Professional Absentee Letter

Yesterday I put 100 Professional Letters in the mail.  I call them Professional, because well, they certainly look it compared to the handwritten yellow letters I wrote with my first campaign!

I printed them, using Mail Merge, signed them in blue ink, and then hand-addressed the envelopes – the same as with the yellow letters.  This time I included a return address, so that I can track down those with the wrong address.

Here’s the letter I came up with:

I hope I’m getting close to what I was shooting for: personal, but professional, and not gimmicky.  It took me a total of about 2 1/2 hours to prep these letters, and that includes about 2 hours of yelling at Mail Merge – hopefully it’ll be a lot less if I do it again.  It took me 10 hours to prep the handwritten yellow letters.  That’s a huge difference!  I’m hoping the response rate will be similar to the yellow letters – I would love to have a reason to stop handwriting letters.

If you have anything to add, I’d love to hear it!

Absentee Marketing Campaign, Take 2

I’ve finished 100 handwritten yellow letters.  You can read all about it here.  I have a 10% response rate so far, but since many of the letters went out just a few days ago, it’s too soon to know what the final count will be.

10% is a great response rate for direct mail.  But of the ten calls I’ve gotten, only one seems truly motivated enough and in the right circumstances to go anywhere.  I appreciate all the information out there for investors on marketing materials and response rates, but what about actual conversion rates?  Which materials most often convert to sales, and does it always correlate to response rate?  That’s an article that would be worth reading!

As Shae pointed out in this article on BiggerPockets, in her own experience the yellow letter got responses, but failed to deliver the conversions she was hoping for.  So since my hands are so cramped from writing, and since I’m disappointed with the motivation level of my callers, I’m going to do my next 100 letters differently.

I was torn between sending postcards and letters.  Postcards would be so easy, and I’m craving easy at this stage.  But I know that the message is all-important.  What you say is just as important as how you say it and to whom you say it.  I don’t have a reliable postcard, nor am I tech-savvy.  So coming up with a postcard would be more risky for me.  (Although yesterday I watched an interview with Sharon Vornholt who said that she has gotten postcards to work for her absentee owners.  Something to look into…)

I got a 15% response rate from my probate letters in 2010, and I’ve always been curious about why that was.  I tweaked Vena’s probate letter, so I couldn’t chalk it up to her letter alone.  The more I think about it, I think it was the tone of my letter: I was respectful, professional, but also personal.

I got confirmation of that last night watching Sharon’s interview.  She described the type of letter she sends to probate leads and it sounds very similar to my own.  That was so nice to hear (I’m doing something right!  I have good instincts!).

By the way, the interview was fantastic, so follow the link and have a listen.  It especially resonated with me, because, although I’ve dabbled with lots of different types of sellers, I feel most comfortable and have done best with probates and absentee owners, which is what Sharon does as well.

I’ve been working on an absentee letter that is the equivalent of my probate letter.   Something that sounds professional and respectful (no screaming, gimicky, all caps, one-liners), but also very personal.  I’ll post my finished product when it’s ready.  I’m curious to see how much faster the process goes, and obviously excited to track the marketing stats for it.

The Yellow Letter for Absentee Owners

Hello, all.  I’ve rallied the troops (well, myself) and have put together my most recent marketing campaign.  The other local investors didn’t work out, so I struck out on my own.  Due to many circumstances, I decided to do a version of virtual wholesaling in Oklahoma City.  You remember that I’m currently in Tulsa, for my husband’s job, so it’s been an interesting challenge preparing to invest remotely.

Here’s my Yellow Letter for this campaign.  I sent a batch out a week ago, and this simple letter has gotten me a 10.5% response rate and counting.

Why I think it works:

1. Handwritten = Sincere
People are more likely to open mail if it’s personal.  The envelope is addressed by hand in blue ink. The letter itself is handwritten, so they know a real person wrote it.  It indicates to them that I am more likely to be sincere, and not just spam or a large business (which people dislike more than mom-and-pop operations).

2. “My husband and I” = Legitimate
I always include “my husband and I”, even though I do most of the legwork,  because when people see that bit of information about me, I become a Real Person.  I have a husband, so I seem more responsible and legitimate.  I assume “my sister and I” or “my partner and I” would create a similar effect.  It’s actually an interesting sociological phenomenon that if you are able to pinpoint someone to a specific position in society, they feel more comfortable with you.  I am not just somebody, I’m Kelly who has a husband.  Strange, huh?

3.  A Bit of Mystery is Intriguing
I don’t write a return address on the envelope.  Also, I don’t explain myself in detail in the letter.  I sound most likely respectable, probably sincere, but who I am?  Why do I want to buy the house?  What would I offer?  They don’t know, so they are more likely to call to find out.

It’s extremely inefficient to handwrite hundreds of letters, but starting out, it’s worth a 15% + response rate (I’m hoping for somewhere between 20-30%, but I’ll report back).  Some people hand-write one and then make color copies on yellow notebook paper; but to me, that screams “sham”.  If I were to open that letter, I’d think they were trying to trick me into thinking it was really handwritten, when close inspection shows it is not.

It would be better to print letters and then sign them by hand, and have someone else hand address them.  Or hire someone to hand-write yellow letters.  That’s something I might consider in the future, when my time is better spent elsewhere.

2011 Wrap Up

The best thing that happened to us this year happens to be named Madelyn Ruth Payne, born on February 12.  It was a complicated, intense and scary birth but that was the worst of it.  She cooed, she slept she smiled and we all adjusted much better than my fears and plans allowed.  Praise God!

She is 10 months old now and I have decided I was right, after all, in giving myself an entire year for an adjustment period.  Not the standard 6 weeks or even 6 months.  I gave myself 12 months before I would think of losing weight, of making plans, pursuing adventures, or have the house running smoothly.  This is surely not necessary for everyone, but for me? with my third child?  Yes, it was, and the grace has been life-giving.

Without even realizing what was happening, in the last eight weeks or so I found myself wanting to organize the laundry and meals and what-nots in the house, and talking to Aaron more often about our debt and goals and dreams and brainstorming ways to move forward.  Just like that, my period of adjustment has ended all by itself, gradually and organically, without judgmental pressure or condemning “should haves”.

At the beginning of November, I was chatting with a friend of my husband’s family and discovered he and his partner were in over their heads with their real estate ventures.  They had leads coming in but not enough time or a good enough plan or system to follow-up.  I asked him if he’d ever considered having someone come in to help him coordinate his deals, to take over the tedious process of follow-ups, negotiations, comps, contracts and closings.  They had and in fact were looking for someone!

I emailed my friend, Shae, a veteran investor, asking if she thought there was an opportunity to partner up with or offer a sort of transaction coordination service to busy investors.  She did!

Then, around Thanksgiving, I paid an outrageously cheap price to try my friend Shae’s Financial Freedom GPS.  Aaron and I have read books and articles like it before, and are familiar with many of the principles in it.  But we needed a new starting point, and boy did we find it.  Although we were familiar with most of the budgeting concepts, Shae’s approach to getting out of debt and pursuing financial freedom were the first of their kind, as far as I know.  The entire e-book has been intriguing, innovating and inspiring.  Just the ticket!

We have a very exact plan, with aggressive and smart ways to earn quick cash to pay off debt and start focusing on the next stage of our plan: having Aaron quit his j-o-b!

I’m hoping it works out to partner with these two investors, but if not, I already have a marketing plan to find other investors to work with in the area.  We’ll see how quickly this can work, and where all the cards fall in the next few weeks.

Here’s to 2012!

2010 Update

Obviously something is amiss, since I haven’t posted since July.  That “something” is more like a whole sequence of somethings that have interrupted our plans, but have not changed them (if you are an investor, you know this alone is a victory!).

My third pregnancy has turned out to be a difficult one (an experience I haven’t had before), and knocked me to my feet.  Exhaustion, gallbladder issues, back problems, swelling, etc. made it impractical to work as much as I was working before.  Add to that the fact that we are a family comprised of a 4yo and 3yo, and life sometimes came to a halt.

In addition, we found out in October that my husband was being transferred to a different city 1 1/2 hours away from home.  We’ve become a commuter family, traveling back and forth together, while all along trying to sort through our solution to this turn of events.

Despite all this, I am very proud of what my husband and I have accomplished this year.  To emphasize that, I wanted to enumerate those things, mostly for myself and my attitude walking into a new year!

My husband began an unclaimed funds business and managed to close on one deal and begin another.

• The first deal brought in a net of $10,000 before taxes, with only $500 in upstart costs (including training).
• The second deal is an unclaimed fund that will have to go through probate.  If successful, it will net his business $4,000 (before taxes).  Either way, we will be schooled in probate law in Missouri.  :)

I closed on two real estate deals this year, which blows me away.  To close a deal is a very meaningful accomplishment      for me!

• The first deal was a probate that I wholesaled.  For a whopping $500.  (But to see the relief on the woman’s face was wonderful, as well as learning the ropes and being paid to do so!)
• The second deal was a tax sale house (purchased BEFORE the tax sale, directly from the homeowner).  I paid little for it ($1,000), then paid back taxes on it (~$4,000), then cleaned up the property a bit ($750), and then sold it for $9,000, netting my business $3,250.  I was very happy with the experience, and the lessons learned were big ones!

We brought in a total of $13,750 this year and I’m very thankful to see that 2010 was the year when feet were put on the plans of 2009.  :)

In addition to the money, it would take a long time to list all the lessons we’ve learned, but they are invaluable.  We also developed many relationships that have benefited us and will continue to help us meet our goals, and spent countless hours ironing out exactly what those goals are: with a plan, we know exactly where to go!

We’re still working out our 2011 goals, since adding a new baby to the mix is tricky business (trust me on this people!).

I’m happy to end this post, hit publish, and feel the satisfaction of keeping this blog alive, since it represents my progress.  It may be be slower-going than my optimistic and ambitious self would like, but I am thankful and proud that we are persevering, and that will inevitably will lead us to where we want to go.

Happy New Year!

Sold!

In my last post, I told you that we got our first house from marketing to those on the tax sale list.  We spent way too much time these last 4 weeks working on it.  We hired people to tidy up the lot and landscaping, clear the belongings out of the house and have been working on getting clear title.  The owner who sold it to me was a joint tenant on the deed.  The other owner was his aunt, who died in 1999 and he never cleared it up.

Here’s a tip for those of you who might have to deal with this:  if the surviving joint tenant on a deed is NOT the surviving spouse, you WILL have a headache to clear up the title.

In Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Tax Commission must issue an estate tax certificate, stating that the deceased’s estate is clear (in my case, I only had to request a 10 year release, since it had been so long).  Then you take that certificate, along with the deceased’s death certificate, and an affidavit from the surviving joint tenant, all down to the courthouse to file with the county clerk.  That should move the title from both their names to only the surviving joint tenant’s.  I got word from the OTC that I should have that estate tax certificate/10 year release in the mail this week.  It’s been a real hassle to get it done!

Along with the tax sale property we picked up in June, I got my first wholesale deal!   And it’s a PROBATE!  I DID IT! 

The heir is in Detroit and has fallen on hard times.  The house is in a not-so-great part of town and wasn’t worth much.  There was still room to make some money, however, so I put it under contract.

Since I had both properties ready to market, I made my marketing plan and implemented them at the same time.  I re-read Stephanie Davis’ article here, and it was really helpful.  I used a combination of craigslist, signs and calling buyers.  In fact, we had a serious cockroach problem in the Tax Sale House, so we used Stephanie’s craigslist strategy! 

I posted the ad on Tuesday, posted another (non-cockroach) ad for both properties (emphasizing cashflow) on Wednesday, put a FSBO sign in front of one house, called a few people, and by Thursday I had acceptable offers on both.  I had signed contracts on Friday!!! 

We’re set to close next week on the Probate House, and as soon as we get clear title on the Tax Sale house, we’ll close on that one.  By the way, the buyers came from the craigslist ads.

For a happy ending, I wanted to share that my buyer for the Probate House is a guy I know!  I met him at Panera several months ago and haven’t seen him since.  When we met, we got to talking about REI and wholesaling (which is what he does), and he challenged me to go out and just start making offers.  Well, I did.  He was so happy to see that I took his advice, and that he was my first buyer! 

Chicken Little No More

I am happy to report I did NOT fall off the face of the blogdom world because I gave up.  I’m actually ecstatic that it’s because I’ve been so very busy that I haven’t updated.  (Although I will consider it another reason to utilize Virtual Assistants and create more time!)

I have no facts or charts or productivity reports.  Alas, I have no time for it now.  Don’t worry! I am keeping it updated, I just haven’t paid any attention to it.

I can assure you that I have been EXTREMELY productive this month.  In fact, I’m making a baby!  Baby #3 is the temporary name for this precious little one, although I hope to pick something later that has a better ring to it. 

The due date is January 27, 2011, and seeing as how no one (well, almost no one) who reads this blog has any idea of who I am In Real Life (and how hard it was for me after little Emma was born), you might not understand that the very first thought I had when we found out was: Okay, that leaves almost 8 months to create the money in our budget for domestic help! 

It’s amazing what true motivation (should we capitalize that?  Yes…True Motivation.) can do for you.  I have the ball rolling, and I do not feel at all like Sisyphus now.  I feel confident from the fact of necessity.  I must and will and can accomplish our goals.  (Did I mention I have a Superwoman/Megalomaniac complex during pregnancy?  It’s not exactly a complex if it’s real, though, right?)

With that said, my first deal came along!  And it wasn’t at all what I was expecting.  It wasn’t a wholesale deal, it was a short sale, and I have improved my knowledge of REI drastically with this experience.  I just submitted the short sale packet to the lender, which means that I’m only just beginning, eh?  I’m excited at what will happen with this one!

I also bought my first property, through the tax sale.  It was glorious, because Pregnant Super Kelly was able to receive the last-minue call on Thursday evening, work up all the paperwork for the sale late that night, have a mobile notary do the signing, record the deed and pay the back taxes on Friday morning (Yes! He did all that!) – all to stop the sale that would have happened on Monday.

And did I mention I did it all over the phone and computer while I was out of town!?!  How’s that for outsourcing and having a portable business?    I was so overjoyed I forgot to stuff myself with chocolate that day.

Now we need to do a bit of clean up to the property and get that thing sold.  Since I already have the deed and paid so little for it, I’m not in the typical wholesale rush (and thankful for it!).

I have other deals in the pipeline (are newbies allowed to use club lingo?), but my biggest focus is to sell this property so that I can have the $$ to start getting the entire system (namely, VA’s) up and going again. 

Here’s to shedding that Chicken Little feeling I have loathed!

April Showers bring May Flowers

April was a hard month for me.  I’ve been marketing and marketing and marketing and have yet to get a deal.  My “yes”s don’t have enough equity, and my equity’s say “no”.  Here’s what I accomplished last month:

• Sent 68 probate letters
• Created a probate tutorial to outsource my research
• Hired a VA to research 7 months’ worth of probates for $15
• Sent 124 eviction postcards
• Ordered business cards
• Sent 5 vacant house letters

Not bad, but it’s disappointing not to have a deal.  Here are  the results of my efforts:

 

April 2010 Marketing Results

 You can see that probates are my overall winners.  They got me 7.3% this month, and 8.2% overall.

Evictions were horrific.  I have a .008% response rate for April.  I emailed Vena Jones-Cox (inner circle member benefit – yay!) and she gave me some advice on how to tweak it.  I’ll keep working on it.

My vacant houses (Driving 4 $) was amazing.  I sent 5 letters and got a call back.  That’s a 20% response rate!  And she was a yes (it’s a short sale in the workings)!

My total marketing (which began in March) looks like this:
Total pcs sent: 247
Total responses:  12
Average Response Rate: 4.8%

My statistics tell me that I need about 20 responses to get a deal, so I’m counting on that.  With an average response rate of 4.8%, that means I need a total of 420 pieces of marketing mailed to get a deal.  I’ve sent 247, so that leaves 173 more pieces to send.

My goal is still to get my first wholesale contract signed by June 1, 2010.  That means I have 173 pieces to send in the next two weeks! 

Here I go!

English Tea for Me

Scott Costello (at the Struggling Investor) suggested I know my motivation so that I can keep on keepin’ on.

That same day, I was making tea and read on the side of the box: “Native to England…Red Raspberry shrubs grow wild along road sides and in thickets”.

And there it was.

Motivation.

I’ve wanted to go to Europe at least since college, when I became fascinated with its history. And since being introduced to Jane Austen’s novels, I’ve fallen in love with the idea of visting the English countryside.

I immediately imagined this type of holiday, smiled to myself and went back to researching my probate leads!

Elancing My Research

The word “outsource” keeps popping up everywhere around here.  It seems that every investor I come across is talking about outsourcing their work, and the book The 4-Hour Workweek.  (Have you read it?  Should I?)

Well, with my wrist(s) hurting, I thought I’d give it a go.  I went to elance.com and began researching how to post a job.  How in the world do I navigate that place when I don’t even understand that I want to “Get Services”, not “Provide” them??  Maybe I’m too capitalistic, but I kept clicking “Provide Services”.

I decided to just plunge in and posted a job.  Within 10 minutes of posting, I got 8 proposals!  I now have a total of 14.  The majority are from India, and the rest from North America.  I picked my favorite four and sent them a message outlining exactly what I want them to do, and attached my oh-so-savvy probate tutorial and excel template.  I mean, really, you couldn’t guess that I don’t know how to text! 

I have also received a few more calls!  Whoop! (That’s a Texas Aggie-style exclamation, btw.)  No deals, but calls.  From Vena Jones-Cox’s statistics, it takes 20 calls (prospects) to get 5 quality leads (suspects) to get 1 deal (cha-ching).  6 people have called me so far.

So even when it doesn’t turn into a deal, I go to my excel marketing summary sheet, enter the call, and see that I am ONE MORE CALL CLOSER TO A DEAL.  Yes.  I. Am. 

In other news, our tax sale season is getting close, and I’m getting uber-excited about the opportunities there.  Lists are published/released at the end of April/beginning of May.  I’ll post about that later!

Take care and do your best to have a great week – even if it is Uncle Sam Week!