Need more qualified and motivated seller leads?

Generating Seller Leads

H a v e S e v e r a l W o r k i n g S t r a t e g i e s

Real Estate Seller Leads are the one item that every real estate investor must master. They are the first step in any real estate investing strategy that requires one to acquire a property. The better the leads the investor generates and the more consistent they are at keeping fresh leads coming in, the better the success the real estate investor will have.

For the past year or so, the average home seller could push their property out on a website or list it with a Realtor and have multiple offers in short order. So, having a way to generate not only people who wanted to sell their home but that also had a motivating factor that required them to sell their home quickly was vital to the real estate investor in 2018.

The experts tell us that the market is not going to be quite as hot in 2019, which we hope means will make generating seller leads a bit easier. But even if they easier to acquire, these leads are not something to waste, you need to know how to negotiate with them to get the deal, and we will be talking about those negotiations at the MAREI events in January with Chris McClatchey.

HOW DO WE GET THE SELLER TO CONTACT US?

We know that generating the leads are vital, but what are some of the better ways to generate those leads? Do you have three or four good strategies for generating seller leads? If not, take a look at the list below and pick one, implement it and then add a second, or a third. And it is important to note that taking steps to generate the leads rather than hunting the leads can not only be more profitable, it can often be outsourced so someone else does the work day in and day out, so the lead generate gets done despite your potential procrastination and busy schedule.

• Have a Good Converting Website: A good website that is easy for the search engines to find and list in searches is vital in today's real estate. By taking the next step of having great content on that website helps to build your credibility with visitors. And having a good website that entices those leads to leave their contact information, could change your business in 2019.

Learn more about good converting websites at MAREI.org/InvestorCarrot where we have several resources as well as discounted pricing on Investor Carrot. (Do a quick search on google to find that out of 10 Investor Buyer Websites on the first page are from Investor Carrot.)

• Direct Mail Campaign: A good direct mail campaign will have a good message via postcard or letter to a very specific targeted list. There are quite a few resources for direct mail, but a new one to MAREI, REIPRO.com is showing great promise as it provides a way to generate the seller lead list. It also has a tool to clean that list or any list you may have created to make sure you have the most correct mailing address for your lead by checking a forward address and vacant property database. It also has mail pieces you can send right from the system and a way to remove a lead from all lists should they wish to be removed. Take a look at www.MAREI.org/REIPro to learn more about the tools they offer and to get MAREI’s discount code.

• Hand Addressed Envelopes: Part of a good direct mail campaign is going to be sending letters and part will be sending postcards. If you are sending letters, having those letters Hand Addressed is key to getting them opened. A good resource for getting your letters hand addressed for you is A3 Marketing. Learn more about them and get a discount code at www.MAREI.org/A3

• Driving For Dollars: This entails driving in an area where you want to purchase looking for rundown properties. When you find one, stop and leave a business card, flyer or letter on the door and add the address to list. Once you get home, look up the owner of the property and send them a letter, possibly with a photo of their run-down property in case they don’t’ know what it looks like. There is an app in the app store called Deal Machine that is supposed to let you send a postcard from your phone while you are sitting in the driveway.

• Facebooking for Dollars: There are a few courses on how to use Facebook to generate seller leads. One of the easiest is to share blog posts from your website talked about earlier and posting from time to time that you buy houses. But we find really interesting is those houses that we are very much interested in, but our attempts at sending mail to the owner fails. This is where a little online research in finding the right person who is the owner or who might be an heir or family member to the owner and contact them through Facebook or LinkedIn might generate one extra deal a year.

• Bandit Signs: You’ve seen them at the side of the road. Little cardboard signs that say I buy houses and includes a phone number.

You can make them out of old cardboard or you can buy them . . . but do be aware, many cities in the metro frown on bandit signs and have huge fines. So rather than the traditional bandit sign, go for a bitter one in the form of a large sign on your car, in the yard of your own home and in the yards of all your properties you purchase. Or go even bigger with billboards.

• Advertising and Reverse Advertising: There are several great places to post ads, the local paper, the penny savers and Craigslist come to mind. You can also take a look at all the for sale by owner ads and for rent by owner ads in these publications, look up the owner and send them an email, a text or a letter with a short message geared to where the lead was found to see if they might have a property to sell you. Other items to consider: estate sales and garage sales. In legal publications look at the ads for probate, foreclosure, bankruptcy, and divorce.

Do you have a strategy that is really working for you, we would love to see what’s working for you.