92 Ways A Small Real Estate Investor Can Beat Home Investors
When it comes to the home buying business, the little “work out of the house” can easily dominate the corporate giants through simple creativity. Sure, Homevestors can afford to advertise on every billboard in town and have multiple TV commercials at the same time, but if you follow my strategy, you won’t have to. The amount of overhead they spend EVERY MONTH on the brand makes the cost prohibitive for the newbie. If you want to beat the corporate giants, you must think about Guerrilla Marketing tactics. Also, a limited budget can benefit the true entrepreneur. It will force you to look closely at earnings and how much you buy houses for. The numbers will guide you and you will save money instead of throwing cash at your troubles! Over time, that cash runs out and your problems will continue to exist. It’s amazing how the lack of cash will create an incredible focus.
If you have a lot of cash … I want you to keep it … FAR AWAY … Pretend it doesn’t exist!
The key to wholesale real estate is to attract leads from motivated sellers, AS WELL AS finding tons of people who want to buy these homes at wholesale prices to close the deal.
How do we do this “cheaply”?
Well, I sat down the other day and wrote down all the techniques that I personally use to find motivated sellers and buyers for my offers and thought I’d share them with my readers. Now, I must warn you that these techniques work best when used together. You don’t have to use all a hundred techniques at once, but I DO try to use a combination of at least 8 or 9 for any campaign. Different strategies will work better for different people, and once you find what works, keep shaking it up a bit and TRY TRY TRY …
Please comment and let me know if you have any other cool low-cost strategies to grab tons of leads … In the meantime, here are 92 lead generation strategies to help you grow your home buying business in no particular order. …
1. Sales letters to selected neighborhoods
2. Classified Ads in “Freebie Papers”
3. Craigslist
4. Create a simple “Magazine” with information that may be of interest to people trying to save their home / divorce / etc. and put them in neighborhood convenience stores. (It can be simple 2 or 3 page black and white). You can print it CHEAP online (Google)!
4. Flyers in cars: Pay neighborhood kids to go to all the malls and Walmart in your area armed with “We Buy Homes” flyers.
5. Brochure distributors at specific locations
6. Special reports
7. “We Buy Homes” Online Page – InvestorPro.com is an excellent manufactured home, or you can build one yourself.
8. Telemarketing – Search your local property appraiser’s website and learn about properties in a particular area that meet your purchasing criteria. Go to – whitepages.com and enter the address to get a phone number. Give them a call and find out if they are interested in selling or if they know someone who is.
9. Electronic newsletters
10. Traditional newsletters
11. Viral Marketing
12. E-books – Write a book on how to easily sell your home without a real estate agent and link to your website.
13. Magazine and paper inserts
14. Bird Dogs: Have a group of worker bees looking for property for you. Pay them $ 1,500 for each deal you make a profit on — They only get paid when you get paid, so get as many as you can find!
15. Presenters
16. Bandit Signs – Some people are totally against them. I put these bad boys all over town … π
17. Family and friends
18. Joint Ventures: There are many other investors who want to partner in their agreements in exchange for their work.
19. Radio announcements
20. Public relations: cheaper than television commercials and more effective. Call your local news outlet and get a “Local Real Estate” story. Example: How to avoid losing your home to the bank in such a horrible housing market and recession. – You will find tons of investors looking for partners or buying wholesale properties from you. Visit my website for a list.
30. Take other investors who have been doing this for years to lunch. Do the same for local small bank presidents, probate and divorce attorneys, world-class real estate agents … you get the picture.
31. Attend industry seminars
32. Gather and use testimonials: I usually carry a video camera at closing to get a video testimonial for my website.
33. Offer a free consultation to discuss how to save people from foreclosure. Of course, if you can help the person by moving a piece of paper or obtaining a leniency agreement, you must. Trust me, it’s worth it because you will be known as the expert and you will start getting referrals to offers that pay much higher sums.
34. Offer to pay the person for their time just to get one foot in the door. Yes, it sounds daring … but it works!
35. Host a free tutorial or seminar.
36. Promote an industry event – Have a booth and COLLECT AS MANY NAMES AS POSSIBLE!
37. Support outstanding people
38. Setting up a Squidoo lens
39. Write Articles Online – EzineArticles.Com is great for that. You can link to your home buying site and get a high ranking on Google.
40. Form alliances with other investors
41. Create a gift, for example, calendars, mugs, posters …
42. Write for the local newspaper
43. Distribute a column
44. Create a flyer and pay the newspaper boy to deliver it when he delivers the morning paper.
45. Conduct a local real estate research and present it to the local media. You’ll get credit for the information in a story again, making you an expert in the industry.
46. ββSubmit articles to those in foreclosure that you find helpful.
47. Advertise on buses, taxis
48. Speak at the local university
49. Panel in professional seminars
50. Write an instruction booklet
51. Make up cards that offer a finder rate
52. Perform pro bono work for charities with real estate ties – Example: Habitat for Humanity
53. Put signs on your car
54. Make polo shirts or t-shirts and distribute them (I prefer polo shirts with a collar
55. Do a publicity stunt – Watch out my friend … π
56. Cross-promote with other investors – Sign in to get an 800 number and advertising. Divide leads evenly or partner with offers.
57. Take part in a contest
58. Create a contest
59. Direct mail to homeowners who have just filed for divorce
60. Promotions with postcards
61. Business cards
62. Offline networks
63. Online networks
64. Go to exhibitions of the house
65. Referrals
66. Speeches
67. Knocking on the door: Take a list of houses that are in foreclosure and start knocking on a few doors. 68. Social Networking Sites -ActiveRain, StumbleUpon – DIGG – MySpace – Facebook There are tons …
69. Christmas cards
70. Birthday cards
71. Thank you cards
72. Value Added Notes / Paper Cutouts
73. Promotional gifts.
74. Writing articles
75. Online Forums: Think Locally
76. Billboards
77. Gift pens / t-shirts / mugs
78. Loss leaders when selling properties
79. Free teleclasses
80. YouTube
81. eBay
82. Mini-courses: Send a large amount of free content to the people who provide their contact information on your website. Investorpro automates this process.
83. Two-step paper advertisement
84. Rotary club
85. Church
86. Schools: Advertise on the PTA flyer or sponsor a school function.
87. Chinese Food & Pizza Parlors: Pay them to send your brochure with every delivery they ship.
88. Drive through older neighborhoods and locate homeowners who seem to be in need of a major repair, boarded up, tall grass, empty.
89. Code Enforcement Department.
90. Find owners who have property taxes.
91. Locate recent successions – View obituaries
92. Let real estate agents know that you buy houses quickly for cash and to alert you if they have pocket ads.
