Unconventional Marketing Approaches
Let me start off by saying that I am working the Los Angeles market right now to pick up properties using the subject to method and have had no deals in over four months. The Southern California market is crazy right now. With the extremely low inventory of properties for sale, any home that hits the market, extreme fixers included, gets multiple offers.
I have posted over 400 "I buy houses" bandit signs over a period of 3 months. The results were five calls, 1 actual home owner and 3 newbie investors who wanted to know if posting signs really worked, and a call from the city to take down the signs.
I have placed a standard "Sell your home for cash" classified ad in the local Pennysaver for three months and gotten only one call from a mobile home owner.
Finally, I have tried postcards to seven hundred out of state owners. I sent them three cards. One every six week . I did get two calls from potential sellers, but both turned out to want full market value (note: I tried to get terms from them but they were not interested).
Bottom line, I am trying to invest full time, but without much success so far I am close to packing it in and waiting for the market to turn. Does anybody have any unconventional techniques to find sellers in a very very strong sellers market? I realize that there is no silver bullet but I am trying to think out of the box. At this point I am willing to try just about anything to reach motivated sellers. Any thoughts?
It really depends on your ability to close. In a strong market your best bet might be to tie up the property even at close to full price for as long as possible. If you are working with a $300k house for example, the property will appreciate at $5k /mo in a 20% market. The longer you can take to close, the more money you make. As far as marketing, things begin to work in the thousands, not hundreds. I don't recommend you spend the money unless you are fully committed.