Module 5:How to Get Deals

Coming to You

Let’s take a closer look at Real Estate Finder & Wholesaling Funnel, which begins

with how deals come to you.

But notice I said “how deals come to you” instead of “how you find deals”? This

goes back to the “Push VS. Pull concept”.

With this method, you will not be out on the streets “deal hunting” or pouring over the MLS every day hoping for the

scraps everyone else missed.

Instead this system creates an avenue for targeted, pre-qualified leads to come to you. And in case you can’t tell, I really want to make sure this

concept works its way into your own real estate endeavors.

Let me start by handing you a proven way to find house deals for free. It’s not my

favorite way mind you — it’s not where I get most of my deals.

But it costs a whopping $0 and DOES deliver leads and deals — so it only makes good sense to employ it in your business.

Simply run the ad that’s in the PDF document below this video on

CraigsList.com in cities you would like to acquire properties.

This ad on CraigsList found a house deal, which was quick-flipped it to an Investor-Buyer for a fast, easy eight grand.

Can’t beat that with a stick, can you?

So you now have a proven, no-cost way of acquiring properties at wholesale.

Now let me describe for you my favorite way to bring qualified buyers to the

surface. It’s not completely free like the Craigslist method, but it works extremely

well, over and over again.

So here we begin walking through the 12 steps of the Real Estate Finder &

Wholesaling model I briefly outlined in Module 4.

The first thing I do is I mail out lead-generation postcards which I’ll show

you in a moment.

With this postcard I am specifically targeting Absentee Owners and my goal is to use the message on the postcard to get their attention, pre-qualify them a little, and

ultimately get them to respond by calling me for more information.

What is an Absentee Owner? Absentee Owners are people who own a house but don’t live in it. This could be for any number of reasons, ranging from being a landlord… to having inherited the property.

 But a much of the time Absentee Owners

live a good distance away from their property — often out of state — which can

often be a highly-motivated factor for selling.

Think about it. Someone who lives in California but owns an investment property in New Jersey cannot take care of the

property the right way.

They’re often overwhelmed with repairs, tenant vacancy, evictions, a bad property management company,

vandalism, etc.

So what happens? Over time, Absentee Owners often get just plain sick and tired of the headaches and end up wanting to

sell the property.

But if you’ve ever tried selling a house from a distance away, it’s not an easy

thing to do. And who comes in to save the day? It’s

the Wholesaling Superhero (you).

So you can see why Absentee Owners are my favorite motivated seller lead

source.

Where to Get Absentee Owner Mailing Lists… At the time we’re producing this video, I currently buy my absentee

owner mailing lists from www.ListSource.com.

Part of the reason I love them is you can get your list right there on their website — you don’t even have to talk with anyone. Just enter in the criteria of the list that you want, submit your credit card number and you’ll have your list

immediately.

You can also order these lists from several other sources, such as www.CoreLogic.com, www.RealQuest.com, www.MelissaData.com,

www.DataQuick.com — or you can even contact a list broker you find online or in

they, yellow pages and let them know what type of list you’re looking for.

Here’s the list of 10 exact criteria we use for the Absentee Owner lists we

purchase right now:

1. Property Types: Single Family Residences (SFR), duplex, triplex and quad

2. Type of Owner: Absentee (no corporations, trusts or duplicates)

3. Owner’s Contact: Complete mailing address

4. Subject Property Address: Yes

5. Living Area: 1,000 to 2,500 sq. ft. (because that’s what investors are buying in my area)

6. Rooms: Minimum 3 bedroom / 2 bath

7. Last Sale Date: Year 2000 (I want sellers who owned the property at least 10 years)

8. Year House Built: 1940 to 1995

9. Total Assessed Value: $80,000 to $160,000 (again, that’s what investors are buying in my area)

10.Tax Assessed Value of the Property: Yes

Please keep in mind I’m providing you with this list of criteria because it’s literally exactly what I use when

I order Absentee Owner lists right now.

Feel free to use it as a template, but also keep in mind you may need to tweak some

of these items for your own market.

For example, if your target area’s average home price is $250,000, then #9 probably won’t work at all for you. Or, if you get a

buyer who’s specifically looking for 2 bedroom houses for some reason, then you

may tweak #6. You get the picture.

These criteria are absolutely ideal for me, but if I were targeting a different region, I’d

have to tweak them myself. So just be aware of that.

The Absentee Owner postcard… In the PDF below is a postcard you can use for Absentee Owner mailings. Please read it and see if you can figure out why it works

so well.

What makes this postcard so powerful? Well for starters, you can see the Absentee Owner postcard is a copy-intensive postcard

— meaning there are a lot of words to read. This is not an accident.

Some people who don’t know better would notice this and assume it’s a bad

thing, and that it would perform better if it had a shorter message, and made the

same point with fewer words.This would be a mistake. Trust me.

With this type of marketing message to this kind of audience, a longer, more robust message like this is

perfect and will outperform a short form card consistently.

But it’s not just the length of the message that’s powerful — it’s the message itself. Notice how it’s structured — The headline - the most important part of any piece of

copy - looks like some kind of official notice.

When you read it, it’s just begging you to read on to see what’s so “important” about your property.

Remember, many times these owners don’t live in the same city as their house, so they’re instantly curious about this. Could it be a notice from the city or county? Was the house vandalized? Grass too tall? What?

As the message continues, it zeroes right in on what prospective motivated

seller would want… QUICK, EASY RELIEF…

• Notice how it keeps pushing emotional hot buttons by listing specific benefits.

• Notice how the parts in bold and underline act like anchors for your eyes — so if you just skim it quickly (which many people do) you still get all the main points because of how the benefits are postured.

One of the biggest and most common mistakes I see investors making in their

own marketing is to focus it all on themselves, mistakenly assuming that if they can just impress their prospect with how awesome they are, surely to get the

deal.

Wrong. Dead wrong. The fact is, they don’t care about you at all. All they really care about is what you can do for them

— and whether or not you’re believable.

Notice how the message of the postcard isn’t so much about how great I am, as it is to what kinds of benefits there are to them for letting me help them out of a tough situation (i.e. getting all cash… pay zero closing costs… forgetting about

doing repairs, etc.).

And notice how it’s personalized… “Important Notice re: your property at [their property address].” And then “A recorded message is waiting for you at

[the 800 number].”

It also has their information and their property address right on it, and

mentions that a message has been recorded for them.

Personalization is a strong tactic and always boosts response rate, even if it’s plain as day that you’re doing it just to

increase responsiveness. It just works.

This is a two-step approach… Notice that this postcard doesn’t give them all the information they need to know in

order to make an informed decision — nor is it intended to.

This is a two-step marketing approach and the postcard is step one of two. It really

has ultimately one purpose and one purpose only: to get the right target

prospect to go to Step 2 for more info.

In other words, the postcard isn’t meant to be a fully informational piece, nor could

it be.

It’s a carrot on a stick, with just enough information to screen people a little and

entice the right targeted prospect to take the simple action of calling my toll free

number for a recorded message… which just happens to be Step 2.

Absentee Owners Call The PATLive Answering ServiceSo after the Absentee Owner receives my postcard, she reads it over a couple

times then says to herself, “Hmmmm… this guy might actually be able to help me finally get this real estate monkey off my back…”

…then the next step for them is to call my PATLive Answering Service telephone

number printed on the card for more information.

Why I outsource talking to sellers… First, I should mention here that while I

don’t talk to potential sellers anymore - at least not when they first call - I did when I

first got started.

This is because I wanted to get a feel personally for how to handle them, what kinds of questions they would have, and

what I need to find out from them.

But my goal from the start was to get that part off my plate as quickly as

possible by systemizing and outsourcing it.

Now some people have a really hard time understanding how I could do this — they

feel like there’s just no way they could trust this part of their business to someone other than themselves.

To this I say, stop kidding yourself. Frankly, you can probably hire someone

who would handle it better than you. But even if they only handle it 80% as good…

it’s still worth it.

I believe it’s a far better use of my time to oversee the ongoing marketing that finds the deals for me, and sells the deals for

me, rather than talking to property owners, most of whom ultimately won’t

meet my criteria as a ‘good’ seller’ anyway.

And yes, it’s a better use of your time, too. Once you start making some money

and can afford to outsource this to someone else, if you’d like.

That’s why I created my Seller Information Questionnaire sheet, which is basically a step-by-step script

that not only makes it super easy for you to talk with prospective motivated sellers,

but also make it brain dead simple to outsource it just like I have. More on that

in a second.

Why use a recorded message? This is a question I often get. Some people feel it’s better to always have a person answer the phone so you can make a personal connection with the seller as quickly as possible.

While this may be advantageous sometimes, I prefer leading them to a

recorded message first, primarily because it’s completely non-threatening to the

seller who calls in.

The fact is some people are very embarrassed by the situation they’ve

found themselves facing with their house, and may not feel quite ready to face the

music with a real, live person, yet.

But letting them listen to a recording first gives them the “safety” to go ahead and make the call. After all, they can just hang up at the end of the message and never have to speak

to anyone.

Both approaches have pros and cons, and my opinion is that the advantages are weighted toward a non-threatening voicemail rather

than a live person at first.

Absentee Owner Voicemail Script

As I said, the answering service company I use for this is PATLive, which is a

combination recorded message/answering service.

I’ve been very happy using them for years and warmly recommend them. You can find more information about PATLive at

www.PATLive.com

Here’s the exact voicemail script prospects here when they call after receiving one of my postcards in the mail. Note: If you use the CraigsList ad, this can also be the message they hear when they call from your ad. [I’ve also inserted a few

of my own comments in brackets]…

“Hello, this is Bryan. Thank you for calling and listening to my message. As I stated

on the postcard I mailed to you, I want to buy

your house. I’m looking to buy two additional properties in your zip code area and your property is one of the ones I’m

interested in buying.” [So, it sounds like a personal message I recorded for them,

doesn’t it?]

“If you accept my cash offer to buy your property, here are seven benefits you’ll

receive…

#1 — I will save you money. There will be no realtors involved, so there are no real estate commissions or fees to pay. This can save you thousands of dollars.

#2 — I will pay all of your closing costs for you. This too, can save you thousands of dollars.

#3 — I will buy your property ‘as is’ so you will not need to make any repairs to fix it up - again, saving you money. If you listed your property with a Realtor, they would want you to fix it up and/or update it before putting it on the market.

#4 — You won’t have to bother with setting appointments to show the property. [Which is something they don’t want to do, right?]

#5 — If you have tenants at the property, I can buy your property with them still living there.

#6 — I will pay you all cash. You won’t have to depend on a buyer getting approved for bank financing. [Which has become very difficult due to the tougher mortgage lending environment.]

#6 — I will pay you all cash. You won’t have to depend on a buyer getting approved for bank financing. [Which has become very difficult due to the tougher mortgage lending environment.]

And #7 — We can close whenever you want at a local title company near you.

“That’s it in a nutshell. It’s pretty simple. If you’re interested in selling, I’m ready to buy and pay you all cash. You’ll be paid a nice sum of money and you’ll

be done with the property. [Which again, is exactly what they want if they’re truly motivated.]

“In just a moment you will be automatically connected to one of my

friendly operators who will gather some information from you about your property. Then someone from my office will contact you by phone and let you know what my cash offer is to buy your house. “Please stay on the line. An operator will assist

you right now.”

So that’s the recorded message every prospect hears when they first call in

response to my postcard. Its purpose is basically twofold:

1) The first is to reinforce and amplify the message from the postcard a little more. Notice how the entire script is just oozing with benefit statements for the seller? It’s like the postcard, but on steroids.

2) The second purpose is to gently pre-screen the prospect just a little more before they move on to the next step — which is talking to a live operator. Essentially if they’re still on the line for the operator, they’ve pretty much raised their hand and said, “So far, so good — tell me more!”

We have posted PDFs of this script and a second (alternate) voicemail script below for you to use. It’s basically the same, but with a little different flavor and tone. Neither is designed to try and “box you in”. Feel free to create your own if you

prefer, but I trust you’ll find these two to be helpful.

Seller Information Questionnaire So next, the PATLive line automatically connects the seller prospect to a live

operator to continue the process, armed with my handy dandy “Seller Information

Questionnaire” below. The operator (“Pat”) at PATLive will ask the following questions…

1) May I please have the extension number next to the 800 number you just called?

[This first question is very important. Did you notice the 2-digit extension next to the

toll free number on my postcard? There was no actual extension. The only purpose

of the extension is so I can know which direct mail campaign this particular lead

came from.

I track all my direct mail campaigns so I know which lists produce the most leads. You should too.

Interestingly, I’ll sometimes get calls from postcards I mailed six months ago or more. Sometimes people will hold onto it for a long time, and then when the motivation level gets high enough, they’ll finally call.]

2) May I have your name please?

3) What is the address of the property you are interested in selling? City? State? Zip?

4) What is your daytime phone number?

5) Evening number?

6) Cell phone number?

7) What is the best time and phone number to call you at?

8) What is your physical mailing address?

[Clearly I’m starting with the basic information I’ll need from them, so I’ll have it handy if/when I need it. But I’m also setting a pattern of compliance right from the start. It’s an old phone sales technique you’ve probably been on the receiving end of a thousand times before, but didn’t even realize it.

Basically, the idea is if you get people on a role of answering easy, no brainer questions, they’re much more likely to continue answering compliantly when the questions get a little more personal in nature. And it works like a charm.]

9) Thank you. Now, I need to obtain some basic information about the property…

10) How many bedrooms does it have?

11) Number of baths?

12) Is the house brick or wood frame?

13) Does the house need any repairs?

14) How much do you think it would cost to fix it up… just a ballpark?

15) Do you have tenants at the property?

16) If the property is vacant, could someone live there now?

17) How long have you owned the property?

18) How much do you owe on the property?

19) Will you sell the property for what you owe?You’d be surprised at how many times we get a simple “Yes” to this one.

20) Why are you selling?

[With this question we start exploring their motivation, which will help us rate the lead and

determine what to do with it next.]

21) When would you like to sell?

[Knowing their timeline can tell us a lot about what’s motivating them and how much pressure they might be

feeling to get it sold — or lack thereof.]

22) How much are you asking for the property?

[Sometimes they’ll tell you right off the bat, and other times they just won’t give you a number. The next

question often helps get it out of them if they’re hesitant, but the reality is we want this piece of info to help us in

rating this seller’s motivation.]

23) (If they say they don’t know, ask them, “Can you give me just a ballpark figure?”)

24) If Mr./Mrs. (your last name) can pay you all cash, close quickly, and buy the property as-is, what is the LEAST you could take?

25) Is that the best that you can do?[I just want to see what their answer is to this one. Often this little question is enough to get

them to drop their asking price right on the spot, or even reveal a little more about their

true motivation for wanting to sell.]

26) Any other comments about the property we can pass on to Mr./Mrs. (insert your last name here)?

[Many times their answer to this one will be something like, “Oh, it needs a new kitchen” or “there’s a hole in the roof” or something

like that.]

“Thank you for calling. Mr./Mrs. (insert your last name here) will review this information

and will contact you if he’s interested in moving forward.” And that’s it. Once they

hang up the phone, the completed questionnaire is instantly emailed to us (me

and my assistant) for following up.

The fact is I don’t even look at these anymore when they come in, because it now goes to an assistant whose job it is to size up the lead, call them back (using my

“Seller Call Sheet” — basically another script), negotiate with them to try and get the property under contract, and rate the deal altogether using my Deal Rating System.

But as you can see, at this point we probably already have a pretty good idea of what their motivation is, we know how much they want for the property —

essentially everything we need to see at a glance how to classify this lead and what to do next.

 At this point we finish the screening, negotiating and due diligence process on our end. At

the same time, I also go ahead and mail out a lead-generation postcard to investor/buyers to build up my buyers list if I haven’t done that for this particular area already.

I’m going to wait to go into buyers in a future Module, even though it often

comes into play at this point of the process. For continuity’s sake, let me stick with how we process the Absentee Owner lead for now.