Pre-foreclosures
I have been reading about real estate investing for years and I finally think I am ready to "jump in". the avenue I wish to pursue is pre-foreclosures and fixers for holding or short sales. the problem I see is competition. seems like everyone and there mother is doing what I want to do. plus they have cash and experience that I dont. I do have hard money lenders that are willing to take a look at whatever I find, so the question is how do I find them? I take drives and look ,and I looked on a website that shows people that are in pre foreclosures so I sent out 20 postcards to possible sellers and did not get one response. I need to know where to start and some good tips, thanks.
Go to the courthouse and ask to speak with the person that compiles their notice of default lists. If they look at you and have no idea what you're talking about, it may be because you live in a state that doesn't require it. If that's the case you can try looking in the local paper, or even better on their website, at the Trustee Sales under the Legal notices section. You have little time to work with these but you can find some great deals there. The hard part is finding the owner. Also check into tax sales. Books=Ebook fastcashinrealestateforclosures; the 16% solution, What you're bank doesn't want you to know. Good luck!
What website do you find pre-forclosures on? Do we check a site for our locale? What type of site? I'm interested in pursuing this myself. :-?
First, I recommend that you only pursue one or two avenues to being with. Trying too many techniques at once for a beginner could be distasterous. Second, don't sweat the competition. There are plenty of deals to go around.
If you intend to pursue (pre)foreclosures, then I strongly recommend you read your state's statutes on the subject. You'll probably need to reread it all a few times before it really sinks in, but it could save your budding REI career. Find out if your state favors judicial or non-judicial foreclosures. If judicial, you're probably looking for lis pendens. If non-judicial, you're looking for some kind of default notice. Know the required notices. Know the required time frames. Become an expert.
Keep in mind that one mailing of 20 postcards is tame, and realize that whoever else has access to that list is also mailing to them. If you're set on mailing, then you need to space out your mailings so folks hear from you at least 4 to 6 times before the auction. Realize, too, that many folks will find a way to come up with the money so most never even make it to foreclosure sale. Once you've mailed out hundreds and not gotten a bite, then it's time to change up (but a 1% to 2% hit rate is common). Keep mailing, but you might want to go knock on some doors too. Figure out a way to introduce yourself as a foreclosure expert and offer to help.
Another you need to do is make sure the leads your getting from your website are fresh. Leads that are 6 to 8 weeks old won't be of much use to you.
Reading is a great way to start, but you should also find a local investing club so you can meet and interact with others. You'd be surprised how much information your "competition" is willing to share with you. Click on "Groups" at the top of this page to see if you can find one listed on this site.
Happy and blessed investing!
great advice. thanks to all. keep it coming.
Hey,
This is a numbers game, pure and simple. You have to count your mail campaign in the hundreds, not in the dozens. If you send out 400 postcards each month you can expect 8-12 calls. 1 to 2 of those turn in to deals for you.
I am of the firm belief that most preforeclosures are bombarded with letters and postcards, and they just decide to call the next one that comes in. You want to be "the next one that comes in", so sending out two, three or four (spread out once a week) to the same person is a good idea.
Hey dlitedan;
Wuzzup Pawdna? Y'know, I bin doin' sum telebizhen ads fo' dem pre-fo'clozha'z an', ya know, dey bin callin' me back!!!!!!
It downrite spooky! :-D It work sooo good that Ah bin thinkin' 'bout puttin' up one o' dem web site thangs jest so's ebery bawdy know that doin' sumpin differnt from dem othah folks be good bidness. Yee Hah!
Man, you should fill out yo profile so's we know you mean bidness. Uh-huh.
C- :-o
cpifer, thanks..I think. I dont know how to fill out my profile, I've tried.
Yo dlitedan
Ain't no big thang li'l buddy. We all jest likes ta know where you is comin' from. Where does ya'll come from? Ebery mahket be differnt, ya know.
Yo gots ta be wyilie like a fox if'n yo in dem big city - Wooo-Eeee, Uh-huh.
Ya see, rat now, we doesn't even know if yo is a investah o' ain't no investah atall. Ya see whut ah am saying?
Ah duzn't make no mailin's and I duzn't knock on no dorz cuz all dem other cuzzins be doin' da same thang. Wooo -Eeee!
I wants dem Preeee- fo'clozhahs ya see son.
See whut ah mean?
C- :-o
dlitedan;
I'm not a retard - honest.
First of all, TCI has been very good to me and my business. For the last year and a half, I have been using a methodology called "Loss Mitigation" to find pre-foreclosure properties because I refuse to do mail-outs or knock on doors from leads off of a foreclosure list. I absolutely do not go to the courthouse and basically, I think "some" people who have paid $1,000's of dollars to these so-called Guru's are flushing thier investment dollars down the toilet. There are more thatn enough "real" investors on this site who are willing to help for free or next to nothing.
As I said, I run a 3rd party loss mitigation company out of Dallas, Texas. I also had limited funds when I started my investment business BUT have had the advantage of being a loan broker, mortgage loan officer and real estate investment fund manager.
So - I started running ads in my market area to help people save their homes without filing bk, selling their homes on the cheap or abandoning the property all together.
I charge a modest fee to "fix" peoples' mortgages so I, in effect, get paid for prospecting for investment leads.
BECAUSE
You cannot save everyone's home. Sometimes the owners just need to leave so we help them do so and NOT get skinned by some greedy investor, or worse, some wanna be investor who does more harm than good. We turn the deals over to our investor group, who in return, pays our loss mitigation fee for the distressed homeowner. Everyone wins.
The bottom line is we get an average of $900 to fix someone's sick mortgage and we average about $1,400 from our investor leads and we do an average of 14 transactions a month. we are not getting rich but we are very active in our community helping people and we never have to sell a deal to an investor because they are on us every day for more good deals. BTW - we average about 56 to 59 cents on the dollar on our RE acquisitions.
Try it.
C- :-o
Quote:
On 2004-07-09 13:18, cpifer wrote:
dlitedan;
I'm not a retard - honest.
First of all, TCI has been very good to me and my business. For the last year and a half, I have been using a methodology called "Loss Mitigation" to find pre-foreclosure properties because I refuse to do mail-outs or knock on doors from leads off of a foreclosure list. I absolutely do not go to the courthouse and basically, I think "some" people who have paid $1,000's of dollars to these so-called Guru's are flushing thier investment dollars down the toilet. There are more thatn enough "real" investors on this site who are willing to help for free or next to nothing.
As I said, I run a 3rd party loss mitigation company out of Dallas, Texas. I also had limited funds when I started my investment business BUT have had the advantage of being a loan broker, mortgage loan officer and real estate investment fund manager.
So - I started running ads in my market area to help people save their homes without filing bk, selling their homes on the cheap or abandoning the property all together.
I charge a modest fee to "fix" peoples' mortgages so I, in effect, get paid for prospecting for investment leads.
I just wanted to know what exactly do you do, just place ads saying you can save their house or sell it? and you do this instead of the mailers and go knocking on doors?
So your saying these ads drive all of yoru business?
please explain
Thanks
Well;
I could tell but then I'd have to kill ya.
We believe that the best way to find deals is to do something helpful, in our case, we really do fix people's mortgages which not only saves home's, it saves families, it prevents blight caused by abandoned houses.
The mortagees just loves us. In fact we get direct leads from the mortgage companies to HELP them work out solutions for people they don't want to foreclose on.
Thirdly, our investors just love our deals: WE are able to get them properties for between 56 and 59 cents on the dollar, the homeowners get money to start life over w/o a foreclosure on their credit reports and the banks are paid off.
Good Deal, huh? And yes, it all comes from advertising to help people save their homes.
C- :-o