "I'm an investor, not a speculator. ... I want it to cash flow."
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BINGO!
Shaun - I can (and have) accessed the web site for divorces and other such documents. I even sent out a few letters to these people without any luck. Two problems I have with this approach: (1) the county is slow to post the documents online - when I get the news it's usually 2-3 weeks old already, and (2) it takes a lot of time to do the research - not days or weeks, of course, but hours. Time I could be spending doing other marketing (or whatnot). I don't tend to open the coupon mailers, either, but I do on occasion and find some good bargains every now and then. :)
Read this blog. It talks about his experience marketing...
http://www.sixthworld.com/
I just started my postcard campaign. I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants until I get more info, but I wantedt to get started. I went to the county Tax assessors web site, looked up my target zipcode, and just started copying owner's adresses. I copy/pasted them to MS Excel. I will send it to the whole zipcode, because I figure it is a great neighborhood for Rehabs, and I know from experience a friend of someone who needs to sell their property may pass it on.
But I am looking for ways to get lists because I average about 100 names/addresses an hour when picking them off the website. Also, I need to learn MS Access because I think I can do a lot of it from there.
I like the idea of putting a flyer in the bulk mailer. Let me know how that works out.
I snet 200 post cards Friday, hope to send 500 this week, I'll let you know hopw this works.
Update on my postcard campaign:
I found a way to download the entire county property owner database from the website and I am now able to manipulate it easy enough to make a list of the owners within a certain zipcode, and sort it by value of house. Right now I have a fairly specific target, but like I said previously, I am sending it to all homeowners, not just absentee, divorcees, probate bound, foreclosure bound, etc. I know this may seem like a waste, but in my target neighborhood, it is likely that if someone doesn't want to get out of their home, they might know someone who does.
I printed off 330 labels yesterday and I am sticking them to my postcards. This is the most time consuming step. I am experimenting with printing software that should allow me to insert the names and addresses from my database right onto the postcard, so I just print, cut, stamp, and mail.
Thanks Dozer and anon. After doing more research, I found what appears to be a winning formula for marketing. You can read about it more here. Basically, the guy has implemented a supply chain management process for his marketing. I need to read the article more thoroughly, bu tit sounds like a cheap way to do direct mail marketing.
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