Ah, here is where the fun of the business can really be...that is if you are a social person like myself. If not, then you will most likely focus on the methods of building a buyers list that do not require a lot of social interaction. For the rest of us this is where you will be networking with a lot of other people, building relationships that will help you far more than just having people on your buyers list. Done correctly you will find Real Estate investors like yourself that can help you out as money partners; sell you great deals; mentor you and give you great advice or secrets; give you contacts such as general contractors for rehabbing, tax help or title companies; or of course simply investors who want to join a wholesale buyers list so they can get great deals from you! I have met a lot of interesting people in this business and I have found almost all of them are very helpful.
Having buyers in your back pocket is essential if you want to quickly wholesale or flip great deals when you find them. Without a buyers list you are forced to advertise by all means possible (newspaper, bandit signs, flyers, etc) to flip the property quickly...hopefully anyway. With one, if it is large enough and done correctly, you can easily flip properties in a matter of days and take the stress out of weather you can actually sell a property when you find a great deal.
So how does someone start off building a buyers list and what information do we really need from them? Well let me start off by answering the second part of that question first as it is the easiest. The information we need to collect is very basic. We need at a bare minimum their first name and email address...that's it! If you want or are able to collect more information then add in their phone number and fax number. Beyond that, there is no compelling reason to collect anymore information than that for this purpose. Keep in mind you want a large database of contacts you can market properties to and you won't be doing it via the mail or in person; almost all of it will be done through email!
Now the real meat of the problem, how does someone find buyers and add them to a buyers list? This is actually the fun part to me and I pretty much do it all the time naturally. The more you get into this business the more you talk about it to everyone and the more you do, the more people want to know how you are making money. Then suddenly you can easily make contacts with people and get contact info if they would be interested in making money too. However, most "normal" people will not turn into an actual investor, but adding a contact to your list cannot hurt. The best place to build your list by FAR though is your local REIA (Real Estate Investors Association)! Everyone in those rooms are investors or people wanting to become them. These guys are hungry for knowledge! If you can walk up and provide an easy way for them to get properties 30-40% off retail, without them having to do anything, they will happily give you their contact info!
The next ways I build my list is great and also geared toward those of you who are not as social. The best way I know to advertise for almost anything anymore is on the www.Craigslist.org website! It is free and TONS of people are on that site all the time! Heck, I don't even use eBay anymore to sell my personal stuff. Just put ads on Craigslist saying you are a local investor trying to sell great wholesale deals and looking for other investors and tell them to reply to the ad via email with their contact info and BAM, you have a way to constantly advertise and build your list...for free!
Another great way to build contacts is through social networking online with sites like Twitter and Facebook. You can join Real Estate investing groups and them simply advertise to those groups that you are looking for investors interested in wholesale deals for rehabbing or rentals. Now I had a personal account I used on Facebook to keep in contact with friends and family and I didn't go through the hassle of creating a new one specifically for business purposes, this is a decision you need to make on your own. However you choose to do it, this is a great way to add new investors to your buyers list for free as well!
So now that you know how to build your list and you have properties you wish to wholesale to them, now you can just do a mass email to everyone on your list. If you do not have a website, autoresponder or mass email program then my advice is to put ALL of the emails in the BCC section. This will make sure that all recipients do not see hundreds of other emails and get the feeling of being mass emailed, instead they will only see that it came from you and no access to whoever else you sent it to. Make sure to have a bunch of pictures and as much detailed information about the property as you can in the email, or better yet refer them to a website you create with all the pictures and info there. Let them know the profit potential if they rehab it or what rental figures they can get and you will go a long way to getting a high response rate. You will find that your properties are sold very quickly and with little effort!
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