Direct Marketing #1 – Update

I wrote yesterday about our first direct marketing campaign, and while I thought we were done receiving calls, I was very wrong…

Here are the updated statistics from the first letter of this campaign:

• 1000 letters sent, targeting absentee owners with at least 40% equity on properties in my county
• 94 Phone Calls Received
• Of the 94 Calls, 57 were hang-ups who didn’t leave a message
• Of the 94 Calls, 37 left messages
• Of the 37 Who Left Messages, 5 (nicely or not-so-nicely) asked us to remove their names from the list
• Of the 37 Who Left Messages, 32 asked us to return their call to discuss a property

I also mentioned that we had two potentially motivated sellers of the bunch…turns out one wasn’t overly motivated, but we may have found a couple more:

1. We still haven’t followed up with the guy who has the land to sell. We’re on the fence about making any offer, so we’re going to hold off for now.
2. We met with the gentleman who inherited his parent’s house, and he was a really nice guy. The house is in great shape, and given its location, he should be able to get a good bit more for it from an owner occupant than we’d be willing to pay. We told him that (and I’m pretty sure he knew it already), and had a nice chat about life and real estate before parting ways. No deal here, but a good experience.
3. One of the calls we received was from a guy whose house is underwater, and his tenant (his son) just lost his job. He mentioned to us that he was considering a short sale, and we jumped all over it. We let him know that not only could we help with the short sale negotiation (we have a couple agents we work with who specialize in short sale negotiation), but that we’d also likely be able to make an offer ourselves on the property. Ultimately, he wasn’t ready to commit on the phone, and we’re scheduled to follow-up with him tomorrow.
4. One guy who received our letter had his secretary call us back. After a brief conversation, it was clear he wasn’t motivated to sell, and we were ready to get off the call. Then, the woman asked who we tend to target in terms of buying houses — my wife told her that we generally look for people who are pretty desperate to sell, and who are willing to give a reasonable discount in price in return for a cash offer and a quick close. The woman said that she and her husband have owned an estate property for several years and were looking to get rid of it. We got the address and will be doing some research to determine if it may be something we’re interested in. But, this was a great lesson about being open to opportunities — by staying on the phone for a few extra minutes, my wife found a potential deal from someone we hadn’t even targeted.

I’m still not sure if any deals will come from this batch of prospects, but at least we have some opportunity…I’ll post more after we do some more follow-up…