Being a successful real estate investor requires you to consistently find motivated seller. If you are not finding motivated sellers on a consistent basis then your business is going to dry up and disappear.

This is Part Two of Finding Motivated Sellers by Terry Wygal

Have you ever been tired of finding motivated sellers? Seems like you've done everything you can but you are not making any deal in return? Well, there are certain strategies that work better than others. Check out what works best for you!

How to Find Motivated Sellers in Real Quick and Easy Ways – Part 2

Marketing

The truth is that the only thing that really matters in this business is being able to find somebody to talk to who is eager and highly motivated. Indeed, the very first thing that you got to do is to find a seller and talk about marketing. With the market being what it is today, marketing is very important. When you already got seller/s, what comes next step is to talk about marketing to these people. You have to identify the market of what you’re going after. Who’s your target market? So for a wholesale property- what’s a good candidate? What makes a good house that’s a potential for a wholesale deal? The general rule of thumb of marketing is that you know most people won’t buy something until they’ve been exposed to the seller 5 or 6 times. They have to get to know you and they have to be comfortable with you. When you got this then everything will follow.

There are a few myths with regards to this one. First myth is that people make rational decisions. Buying houses predominantly by taking over their loans subject to the existing loans usually comes at a time of great emotion from the seller. They didn’t plan to get behind on payments. They didn’t plan to relocate. They didn’t plan to go through a divorce. A lot of different things take place. Bottom line, they’re making their decisions based on their emotions. Next myth, people will read everything you send to them. If you're sending out marketing pieces and some people send out four and five-page reports, the truth of the matter is they’re not going to read everything. What they want to hear, what they want to see are the highlights of how you’re going to help them and how you would be able to solve their problem. Third Myth: There might be a lot of people telling you that you grab the newspaper, sit down at your phone and start making what we call "cold calls". But you would not want rejections, right. What you want is direct response marketing where people are picking up the phone and calling you. If they’re picking up the phone and calling me up of my marketing pieces, then you got some kind of motivation there. It’s just a matter of how you can peel it back and then work the deal. Bottom line is that direct marketing works.

Determine the Three M’s: Market, Message, and Media

First M which is mentioned in the previous topics is the market. This means that you have to identify the market of what you’re going after. Who’s your target market? So for a wholesale property what’s a good candidate? What makes a good house that’s a potential for a wholesale deal? Questions like that. There are different factors that can make a house a good deal. And there are things that you need to consider when you’re looking at who it is you should be targeting. You also have to make sure that you let him/her know because historically speaking the seller pays for the title policy.

Next one is the message. You have to have the right message to the person. You will see a whole lot of marketing pieces that are out there in any number of courses. The most predominant ones are: "I buy houses", "We buy houses", so what? That’s basically what they’re saying. So what? Somebody’s in foreclosure. See the thing is you have to do to stand out amongst the rest, your message has to surpass and cut through all that clutter. It has to get through all that other junk mail. If your letter says, "We buy houses" just like everybody else does it isn’t going to matter. It isn’t going to cut through. It must grab the people's attention And when you know who it is that you're targeting, you need to have your message directed at them. Remember to match your message to the market.

The third is the media: How you deliver your message. How you get that message across to them. You have to think about several different ways to get through and to clutter through. So what are some of the ways you can get your message out to people? Flyers, postcards, bandit signs, doorknockers, door hangers, ads, magnetic signs and the letters. You can put flyers out. You can put ads on the paper. You can drop business cards wherever you go. You can put signs on your vehicle so these are all part of the media. You can also try phone calls, message on the radio and TV, billboards, word of mouth, referrals, etc. etc. There are other ways to get in front of the people as well. Your media, whatever you choose to impact them, remember to take massive action.

Driving for Dollars

One of the most effective ways to find wholesale deals is called "driving for dollars." That is, you simply drive around targeted neighborhoods to locate ideal properties and look for houses and areas that have a whole lot to choose from. It's important to know what is working in your area, since the investor's getting rid of a property has a large impact on the types of properties they look for in the first place. But when we say drive around, it doesn’t mean that you just have drive a neighborhood and you look at a house that has people living in it and you just guess that there’s something going on, you’re probably going to be wrong. Target the entire neighborhood as much as you can to find out all the possibilities and to increase your chances of getting people who are motivated. Remember to target the neighborhood where there’s a probability that there’s a lot of repairs that the homeowner’s association didn’t go nuts about. But you don’t want to go into a neighborhood where the whole neighborhood’s in distress. You want to go look around and look for signs of restoration going on, of rehabbing going on. But if you’re seeing other construction and rehabbing and stuff going on, don’t hesitate to jump in there. That’s what you’re looking for. So you go in, you drive around, you find those neighborhoods, you go back and you create postcards.

Postcards

There are different methods in finding truly motivated dealers. But for this part we will focus on the important role of postcards in finding motivated sellers. You may have seen posts that say "I buy houses" or "We buy houses", so what? That’s basically what they’re saying. Thing is you have to stick out amongst the rest, your message has to stand out and cut through all that clutter. It has to get through all the other junk mail. If your letter says, "We buy houses" just like everybody else does, it isn’t going to matter. It isn’t going to cut through. When using postcards to deliver your message or what it is that you want to say to your target, it must be huge enough to be noticed. It should have all kinds of headlines and things like that on there. Nowhere on there does it say, "We buy houses." It says, "We could sell your house in 48 hours or less". Or you can state it this way, "I can buy your house in 48 hours or less. Pay all cash. No closing costs." It will surely get somebody’s attention and they’ll be more interested to what you offer. So if you want to have something on there that’s real clear and it cuts through the clutter.

Letters

Sending out letters is a useful technique when you’ve located owners who are facing bankruptcy and/or foreclosure. The emphasis should be on helping the owner out of a bad situation. However it doesn’t end there, after you’ve sent the postcards and letters you’ve got to follow up, this is very important or you will end up losing a deal. Another thing is to make sure to personalize your letter so that it stands out from junk mail. Be unique to avoid the "bulk mail" look at all costs. Make sure that it stresses benefits to the homeowner-avoid stress, creates a win-win situation, etc. The rule of thumb is that you know what’s going to look like junk mail. You have to have what’s called a A pile list and an A pile list is something that you are going to open or you’re going to read. There’s a tendency that people will not bother to open a mail over a trash can. The best way to do that is to use an actual handwritten letter. But if you get your pre-foreclosure list from one of the resources out there, you’re probably not going to sit down and handwrite everyone of those letters so to avoid wasting money and time make certain to pursue those who are certified good hot lead.

Flyers

Using flyers is an essential part of your mass marketing strategy. You can have this in a number of ways. You can hire companies to do door-to-door flyer distributions and with this one you may check through the Yellow Pages. The cost can be low, depending on how many pieces you want to get distributed. You can have the price even lower by doing a joint mailing with local pizza or other restaurants. This may sound as an advantage to their part and as a favor to you. In many cases, they’ll be glad to join forces with you to get their costs down. The really beneficial part of this arrangement is that they’ll give you back the addresses of vacant houses. As you can see, such strategy will benefit both of you.