1 800 No Agent
I am researching 1 800 No Agent, other than their website and the websites of their franchisees, I cannot find out much about them. Are they good to work with? How far below market price to do they typically offer when buying property?
I bet each franchisee works differently......i was working with a different vanity number and they had it licensed out to different investors in differnt areas, so it would be dependent on each investors what they buy at.
1 800 No Agent group is composed of a variety of independent buyers, not a franchise.
An investor basically purchases an advertising schedule from 1 800 No Agent and receives hot leads direct from people interested in selling their homes.
The owners of 1 800 No Agent are great to work with and produce very well in my market. But they do not buy and sell houses. They buy and sell really good advertising that gets motivated sellers to call you. What you do with the call, and how much you offer for a property is totally up to you.
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If you guys and gals want FREE information on different mailings, on the next house purchase presentation you do ask the seller for all of the mail they have been receiving/keeping from your competitors...
They will keep every piece and welcome the opportunity to help you, just ask for it. And don’t forget to ask them why they called you and whom else they called.
Then ask them why they chose you. If you keep asking these questions you will gather a lot of valuable information..
How many postcards/letters do you send out a week?
Brenda
We are on pace to do 130 deals this year, all driven by major marketing....
Anyone who would like to chat about everything we do to get our telephone and internet sites to ring let me know...
Quote:
On 2005-10-25 20:32, IBuyHousesInc wrote:
We are on pace to do 130 deals this year, all driven by major marketing....
Anyone who would like to chat about everything we do to get our telephone and internet sites to ring let me know...
IBuyHouses -
i would love to chat with you about marketing... My marketing campaign leaves much to be desired... My budget for my marketing leaves much to be desired… If you have any suggestions on cheap marketing, please – I’m all ears!!
Thanks!
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Whats your budget?
what is your average triple net return per deal?
What is the time frame between lead to money in the bank?
And how much capital are you currently working with?
If you can give me the answer I can try and lead you in the right direction...
_________________
Michael Quarles
"Marketing is the key to Successful Investing"[ Edited by IBuyHousesInc on Date 11/21/2005 ]
Michael -
I am not able to contact back and forth through PM or TCI e-mail.
Can you e-mail me personally at the e-mail address in my above post?
Thanks.
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my direct mail has netted me 45K in the last 4 months after expenses. This just goes to show that any DM program is better than nothing
Do something, do anything, but do something.....
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Stockpro99,
Whats your target audience for the Direct Mail campaign? Do you use letters or postcards? Do you do multiple mailings to improve response rate?
Stockpro,
Your post did not get through completely. I presume you are marketing to foreclosure leads. What is the response rate that you see with 6 letters? Do you mail every 2 weeks?
I mail out every week to 10 days and notice the greatest response on letters 3-6.
The response rate is terrible but still profitable.
3000 letters = 1-2 deals a month
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Stockpro99,
That is an excellent closing rate.
One last question: Do you send the same letter everytime or do you change the letters. And do you make it clear that you want to buy their home - as opposed to some letters I have seen which state "We will help you .....", with no mention of buying the house.
If you are talking about a 1031 Tax Deferred Exchange, you are out of luck since your primary residence does not qualify. On the other hand, the gain from the sale of the first house is not going to be huge even if you pay at ordinary income tax rates. Converting the first home to a rental is certainly a possibilty. If you need to pull money out of home # 1 to get into the second residence, you might be successful, but there is not lot of headroom.
Regards,
Ed
no one has any suggestions??
Mail It, Pat.
Hi,
When I first read your letter I thought okay why should I respond?
I am a firm believer that you must answer all of the questions before they’re asked but I am not so sure your letter does that.
I think it just says that "I do everything" and a seller in distress isn’t necessarily going to respond to that method..
I think you would be better off saying " I buy houses" or
I buy 3 -4 houses a month and if you know anyone who is thinking of selling their house please give them my number...
Who cares that you just did that or this... That’s what realtors send, make yourself different..
So you ask how do I make myself different than everyone else..
First you must make them confident that if they call you that you can fulfill their need.
Second you must make it easier to do business with you than everyone else.
Third you Must answer your telephone when it rings.
Forth only buy the houses that fit your business model.
Good luck
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I thought that mentioning we purchased another property on their block would give them more of a reason to trust us. Most of the copy from this letter is from Jason Van Ordens vacant house letter that is free in the downloads section. I thought it was good, but thats why I posted for help. I will try and rework it to make it better. What about a small hand written note to the sellers??
I would word it more for what the buyer does not have to do, instead of what you do. Classic marketing is to tell them have you solve their problems, not to tell them how good you are.
You will have No hassle, No closing costs, no repairs,
no scheduleing appointments for strangers to walk through your house, no ......
Having spent about 100 years of my professional career in marketing and advertising, a couple of things come to mind.
First, I believe it’s critical to remember the true objective of the letter. If it were me, my first objective would be to get the phone to ring. It wouldn’t be to tell them too much about what I do, or how I do it. I would rather have a letter that leave a lot questions unanswered and that stimulates curiousity.
The second thing would be to, not only to give them a reason to respond, but try to give them a reason to respond as soon as they get it. That’s where knowing your market, your competitors, etc., helps to set you apart from what others are doing.
Who knows? I might try something more like this…
“…I’m an investor currently looking at homes in your neighborhood. My associates and I plan to buy 2 more houses within the next week. We have several we are reviewing right now, but would like a few more options before making our decision. If you, or any of your neighbors, have any interest in selling immediately for cash, please call me as soon as possible…”
Just a couple of thoughts I had.
Mike you didnt sound that old...
[ Edited by IBuyHousesInc on Date 12/10/2005 ]
go online and print out your statment, and send it, or call and ask to speak to a supervisor
I am interested in hearing some of the pros responses.
Thanks,
Nate
There is a great little site for outsourcing specific tasks at www.elance.com. Its good to unload data entry, telemarketing, etc.
We don’t have door knockers I have Property Buyers... However, they do, do 6-packs when on their appointments. They are all VPs of my corporation, which is a Department of Real Estate requirement, and they completely negotiate the transaction.
They’re on salary plus a production schedule bonus.
As for marketing, since I don’t do bandit signs I don’t have that cost issue. As for the rest my TV, Billboard and commercial production I have a media buyer buy. My newsprint and mail we do in-house...
The gal who answers my generic telephone number does all of my postcards, NODs and "Mary" letters.
My Money line telephone answering person does all of the CMAs and property profiles and schedules out the buyers for their appointments.
Besides those positions we have escrow personnel, HR personnel, management and a construction department..
I am greedy so I try and in-house as much as I can..
Wow,
Mr. IBUY in Cali,
You really have this down to a science. I also was taught by Legrand. I have gone to many seminars before this and none of them compared.
Thank you for sharing these critical systems and tips with us. Mr. Harddtime, thanks for asking.
Jackie
hard Something... I trust everyone I have trained... But let me say I have a three strike rule.. Need I explain?
And once a buyer buys a property it goes through a 3 person review for value or its kicked and anyone of the 3 can kick it...
two rules for purchase.. 1) we see 75% PV or and 2) 52,000.00 ...
Its not difficult to figure out from there...
And I have never been to a legrand seminar...
At 130 deal this year I can afford to make less on 3 deals... But at an income of 150k a year my buyers are not wanting to disappoint me.
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One of the nice byproducts of splitting the investment process into pieces is that it takes multiple people to steal leads from you..
I have also developed a lead generation/escrow management software system which gives me reports on lead generation and lead fulfillment.. I am such a numbers nut…
And then there is the employee benefit program of buying a property once we purchase 10 houses in a month. If an employee would like to purchase a house they can draw a property out of a hat and pay me 10k more than I paid.. So far the employees have purchase 4 houses this way…
But in the end its all about trust, working conditions, respect, Health insurance, paid vacations, and an all around great working environment...
I wish I could say I had a magic formula but I don’t… And I hope that some day that they do become my competition… What a great thing it will be to have helped people become millionaires, after all they’re helping me.
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He probably gives them a quota. I would be interested in hearing the answer to this.
Thanks,
Nate
Our inbound scripts second question is; where did you hear about us? Again I am a numbers nut...
BTW Every employee is trained on the inbound script and lead generation software system.. It is the most important aspect of our business...We have a policy that if the telephone rings twice pick up the line no matter what you’re doing…And the money line is the only line which rings in my office as I hold myself to that same standard…
Those of you who have answering machines or answering services are missing a lot of viable telephone calls…Why anyone would out source their telephone is beyond me… I don’t pay my money line operator 52000 a year so all I need is less than 1 dropped call. Like I said before we are open 7 days a week just to answer the money line.
As for quotas we have a minimum buy per month of 10 houses… Our lowest month has been 5.. Mainly because I kicked 4 deals based on the market slowing down a little… Our largest month was 21 houses… But 10 is a very comfortable number for our operation… 2006 we set a goal of 240 units.. Which is a major increase but with the market turning to a buyers market and the cost to purchase ratios decreasing our capital and labor resources should be inline.
As for individual quotas that seems to work itself out… Buyers are competitive…
I am a firm believer in setting weekly, monthly and annual goals
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A six pack is knocking the two doors on each side of a sellers appointment and the 3 doors across the street..
We use a script to ask when they plan on selling.
Our "Mary" letter is a hand written letter.. which we send out five times in English and 5 times in Spanish to NODs and TSs.
BTW its not hand written each time...
And I haven’t been a boot camp or received training from a Guru...
I just treat this business the same as any other business. And those businesses that successfully market themselves are successful... They’re completely systemized and ran efficiently and effectively...
Here is your test if you don’t believe me… Close your eyes and think Pepsi, McDonalds and Red Cross… I bet you saw Blue, Gold and Red…Those companies didn’t get where they are by bandit signs… AND it wasn’t over night either it was an on purpose plan to succeed. Built around marketing…
I have no doubt that I could put each one of you in this system and within a year you would be on pace to do 50-100 deals.
But maybe I am naive
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Quote:
Here is your test if you don’t believe me… Close your eyes and think Pepsi, McDonalds and Red Cross… I bet you saw Blue, Gold and Red…Those companies didn’t get where they are by bandit signs… AND it wasn’t over night either it was an on purpose plan to succeed. Built around marketing…
MAN THAT SHOULD BE PINNED SOMEWHERE.
So true.
we sell everything....sure at times we hold too much inventory and if so we start discounting some...
Thats one of the nice things about buying at 52000 less than value...
Like I have said before we sell about 1/3 of our houses to investors who dont have the marketing machine in place..
Its a win win...
(i buy houses)great info thanks. i will be getting started as birddog. do u have any ideas on what i sould put on some flyers.
Donald
I would love to show a flyer or ad we use but cant figure out how to upload it.. If anyone has a clue and can help let me know...
BTW, in my opinion the most important message an ad can have is explain what it is that you want the reader to buy and give them a since of confidence in your ability to fulfill the promise.
And it is extremely important that you do not reinvent yourself every time.. You should be branding with every message.. Maybe it’s your colors or a phrase. But you must get those that will not read your ad to, if asked to name a real estate investor, be able to give your name.
Someone asked for the breakdown from advertising
Newspaper 40% TV 26% Magazines 3% Radio 1% Yard signs 4% Referral 3 web 1% letters 7% postcards 7% trailers 1% billboards 7%
_________________
Michael Quarles
"Marketing is the key to Successful Investing"[ Edited by IBuyHousesInc on Date 12/07/2005 ]
Quote:
On 2005-12-07 11:33, IBuyHousesInc wrote:
Donald
I would love to show a flyer or ad we use but cant figure out how to upload it.. If anyone has a clue and can help let me know...
BTW, in my opinion the most important message an ad can have is explain what it is that you want the reader to buy and give them a since of confidence in your ability to fulfill the promise.
And it is extremely important that you do not reinvent yourself every time.. You should be branding with every message.. Maybe it’s your colors or a phrase. But you must get those that will not read your ad to, if asked to name a real estate investor, be able to give your name.
Someone asked for the breakdown from advertising
Newspaper 40% TV 26% Magazines 3% Radio 1% Yard signs 4% Referral 3 web 1% letters 7% postcards 7% trailers 1% billboards 7%
_________________
Michael Quarles
"Marketing is the key to Successful Investing"
<font size=-1>[ Edited by IBuyHousesInc on Date 12/07/2005 ]</font>
But you must get those that will not read your ad to, if asked to name a real estate investor, be able to give your name. ..... ?? youre saying i sould put my name on th flyers
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What I mean is that they should be able to recall your Business name when asked to name someone who does what you do..
Ask yourself this question; name a furniture store?
Most people can name a furniture store they have never been to because of the repeated message they receive..
Furniture store are great examples of instant gratification and brand awareness marketing…
And my business name is I Buy Houses Incorporated… And I use the tag “I Buy Houses, Ugly Ones Too!” TM
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IbuyHouses How big of an ad do you run to get 40% of your business from newspapers. [ Edited by theREIkid on Date 12/10/2005 ]
We mostly run a full page and Page Killers, however once we branded, we were able to mix in a quarter and half page as well.
For us color was the only way to go and always placed in the Real Estate section with all of the Realtors. We bought placement as well, front page of the Real Estate classified section. It worked well because that was the section everyone kept when looking at houses.
One word of advice never allow the paper to put you under the fold...
Sure we made enemies out of a few Realtors with our message of "Don’t use a Realtor" or our "NON Realtor way to sell your house fast" campaigns.
We constantly mixed up the format but never changed the message.
AND never changed the colors...
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