Our market here is ridiculously tight. I’be been striking out with listed properties because they all have multiple offers and flippers are overpaying for their rehabs. I’m going to start targeting properties going into foreclosure.

This is a blue collar area, and I’m thinking they don’t want someone to send them a note saying something along the lines of “Hey, loser! I see you are losing your house. I can buy it for cash because I’m a rich @$$£§€¥”

Roy’s handyman ad is perfect appeal, but I don’t know how to transition that to a letter.

I start out with a letter in a hand written envelope. I just write that I'm looking to buy a fixer upper house in the area and if they or anyone they know how one to please call me. Then I put their address in an envelope and send a postcard every 3 months for the next 2 years.

I store the envelopes in chronological order and sit down with coffee in the mornings that I'm due to send them and start writing them out.

The owner of the $8,500 smoke house I bought a year and a half ago had a stack of my post cards! Haha. She said them and finally called.

On my postcards it says "Thinking of selling your house?" "We buy houses!"

Then my info and target area.

It's subtle and professional looking it's not obnoxious and in your face.

"Farming by mail" will yield nothing.

Homeowners get them by the dozens every week, and they all go to the trash.

- I get hand written pleas to sell, with a family photo (including the family dog) attached.

- How about this outfit "We buy ugly houses"?

- I get buyers with all cash offers.

- I get realtors who send small gifts.

And on and on.

All letters get thrown in the trash.

In 40 years of RE investing with properties all over the county, which are not in my personal name, I have never received a WE BUY letter on ANY of my props.

NE said, "I also have an ad running somewhat like Roys and do bandit signs".

Roy, there's really nothing to see. I either run "We buy houses" and my phone # or "Looking to buy a fixer-upper house" and my phone #, that's it.

I also run ads on table placemats at restaurants. . I get a lot of calls from them too.

I also have "we buy houses" pens and business cards.

Everybody loses pens all over, so I just take them with me wherever. If I lose it, great.

Business cards I leave on restaurant tables and counters and community announcement boards. As well as leaving one in the drive thru tube at the bank, when I go through there.

My goal is to be first in line when a seller gets ready to sell. So I have to saturate my area.

Fred, I'm going to challenge you on this. *grins*

I get those too, and yes, in the past they'd have all gone into the recycling bin. But, now I'm going to collect them in the pocket of my pick up, and when I see that fellow landlord, with the union stickers all over her vehicles, but she won't hire union people apparently to fix her houses, I'm giving them to her. She gets decent tenants, but they don't stay, because she doesn't fix anything, according to the tenants. She spends about two months a year incurring vacancy at each of the houses I know about. Apparently she doesn't do math, because two months vacancy hires a lot of union plumber, electrician, et cetera.

Its not that EACH card gets a response, its that eventually, that ONE property owner with a stack of these cards makes the call...

For those who do these cards, just a couple of calls might make their year.

I, for one, am glad there are others out there scooping up the run-down properties and putting them back in service. NE's model, where he doesn't do anything but safety on the properties with sketchy title is even good. He does address safety, and tenants that I wouldn't want to deal with have a place to go. So, even at the low end, it is improving housing in our cities, towns. And , if the title is clear, the house can get betterments, and, if a sketchy tenant does well, he could always move them up to a better house.

So, for me, its all part of the RE ecosystem.

NE - if you want to do the magnet thing - they have ones on a amazon that you stick your card to. Much cheaper than ordering custom magnets - I priced them out for something last year. Good job for your kids if they are old enough.

REmaven, the sticky magnets are what I was referring to. I absolutely would start with a letter and if the house is REALLY good, I hand write the letter and the envelope. The envelope always, the letters when the house is good.

Why?

Who sends hand written letters in 2018?

Fred of CA I total disagree with you that prospecting mailings do not work. For you personally you are not in a financial hardship position to talk with a prospecting mailing. People that are in a financial hardship situations want out and the card they receive is their safety net to get out from a financial situation.

OR the person wants out of the real estate for whatever the reason; divorce, death, to many headaches if they are landlords.