Unique Idea For Finding Distressed Properties - Posted by janice(NYC)

Posted by Luke on November 19, 2006 at 15:14:27:

Interesting idea but depending on the size of your area it would probably me much cheaper to take a Saturday and a map and drive around.

Or just do it on a Sunday that way no one gets mad you for driving slow, they will just think you are a Sunday driver.

I broke my small city into sections and I’m working on the second section.

I write down all the addresses and call the owners to see if they would consider selling. Most say no but some say yes then I follow up from there to see if it’s a deal.

I then keep a list of all the properties in a folder on my cpu just to have the info in case someone calls.

I like the way you’re thinking though.
Luke

Unique Idea For Finding Distressed Properties - Posted by janice(NYC)

Posted by janice(NYC) on November 19, 2006 at 15:05:47:

I had an idea a couple weeks ago on how to find distressed properties. I got the idea when I had a woman who had received one of my postcards call me to tell me not about her own house but about a neighbor of hers that had a house that was rundown and making the value of the rest of the “nicer” houses in the area come down in value.

I thanked her for her call, and I sent postcards to the property that she told me about. Unfortunately, the house was already in the process of being sold.

It gave me the idea that instead of driving around looking for distressed properties, I could send out postcards to people with a message for them to call me if they have a house in their neighborhood that is rundown or vacant. I figured I would get a lot of calls because people are always concerned about the value of their house coming down due to other houses around it. Not many people know more about someone than their own neighbors. I’d probably get calls about houses that I would have missed had I just went driving through the area looking for them myself.

The downside is that the cost of first sending postcards to people to call me about their neighbors, and then sending postcards to those leads would be more costly than if I had just drove around and found them myself. The upside is that I would probably get more high quality leads.

What do you guys think?

Houses Wanted - $500 Reward Dead or Alive (nt) - Posted by Joe Kaiser

Posted by Joe Kaiser on November 19, 2006 at 18:35:32:

no text

Re: Unique Idea For Finding Distressed Properties - Posted by Todd (AZ)

Posted by Todd (AZ) on November 19, 2006 at 16:54:25:

Janice,

Actually this idea is more widely used than you might think. It is even
part of many Guru’s real estate programs. As Luke pointed out, it can
be very expensive in the long run. Also, I think you may be giving
people’s willingness to help more credit than they deserve. When you
are talking to someone they may tell you about the rundown house
down the street, but without the personal interaction, when they
receive a postcard in the mail, it means nothing to them. Actually, very
few will call you to “save their neighborhood”. People just aren’t that
motivated or interested. Now, if you offer a reward for information
leading to a purchase, you might get a better response, but be careful,
many states require you to be a licensed real estate agent to pay or
receive fees for referrals.

You best bet is to do the driving bit, it’s more focused and you can
actually see the property first thing. Calls you get on postcards will
lead you to a lot of falling down “no deal” properties. You can waste a
lot of time doing this as well, whereas driving around, you see if it’s a
potential deal or not.

Best of luck!

Todd