best way to build a buyers list.

[esandbee]

Looking to build a buyers list..Any and all ideas welcomed..

Thanks.

[Bay Area Brian]

number one way of all time. Hi, I'm Brian the real estate guy, do you presently own your own home? No, have you ever thought about....Yes, have you ever though about..

Well, enjoyed talking to you. Do us both a favor, here's my card and if you hear of someone... (The card with the reward offer).

[scostell]

Craigslist Ads
Networking at REI Meetings
Calling For Rent Signs and talking to the owners
Getting a deal (this works the best)
And like the other commenter before me said, just talk to people

[lauraalamery]

1.   Locate the areas where there are a lot of cash investors. (create trust, understand which properties they want)
How to find high cash sales areas? Have your realtor do an MLS search and look for areas with higher concentration of cash sales in the last 6 months.

2.   Look up in Tax Assessor’s office the properties they bought – it   will have their name and address information (most of them have sites)
If the address is not correct or outdated (sometime the address points to the property they bought, but most likely that is not the property they live in), find them in :
•   Whitepages.com if individuals
•   Secretary of State Business Registration Office if business
•   Send direct mail, email or call

[herbster]

I don't care for this approach but ghost(fake) bandit signs, hand written has worked great for me. Concentrate on the area you want business in. My signs say Cheap house or investor special, xxK cash only, my number. The last time I put some out I had 2 calls before I got home.

[javipa]

What am I missing here?  Finding deals is the hard part, not finding buyers.

And finding true wholesale deals is even harder.

Somebody said that wholesale deals only represent about 10% of the potential deals.  I think this is correct. 

For example there are LOTS of people who own middle-upper price point homes that have no equity that would love to have you take over their payments.  What would you do with that situation you ask...?

This is where having a buyer's list is handy and profitable.  But you could do like my friend Mitch did in KCMO and find upscale buyers with some cash that understood financing and the value of money that were delighted to take over the payments on beautiful homes he found.  He collects several thousand a deal, just putting houses and buyers together.  His referral business is HUGE.

There's other strategies that are great for no/low equity deals, too. 

I'm seeing investors walk from deals where they could easily pocket $3,000 to $5,000 on low-end subject to deals, but they can't seem to break away from low-end cash only situations.  I understand the focus, but man, he's blowing by 5 profitable deals a week, as far as I can tell. 

I would be his backup buyer if I lived closer.   

Anyway, you asked about finding buyers, but let me suggest that you focus first on finding deals, and the buyers will show up without a lot of hand-wringing.

[herbster]

You said what am I missing here. How about the original post.

[javipa]

I re-read the first post herb and my mind and position still hasn't changed.  It's not about finding buyers, it's about finding sellers (of real deals). 

I have never had a problem quickly finding buyers for real deals.  It's the not-so-real-deals that cause me hiccups.

That all said, we can advertise a phantom house for sale on every venue complete with pictures, price, amenities, size and location and terms (if any), and then quickly build a buyer's list.  Our experience is, however, that a buyer's list has a short shelf life.  The folks that are prepared to buy, want a house now, not in three or six months.  So, we've got to keep in contact with them, and keep them interested and curious about what we have coming down the pike.  Otherwise, our buyers will continue shopping and by the time we get a house they would be interested in, they're out of the market.  "What's the shelf life?," you ask?  It's about a month and a half.

So, since the shelf life is so short with any given member of our buyer pool, and unless we're able to maintain a HUGE list (of about 150 names), maintaining a buyer's list is mostly a psychological crutch and not really practical. 

Plus, if we're marketing the home the way we should, with focused exposure to the most likely buyers of THAT house --- with care to highlight and magnify the features that will appeal to a very small, but rabidly interested prospect, a buyer's list only works as well as the houses we offer matches what the prospect called us about in the first place. 

So, if we're all over the place on what we're buying/flipping, maintain a buyer's list is a waste of time.   For example, if we've been advertising a phantom 3/2/2 that is 2 years old, on a 6,500 lot, with a fireplace, jacuzzi, in-ground pool, bonus room, covered patio, RV parking, fenced backyard, on a culdesac, and 3,000 square feet...and then we offer a 3/1/2 with 1500 sqft, no pool, no patio, and no culdesac, what appeal is there.  We've missed our target by a wide margin.  So....then we've got to start from scratch with a new ad campaign, or put up enough phantom ads to cover every type of house we're intending to flip.

My point is still, find the deal first and then find the buyers afterward.  It's a LOT easier, less stressful and less complicated that way.

BTW, if we're actually doing deals on a monthly basis, our buyer's list will automatically maintain itself just from people calling on our actual deals.... FWIW

[chunkoftheearth]

The most important thing I believe when building any kind of list is to actually understand your buyer.  Do you know how many times I've tried building a phantom list over the years?  How about trying to build one for tenant/buyers on a rent-to-own?  Results?  Well, after about a year of doing this it didn't result in any real measurable results.  Why is that?  The buyer's attention span is really short.  And eventually, that 'list' you create will get stale after a few weeks or so.  It's a bunch of crap.  I don't believe in lists.  The old saying is true, find the deal, and the money will show up.  If you have a deal that you are selling say at a steep discount to the general public (i.e 50k below market value) or whatever your particular neighborhood warrants to attract attention, trust me people will jump out of the woodwork to get a piece of it.  For me, after 2 weeks of such callers, I consider the list dead if I'm not able to sell one of my deals to them or shift them to profit in some other sort of way.  I just start to 'deal first' philosophy all over again.

[Carla Hailey]

Look for a good real estate investor website. Check the records in your city and get the names of the people talking about deals and buying properties. Advertisement is also a good medium.

[mveeranath]

Just thought I'd share these out there for those that are having a hard time building a buyers list. I know it's not much, but every bit counts, so yeah I hope it helps.

1. Go to a local real estate club

2. Go to a public auction

3. Ask a renter for the properties he's interested in

4. Look for the "I buy houses" ads in the newspaper

5. Go to craigslist, backpage or any other websites that have ads.

[nsu1997]

I don't care for this approach but ghost(fake) bandit signs, hand written has worked great for me. Concentrate on the area you want business in. My signs say Cheap house or investor special, xxK cash only, my number. The last time I put some out I had 2 calls before I got home.

*stamped*

[john1234]

Is to call up your local state section 8 office, ask for a listing of section8 apartments, call up the owner or send letter to owners, because 78% of these owners are investors like you and I, and they probably motivated to sell.

[angeles]

Great info everyone!  I have just started wholesaling but do not have my first deal yet.  these past few weeks i have worked on marketing and now the calls are starting to come in after i sent a yellow letter to an inheritance list and did my first bandit sign marketing this past weekend.  I have been getting buyers calls from my bandit signs so i think that is a huge way to get buyers as i have been told and also am starting to experience.  I agree with javipa from what i've seen it seems like finding the deals are the hardest part...of course i realize that my letters only started hitting houses a week ago but i have talked to probably 40-50 people from those letters and the bandit signs over the past two days and still no potential deals. does anyone have insight as to how to find these motivated sellers and true wholesale deals?  this is what i have done so far:

500 yellow letters to inheritance list.
50 yellow letters to landlords i found on case.net - i plan on doing a lot more of these but it just takes a bit more time looking those up...
ads on craisglist, backpage and kijiji
bandit signs this past weekend for the first time but my goal is to put out 50 per weekend (unless you think i should do more?)

any other suggestions would be more than welcomed!!  you guys totally rock!
and javipa - i've been soaking up good stuff on flippingjunkie   thanks for all your help!!

[ryanpal]

Great info everyone!  I have just started wholesaling but do not have my first deal yet.  these past few weeks i have worked on marketing and now the calls are starting to come in after i sent a yellow letter to an inheritance list and did my first bandit sign marketing this past weekend.  I have been getting buyers calls from my bandit signs so i think that is a huge way to get buyers as i have been told and also am starting to experience.  I agree with javipa from what i've seen it seems like finding the deals are the hardest part...of course i realize that my letters only started hitting houses a week ago but i have talked to probably 40-50 people from those letters and the bandit signs over the past two days and still no potential deals. does anyone have insight as to how to find these motivated sellers and true wholesale deals?  this is what i have done so far:

500 yellow letters to inheritance list.
50 yellow letters to landlords i found on case.net - i plan on doing a lot more of these but it just takes a bit more time looking those up...
ads on craisglist, backpage and kijiji
bandit signs this past weekend for the first time but my goal is to put out 50 per weekend (unless you think i should do more?)

any other suggestions would be more than welcomed!!  you guys totally rock!
and javipa - i've been soaking up good stuff on flippingjunkie   thanks for all your help!!

are you sure you have the url correct?  case.net shows a computer company.  just curious since i've never heard of that site before.