Thank you, sir. May I have another? 🙂
Here is what happened during the Thirty Fourth week of documenting our flipping houses business on this blog. If you missed the first post explaining what I am doing, please visit this page: See How We Are Flipping Houses.
These are the things I did this week:
Front Yard Stink House Wholesale Closed
Yes. I said the Front Yard Stink House was wholesaled. My intentions were to fix it and sell it with owner financing. With 4 rehabs going, it was just sitting and waiting for work to be done. Stuck a sign in the front yard and put an ad in the paper to sell it as-is for cash.
The second family I showed it to wanted it. They are going to fix it up and live in it. It’s an interesting story really.
You can read all about it here (very interesting story) and see the wholesale flip numbers.
One Contractor Awesome – The Other…
I’ve had two new crews working at the rehabs over the last several weeks. One contractor was very professional and I did not have any problems with him. Work was great, he was on time. The extras did not cost a fortune and some minor extras were just done for free. This is what you want.
The other guy….ARRGH!
I don’t know how many times he told me he was finished. The house is about 45 mins away from where I now live so it really was wasting my time every time I went out there. I don’t think I’ve ever had to write that many punch lists. The items that needed to be fixed or were just not done were even plastered with blue tape so that they could walk through the house and know where things needed attention. After the first round, they even removed some of the tape and did not do the work. It’s hard to keep a level head at this point. Trust me, he knew I was not happy. I’ll just leave it at that.
Can you guess who is going to get the next job? The problem contractor because he keeps things interesting. Just kidding, of course. 🙂
Bandits Were Busted
Had my guy put out 40 bandit signs. I wanted to get the phone ringing right away so I had him put them up on Tuesday. Not a good idea.
He called me and was frantically telling me that code compliance stopped him and hassled him for a long time. He then made him drive back down the really long and busy street to pull the signs he just posted off the poles. He followed him and watched him take them down. He left some on the side streets and I got a couple calls from those, so it wasn’t a complete waste of money.
They are REALLY cracking down on those things these days.
(Part of me is wondering about this whole situation though. Reason being that the code compliance office did not call the number on the signs. Hmmmm.)
Perp House Going Under Contract
Melissa got a call from a buyer wanting to see the Perp House. After seeing it, they decided they wanted it. 🙂 Not bad for a first showing. Their credit, income, and job history were great. All looks good and we will be closing within a couple of weeks. Numbers and after pictures will be posted shortly after closing.
Flipping Junkie Format To Change
I’ve done a lot of thinking about the format for the posts on this blog. With this week’s leads, there have been almost 500 leads discussed. Lately, it’s felt like I am just repeating myself with most of them and have grown a little tired of talking about each one (not to mention the time it has taken). I’m not exactly sure how much will be changed, but for now I’m sure that I will not be discussing each lead after this week.
I’d like to start providing more how-to posts and helpful and entertaining stories to jazz things up a little. The posts might not be weekly (that part is starting to feel too much like a job lately – and J.O.B.s and I just don’t agree), but there should be more variation and hopefully more helpful information. That way there might be more than one post per week on occasion and when I want to spend the week playing basketball with my daughters or flying or just lounging around, I can without feeling guilty about not putting the weekly post out. Besides, my son is on the way and will be here very shortly (6 weeks! Woohoo!) and our schedules are likely to be pretty hectic.
So, thank you all for following along and being a part of this and I hope that the change will be for the better.
Marketing
Total Motivated Seller Leads This Week: 20
| Lead Source | Leads This Week | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bandit Signs | 2 | From the few that stayed up. |
| Yellow Pages | 2 | For a picture of my ad, visit the ‘The First Week’ post. |
| Buying Website | 13 | For a link to my site, visit the ‘The First Week’ post. |
| Drive For Dollars | 0 | Been a while. |
| Wholesale Deals | 1 | Made Offer |
| Absentee Owner Mailing | 0 | Have not mailed in a while. |
| Probate | 0 | Have not mailed for several weeks. |
| Craigslist | 0 | Just a basic ad saying we buy houses. |
| Referral | 1 | Word of mouth. FREE |
| REO Realtor | 1 | Not good though. |
Total Leads To Date [495] Deals Under Contract To Date [11]
‘to date’ means from when I started keeping track of this information on this blog (late March 2011) to the present.
This is the total number of leads for each source and the number of deals put under contract from each lead source.
| Lead Source | Total Leads To Date | Â Â Put Under Contract |
|---|---|---|
| Buying Website: | 277 | 7 |
| Bandit Signs: | 66 | 2 |
| Yellow Pages Ad: | 55 | |
| Absentee Owners: | 29 | 1 |
| Driving For Dollars: | 18 | |
| Probate Letters: | 11 | 1 |
| Wholesalers: | 13 | |
| REO Realtors: | 8 | |
| Referrals: | 10 | |
| Realtors: | 3 | |
| Craigslist: | 2 | |
| MLS Search: | 2 | |
| For Sale By Owner: | 1 |
[UPDATE: I am now offering websites for real estate investors just like mine. Check out LeadPropeller.com to see how you can generate more motivated seller leads.]
Leads Analyzed
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 1800 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $134,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $134,000 |
| Repairs: | None (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $135,000 |
| Max Offer: | $88,000 – repairs |
Military and he is to be relocated. He has it listed with a rental agency, but has had no takers for several months. There is just too much owed. Next.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1700 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $118,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $118,000 |
| Repairs: | None (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $120,000 |
| Max Offer: | $78,000 – repairs |
Homeowner cannot afford to keep the house and needs to sell. The problem lies in the fact that they owe what it is worth. Once again, can’t do it.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1000 sf house in a not-so-good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $47,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $47,000 |
| Repairs: | slab leak and cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $55,000 |
| Max Offer: | $30,000 – repairs |
Seller has the misfortune of most likely having a slab leak and the resulting serious foundation problems. These houses are no joke and usually require a lot of costly repairs. Too much is owed to even consider anyway. I don’t want to have anything to do with this house.
Homeowner wants to sell a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 1800 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $110,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $100,000 |
| Repairs: | trashed – mostly cosmetics and AC (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $120,000 |
| Max Offer: | $78,000 – repairs |
Seller lives about 4 hours out of town and had this house rented. The tenants trashed the house and she just evicted them. She no longer wants to be a landlord and is coming to town to show the house and sell it quick. I’m afraid that is not possible for me with what she owes. No thanks.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, single-wide ’95 palm harbor home.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $50,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | not sure |
| Max Offer: | not sure |
The seller mentioned just needing to get out of it. He does not live there and wants to get the cash out of it. This is in an area my dad buys in so I just passed it on to him.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1200 sf house outside of town.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $160,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $115,000 |
| Repairs: | none (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $100,000 |
| Max Offer: | $65,000 – repairs |
Seller rehabbed this house and had it sold once but the buyers backed out. The MLS did not show any listing changes to reflect it being under contract at any time (it was listed). His idea of the value is super skewed and way too high. I’m not remotely interested.
Homeowner wants to sell a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 800 sf house in a not-so-good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $50,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | a lot (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $50,000 |
| Max Offer: | $25,000 – repairs |
Seller inherited this house and does not know what to do with it. He lives out of town and would like to just sell it and avoid the hassles of becoming an out-of-town landlord. I’m not interested in this type of property in this part of town so I birddogged it.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1400 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $110,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $100,000 |
| Repairs: | cosmetics and minor foundation (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $115,000 |
| Max Offer: | $75,000 – repairs |
This is another situation where knowing what has happened with a listed property really helps in determining what it should actually sell for (or at least what it hasn’t sold for). This house has been on the market for a long time and has not sold. When the house does not look like it needs much in the way of repairs and is on the market, priced at it supposed value, it likely is not really worth that much.
They don’t owe very much less than what they are asking and there is just no way for me to make this work.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1700 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $100,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $84,000 |
| Repairs: | cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $150,000 |
| Max Offer: | $97,500 – repairs |
Seller does not live at this house and does not want to mess with it anymore. She had just had some foundation work done and the house needs some updating. She is not sure whether she wants to sell just yet so I just made a ball park offer. Waiting for her reply and will follow up.
Homeowner wants to sell a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2000 sf house in a so-so neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $80,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $61,000 |
| Repairs: | kitchen and inground pool repair (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $90,000 |
| Max Offer: | $59,000 – repairs |
They cannot afford to keep the house anymore and are having trouble keeping up with the repairs. Though they are asking $80k, I’m sure they will be willing to take a lot closer to what they owe. I would need it still cheaper, so I just birddogged it.
Bank wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1000 sf house in a not-so-good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $61,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $70,000 |
| Max Offer: | $45,000 – repairs |
Realtor called with a new listing for a bank-owned property. The starting price is a little high and there are a lot of foreclosures in the area bringing the prices down and the days on market up. I don’t even really want to follow up with this one because I don’t want it. Even cheap REOs are taking a while to sell.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1300 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $116,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $82,000 |
| Repairs: | cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $105,000 |
| Max Offer: | $68,000 – repairs |
Completely unmotivated seller. Does not need to sell the house, but would simply like to. And for above full market value. Next.
Homeowner wants to sell a 5 bedroom, 1 bath, 2000 sf house in a decent neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $105,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | Everything (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $150,000 |
| Max Offer: | $90,000 – repairs |
This house needs everything. The rehab costs for these old houses can get out of hand very quickly and I would rather avoid them. 5 deals can be done while you are working on one of these. I will be following up to see if I can get it cheap enough to wholesale though.
Wholesaler wants to sell a 5 bedroom, 2 bath, 2000 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $138,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | Cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $180,000 |
| Max Offer: | $117,000 – repairs |
Wholesaler with a deal. Based on my calcs, I would need to buy this one for around 100k. So, no go.
Homeowner wants to sell two 1 bedroom, 1 bath 400 sf houses in a not-so-good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | Make An Offer |
| Amount Owed: | couple thousand back taxes |
| Repairs: | Everything (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $? |
| Max Offer: | $? |
Selling because she is disabled and cannot keep up with them. Also owes taxes. Too small. Birddogged.
Homeowner wants to sell a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1500 sf house in a good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $65,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $40,000 |
| Repairs: | Foundation and Bathrooms (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $105,000 |
| Max Offer: | $68,000 – repairs |
House needs complete leveling and the bathrooms need remodeling. I’m sure there are other cosmetics that are needed as well (especially if we level the house). Scheduled to see this one.
Homeowner wants to sell a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1600 sf house in a decent neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $60,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $? |
| Repairs: | Unknown (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $90,000 |
| Max Offer: | $58,000 – repairs |
Facing foreclosure. Going to see this one.
Homeowner wants to sell a 5 bedroom, 2 bath, 1400 sf house in a not-so-good neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $50,000 |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | Everything (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $50,000 |
| Max Offer: | $25,000 – repairs |
Sleepy landlord. Doesn’t want to deal with tenants anymore and would like to dump this headache and nightmare factory. I don’t want it either so it is going to a buddy as a birddog deal.
Realtor working a short sale on a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2000 sf house in a decent neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | $85,000 |
| Amount Owed: | More than 90k. |
| Repairs: | Cosmetics (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $110,000 |
| Max Offer: | $66,000 – repairs |
Realtor working a short sale and needs a cash offer. Will go by and make one.
Homeowner wants to sell a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1200 sf house in a so-so neighborhood.
Here are the numbers:
| Asking Price: | Make An Offer |
| Amount Owed: | $0 |
| Repairs: | Everything (unconfirmed) |
| After Repaired Value: | $70,000 |
| Max Offer: | $45,000 – repairs |
Tenants moved out, but not before trashing it. Makes for a good buy. Going to take a look at this one also.
Summary
Leads picked up quite a bit this week. With the rehabs pretty much completed, I can focus more on the marketing and flying. Did I say flying, I meant working on the business. 🙂
Plans For Next Week
Please ReTweet and Like this post because it’s the nice thing to do and I truly appreciate it.
Danny
I really like this quote:
Thank you for following along with us on our adventures in flipping houses. We hope you are enjoying it and that it is helping you to learn how to flip houses or improve your house flipping business, whatever the case may be.
Next: Follow Along As I Open Up My House Flipping Business
Comments (51)
Change is good. The last thing we (I) want to read, is a blog put together who feels obligated. Quality over quantity, always.
I had a couple random questions since following from the beginning. BTW, I’ve really appreciated the weekly evaluations. Real world examples with real numbers really helps to vizualize your thought process as well as ground it all in reality. For example, we can see most people are tire kickers or owe too much and most of the time, its not a deal. But we also get to see the diamonds among the junk. But since you have been doing the same thing a long time, I believe change is good. Anyone can go back and review all the old posts to get the same info. Anyway, questions:
1. You seem to get a lot of leads from your website. At some point, could you explain your internet marketing and website? For example, you have a more developed site, rather than a simple splash page. Reasons/opinions for one over the other? Regarding advertising, I assume you use google adwords. Some details into that would be nice as well.
2. As you go down your leads, first, I assume you call back everyone to get more details? From my limited website experience, people tend to put the bare minimum to fill out forms so I assume the details are from your callbacks. Also, sometimes you will ballpark a figure over the phone but not always. For example, when the deals seem really juicy(asking price near your max offer price + high motivation), you make appointments. Could you explain your opinion on making offers over the phone or not?
Thanks for the compliments Jon.
Answers to your questions:
1. I’ve just always felt that a more ‘filled out’ website would be more attractive to sellers. They usually don’t know how the process works and have questions. It’s also great to be able to show testimonials and build credibility. Single page sites probably do just as well when it comes down to the actual ‘motivated’ sellers. They don’t usually care about most of the info and just want to get an offer to get rid of their house. So, if you look at it like that, it really doesn’t matter as long as they can find you when they look for you. Not ready to share all of the adwords stuff just yet.
2. Yes, I do call back or email every lead for more information and to build rapport. Hands down, visiting the house and making an offer in person is way more productive. Offers over the phone should only be made if you sense that they are unmotivated and/or you don’t like the deal. If it remotely has the possibility to become a good deal, you should see the house and make the offer in person.
Ok I understand the adwords thing is tricky and everyone is competing for these words. Maybe you can answer this then: I have just a single page to capture seller leads. I had initially targeted nationwide but 100% of the leads that came in were out of state properties. Even though my web address, google ad, and in big red letters on the page say what city and state I am buying. I then narrowed my ads to my state only but I feel like I am missing out on all those out of state owners. Is this normal or am I missing something? I hate wasting my adwords money on these sellers.
You should just narrow the area down to your local area and maybe some surrounding towns. If you are even allowing any searches from across the entire state (especially if there is another big city or several big cities that you do not buy in) you could be throwing away a ton of money as you are paying for clicks from people that likely do not have a house to sell in your area. If you want to try and capture leads from people searching from other locations, just have a second campaign with keywords that all include your location (i.e. ‘buy my house
dallas’).
I agree with Shane. Changed is good! Keep up the good work! Love it!
Thanks, James.
Danny, You’ve done an excellent job! It’s OK to make changes in the style or format. But don’t stop posting the weekly flipping junky!!
Thanks for sharing all your hard work…it’s helps me to know where I should focus my attention in our investment LLC.
Mark
Tucson AZ
Thanks, Mark.
I’m still considering how I’m going to go about it. I should still be able to post at least weekly and will probably be more inclined to post more often if I do not stick to a strict format.
Thanks again for letting me know how much the blog helps.
Danny,
Maybe, instead of listing each lead, you can add a category called ‘Leads with No Equity’ and just say how many you got from each source. It seems that a lot of leads owe too much and you still put the info there. This could save you a lot of time. I still like see how many leads you have to go through to find a deal – this is the real work.
I have been following your lead and buying houses to flip. I now have contract of two houses. The first I bought as a rental (before you inspired me). It should make about $15k on this one. I have been trying to close it for 4 months (REO Bureaucracy). I had an offer accepted yesterday where I should make about $35k. It’s a little scary because I have never been inside the house. You can read about the details on my blog.
I am running out of financing options, but still looking for more. I am still trying to generate some leads. I have a website up and running but I am not getting traffic.
I am still trying to figure out how to get that #1 spot on Google. Yesterday, I setup an adWords account and I am still working on keywords. Part of my site targets investors (like your wholesale buyers list) and I am concentrating the adWords here initially so I can develop some contacts. I would like to wholesale but I do not know anyone.
I stole a lot of ideas from your website – hope you don’t mind.
Can you give me any tips for getting my site ranked higher on local searches?
With adWords I can restrict to a city. However, with a Google search I have only been able to find a place to set the country. Is this just done with keywords and content?
Thanks for all your help.
Hey, Don.
Glad to hear you are making progress. You will find buyers as you try to sell deals. You can without deals, but when you actually have a deal under contract that you are pushing, you really see who are the actual players. They will be the people that respond to you right away and don’t ask a million and one questions. The ones that say they will call you back and never do, or tell you they will check it out in a couple of days, are usually a waste of time.
I hope you didn’t plagiarize anything word for word from my site.
You are correct in that for search, you target with your use of keywords on your site. Include your city or town or whatever as text in your title, header tags, links, etc.
I did not plagiarize from your site – I just used similar concepts. I still don’t think I have as much content as you do. You can take a look and I will remove anything you think I should.
http://sellmyhouseinwarnerrobins.com/
Do you think your blog helps the rating of your lead generation website?
How long did it take you to get the #1 Google spot?
The #1 spot in my area is not for direct competitors. The top few results go to real estate agents.
No problem, Don. Now I remember seeing your site. I trusted that you didn’t so please don’t think I was angry. Your site looks pretty good.
Yes, the link from the blog to the site does help with rankings. It won’t boost you to the top, but it will help.
It took me a long time to get to the top (over a year).
I agree with the change Big Danny, I am sure it was getting old entering all that raw data all though there are plenty of numbers nerds loving it. I’m so burned out on blogging too its not even funny, but we keep pushing. Like you said its fun to show neat tidbits and keep it fresh. Good luck with the new format, I’m sure it will work out with how much stuff you have going on. Happy Holidays too to you and yours!
Thanks, Tom.
With all of the rehabs going on, our move and all associated with it, I was feeling like I was neglecting what was most important to me. This caused me to stop and take a deep breath and look at everything I’m doing and how I felt about all of it (which I highly recommend everybody do from time to time). Which of course led to considering how to devote more time to what matters most to me while making the blog more interesting and fun for me to continue.
I hope you also have very happy holidays!
Danny,
Your blog is a god-send through all the “I got the answer” courses offered. Per the discussion above, looks like adwords as brought a lot of your leads. Can you give me a rough idea of cost of your adwords marketing budget ?
Keep it coming !!
John
Thanks, John.
Adwords has given quite a bit of leads, but I also get a lot from the normal search results listings. I spend about $200-$300 per month on adwords.
So really stupid question I’m sure, but…….what’s ‘normal’ search ..??
Love it, john
What I was referring to is the natural search results that you get when you type in a search in Google. The search results that are not paid for.
Great Results! It seems you are not mailing to anyone that is in the pre-foreclosure process? If this is the case, is there a particular reason for it?
Just one word: COMPETITION
Too much competition with pre-foreclosure. Can be a great source of leads, just more work than I’m willing to put in to compete with everyone else chasing them.
Hi Danny, I was wondering if you had a percentage limit on how much is owed compared to what the house was worth?
Bill
Not really. Just that what is owed is below the After Repair Value times 65-70%. If they mention that the house needs everything redone and they owe right at 70% ARV I probably won’t bother with it as it is likely to require a high repair cost that will destroy any potential of being a deal.
Thanks for the response. I’ve been on every site on the net and there’s not a one that can compare with yours. By the way, that lead tracker (which I use) is a fantastic item. Thanks again. Bill
Hey Danny, I was wondering if you were putting your website address on your direct mail pieces for driving for dollar leads, probate letters, absentee owners, or even your yellow page ads? And if so, does this mean that a lot of your “Buying website” leads come from your website plugs in your direct mail pieces?
The reason I am asking is I am curious about roughly what percent of your website leads come from being #1 on the search engines, what percent come from pay per click ads, etc, because your lead results seem to be extremely lopsided towards your website!
Thanks for your time!
Hey Kyle.
I only put it on the yellow pages, flyers, doorhangers, business cards. Not on bandits or most absentee letters or probate letters.
The bulk of the web leads are strictly from the web and not from the other marketing.
Oh wow, I’m definitely going to try getting a website going with #1 on SEO in my area. Though, I have no idea how to do that or what the key search phrases are haha.
I know some investors who will negotiate with the lenders on some of the leads that owe too much to make a deal work by paying off the current mortgage balance. Do you ever do this? Seems like a lot of work
Hey Kyle.
I used to work short sales but no longer do. They just take too much time and effort and I couldn’t stand when a lender would wait until the people were less than a week from foreclosure auction to inform us that they were not going to accept the short sale. This left the seller with even fewer options.
Hey Danny, after looking over the results you returned from your website, I’ve decided to make one of my own. I’m assuming I should keep the search engines in mind when I pick what content/phrases to put, but the issue is that I have little idea of what the keywords/phrases I should use are, or what else I should do to get at the top of the search engines. I was wondering if you would be able to give any pointers, or what you did to get at the top in your area?
I’m if I should stick to just localized words/phrases, as in only pertaining to the cities/counties I buy in, and use long tail search phrases?
If this is the case the only issue I have is finding out what key words to use and then how exactly to fit them into my site. I’ve tried that google keyword tool to find out how many people search select localized phrases, but it doesn’t show the number of searches when the phrase I use has my city in it, for some strange reason.
Kyle,
My competition would just love what I have to say about this. 🙂
Seriously though, you should get a current SEO (search engine optimization) book and read that as it will go into much more detail that I can go into here and it’s what I did.
About the keywords, my best advice is to set up an Adwords account and try out keywords and see how many people click on which keywords. This is the best way to find out which ones generate the most traffic in your market. You are on the right track with focusing on localized phrases and keywords. It’s much easier to compete locally than nationwide and that’s probably all you want anyway.
The other option is to look at who is at the top in your area in the results and see which keywords they have for their title and other meta-tags.
Danny
I just finished reading all weeks. Again, thank you so much.
Glad you enjoyed it, Eric.
I have been reading a lot of the weeks and it has been great info. Gives me hope that someday I can leave behind the annoying jobs I have had and move on to a much better life I control.
At this time I don’t really have much money and want to start out birddogging and sending leads to wholesalers. Where do I start if I’m not interested in buying properties? Do I just do the marketing like you and then just push all the calls that are decent leads to someone else for a fee? Or would I just look for places without all the marketing?
Hey Kevin.
You could do it either way. I would suggest doing the marketing to motivated sellers though as most investors don’t want to be told about leads that are on the MLS and you can have the motivated sellers call you.
Do you use your own cell number or do you get another phone just for business when posting bandit signs and such and keep yours for personal?
Hey Kevin.
I just use my personal cell phone number. Some people use Google Voice rather than getting another phone. It’s free.
[…] marketing starts costing too much per lead and per deal. Per deal is what matters most. After several months of marketing you should be able to calculate what your different marketing methods are costing to get a lead and […]
Kyle,
You can get Voice Over IP for $3. Voipo is the one I use and I have 5 numbers coming to my cell phone.
Hi. I’m new to your site and have read some of the weeks posted above. Thank you so much for taking your valuable time to share openly with us investors all of your ‘tricks of the trade’. You have shared several tips on marketing yourself to sellers, but what are the most cost-effective methods that you use for selling your properties at retail to buyers once they are rehabbed? I’m assuming that you avoid working with realtors and paying them 6%? Do you generate all of your leads through signage at the houses and your website, which, again, is geared towards motivated sellers, not buyers. Thanks, in advance, for your advice!
Ahne,
Actually, we do use a Realtor to list and sell our rehabbed homes. We used to sell them ourselves but have gotten to the point where our time is more valuable and we would rather use our time to focus on other things. It is a lot to give up but feel it is worth it to us at this point.
Danny,
Thanks for responding. I’m curious to also know whether you exchange your properties when you sell to avoid paying capital gains (a good strategy if you’re constantly buying more)??? But if you were to do that with every sale, I suppose you wouldn’t be collecting any income, so perhaps you sell outright, paying full cap gains on some properties, and exchange others? Knowing what you do, would help us devise a strategy for ourselves, as we are grateful to benefit from your experience and knowledge. (So far, we’ve always sold and pd c.g., but have considered the benefit of exchanging…)
Gratefully,
Ahne
I do not do exchanges.
It really depends on your situation and is something that would better be discussed with a tax professional. We sell and pay the cg. We also have rentals and sell some on owner financing.
Hi Danny,
Just found out your websites 2 days ago, I really appreciate what you did. This is precious information that you gave out for free. The analysis just talks by itself. I flipped 3 houses and always had in mind to do at least 30K profit, but now I’m stuck in the “how to bring high quality leads with the least effort” minding. Having now some coaching to fine tune all of it. I really thank you for what you did. Hope you won’t stop giving back your gift.
Patrick
Thanks, Patrick.
That’s great that you are thinking about fine tuning your strategy. That’s the way to always be thinking.
Hi Danny,
One quick suggestion on the format- since you encapsulated it over a specific period of time with all the stats, could you add a summary income/expense for the period as well? In that way, others (like me) can get a better sense of what it really takes to do this business and what potentials are there from someone who has done it. It would help with the naysayers too! 🙂
Hmmmm….something to consider. Thanks.
Hey Danny,
I used to visit your site frequently a few years back when I was first looking to get started. Fast forward to today, and I’m doing well enough that I am working real estate investing full time now. A big part of my success is due to the knowledge, as well as the inspiration, that I got from flippingjunkie.com!
One of the biggest things I took away from flippingjunkie.com is the leads and deals you generate from your lead generating website. I have a few sites that solidly generate a low volume of deals annually, but I am looking to step it up tremendously. And unfortunately, I do not have the time or expertise to manage the Pay-per-click campaigns, nor the SEO. However, I am prepared to spend whatever money is necessary in order to get sites that regularly produce deals all over the Northwest.
My only issue is, picking an SEO guy or PPC guy that I can trust to get the job done. After struggling to even know where to begin in finding a trustworthy expert, it occurred to me that if anyone might know, it would be you.
Do you know of any individuals/companies that you could recommend whom have the time and knowledge to be able to regularly work on my site(s) – focusing on PPC campaigns, as well as SEO (focusing on getting #1 for numerous key search phrases)?
Or do you know of how I can find/interview one? My biggest issue is that I am not an expert in web marketing, so it would be very hard for me to know what to even ask.
Lastly, does leadpropeller.com offer any such services?
Best,
Kyle
So in 34 weeks, thats quite a few properties–nice!
Can you break down the cost per lead and cost per sale per campaign type?
I calculated a 2.2% lead to deal rate. What about total est. time to market/work the leads? If I hire someone instead of doing it myself, I’d want to figure the rough cost.
Best blog ive read on flipping so far!!!
I don’t have exact numbers for that time period, but I’m pretty sure the cost per lead usually averaged around $50 and cost per deal somewhere around $2,000.
Working the leads never takes that much time. Once you know what you are doing it’s usually a matter of 5 minutes for duds and maybe 3 hours (including meeting seller at house) for workable deals.
I know this thread is 4 years old, but wanted to say thank you for putting together this 34 week “life of a wholesaler” series. I actually read through it all during a long flight overseas. Great education. Hope you are still wholesaling away 🙂
Hey, Tony.
Thanks! Yes, we’re still flipping.
Danny