Anywho, I wanted to share this call from someone with you. It made me chuckle and shake my head.

Sooooo, can anyone tell me what was missing from this message? I wanted to title this “dumb potential buyer messages” but I figured I’d be nice.

Remember my challenge post? So far, no one else has taken me up on my challenge. And it may be a good thing for YOU, because I’m thinking I’m gonna smoke the competition lol

Anyway, since I’ve sort of had a hiatus in the real estate game since I’ve been working on my ATM course, well I thought that I’d be a little rough at getting back into the swing of things.

Ahhhh not so much. I had 4 sellers get in touch with me right after I made my challenge post and I called them all back. One I emailed my “option” agreement that I’d use on their house (and they honestly did sound into things.)

Another I made an appointment to see their home and that home is the one I put under agreement. Anyone looking for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath Cape Cod in Perryville, MD? If so, I know this sweet, wonderful woman who has one available. I’m sure I could put in a good word for ya!

Now I just gotta get that puppy sold. Oh, also put out some bandit signs for my rental property that has been for sale since November. I’m firing the Realtor (yep, my father lol) and going to sell the damn thing myself! I’ve gotten 5 calls on it already. Have an appointment on Sunday with someone on it.

Challenge, schmallenge. I’m gonna kick my own self’s butt in this challenge. If you should decide that you want to join the challenge then go visit my “Are you up for a challenge” post and let’s go!!!! (Another Steph…what about you?)

You can check out the prize that you can win if you win the challenge too. It’s ATM Business Blueprint. Yes, my awesome, fantabulous ATM business ebook and entire ATM course. (Yes, I’m biased. What do you expect? Geez.)

Quick question…..have any of you gotten any properties under agreement with an option? Not a lease option, just a straight up option? Would love to hear how it went……

First just so you know; I have “We Buy Houses” lettering on the window in the back of my car. Plus, whenever I want some quick cash (or relatively quick) I’ll put out some “We Buy Houses” bandit signs.

Since I’m getting married in September I figured that now is a good time to have some “quick cash!” So I put out some bandit signs.

I get a call the other day. No one leaves a message. So, naturally, I call back.

A woman answers. I explain that I missed someone’s phone call and it could be someone that wants to sell their house that called.

She said “oh yeah that was me, tell me how this works.”

I proceed to tell her how everything works; mind you I don’t go into detail at all, I make it VERY simple for sellers to understand. Please much say in a nutshell that I make you an offer on your property, I do not charge any commissions or fees, can settle quickly and if you don’t like my offer, that’s ok….we’ll just part friends.

She then says to me “how much cash will you give me for my house?”

Me: “Ma’am I don’t even know where your house is so I can’t really answer that questions.”

Her: “It’s by the Walmart.” ( That was helpful, I must admit lmao)

Me: “By Walmart? What Walmart?” (You know, cuz there’s only 1 Walmart in the world….duh guys!)

Her: “It’s by the Walmart in Kennett. So how much would you give me cash for it?” (Yeah, because the houses by Walmart in Kennett don’t vary by hundreds of thousands of dollars or anything!)

Me: “Ma’am I really need to know the address of your house so I can do proper comps for the homes in the area then I have to figure out the necessary repairs needed.”

Her: “No repairs are needed at all. How much would you give me?”

Me: “Ma’am I’d really need your address so I can do comps on your house.”

Her: “Well how do you do that?”

Me: “I access the same information that Realtor’s do and public records in order to find out what homes are selling for in your area and how many days on market, etc. But I really need your address in order to do this ma’am.”

Her: “Oh nooooo. I don’t do any of this computer stuff. I’m not giving you my address for you to put in your computer and figure stuff out with. I want to meet you in person. I have to see your face, know who you are.”

Me: “Ma’am I understand that you want to meet me in person and I’ll be glad to meet you in person once I figure out what your house is worth and decide that you and I might actually be able to work together. I need your address for that so I can do comps.”

Her: “No way. I’m not giving you my address. I want to meet you in person at my house (lol) and show you my house and see you….I’m not just giving you my address!” (I was so annoyed at this lady I didn’t even think to say ummmm ok I’ll meet you at your house, give me your address! lmao)

Me: “Ma’am listen; I don’t want to waste my time or your time so that’s why I have to figure out the comps first prior to coming to your house.”

Her: “Nope, I am not giving you my address. I need to meet you in person first.”

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you. I’m sorry.”

Her: “That’s fine. Bye.”

That was my entertainment for that day. It was fun, fun, fun. I love talking to crazy folk like that. Helps me be thankful that I’m not wacky first of all and then helps me be thankful for all of the “normal” sellers that I speak to lol

That’s about it. Have a great 4th of July. I’m off to get ready for a family picnic!

P.S. If you want to learn how to wholesale real estate then my buddy Steph has an awesome ebook you should pick up. Check it out here it shows you how to wholesale real estate that is owned by the banks! But trust me, I have read this awesome ebook that Steph put together and you can absolutely use tons of the stuff in that ebook when working with private sellers like I was talking to above!

Anywho, while checking out Loopnet last night I came up with an awesome idea to build my direct mail list to buy apartment buildings.

But another thing that they have is Rental Comparisons. So what they do is they have the subject property (the apartment building for sale) listed with it’s unit mix, square footage, occupancy and rents. Then they show a bunch of other apartment buildings around the subject property with their unit mix, square footage, occupancy and rents too. I’ve been reading this information for a few months now but last night it dawned on me…ya know an “aha” moment lol that I should add those comps to my mailing list! I mean they give me the property, the address and their occupancy. I figure the ones with lower occupancies should go at the top of my direct mail list to buy apartment buildings, wouldn’t you agree?

P.S. My adsense is on my nerves. It keeps showing ummm I don’t want to say the word to give it more reason to show more of those ads but don’t they know that the majority of this blog is about real estate and investing and not ummm d e n t a l work! Am I the only one whose noticed that? It’s driving me crazy lol Maybe I should just make a post that just says real estate, real estate investing, apartment buildings, commercial real estate investing, etc.

Market Your House Like Crazy
Your house being for sale at the prefect price doesn’t mean anything if nobody in the world knows that it’s for sale, does it?

So here’s what you need to do to market your house and to tell the entire world (or at least folks in your area) that it’s for sale.

Break out your digital camera, cell phone, disposable camera or what you have and take pics of your house. Outside front, back, side, yard, living room, dining room, kitchen, etc. you get the picture. Common says tells ya that folks want to see what your house looks like and yes, even before they walk into it even. Please take in focus, decent looking shots. Don’t forget to get your darn finger out of the way!

Now pictures are a necessity but if you have access to a video camera you have got to take advantage of that. Honestly, in today’s day and age, I’d say even video is a necessity. So just have all of your bases covered and try your best to take pictures and video of the home. Just do a walk through of the home with your video camera so folks can see the inside of it without even being there.

Place a for sale sign in your front yard and rear and side yards if you have them. I get mine from Dirt Cheap Signs but you can get a few For Sale By Owner signs at Lowe’s, Home Depot or a local hardware store if you prefer. Make sure you get the 18 x 24’s and make sure you pick up some metal stakes (get extra to use in the next step) so you can stick them into the ground. By the way, please do not under any circumstances forget to put your phone number on your signs when you get them home. (Sounds silly to say that doesn’t it? But some folks have done it.)

Now here is a tactic that will get your phone to ring off the hook with potential buyers. You need to buy anywhere from 10 to 50 blank corrugated plastic signs. They should be 18 x 12 in size and they can be any color you want, but white probably works the best and is the cheapest. After you get them home you’ll need to get a thick, black, permanent marker. When you have that you want to write in your own handwriting with the marker on the signs the following:

3 bed/2 bath House Must Sell! Pottstown Area, $150k 610-555-1212

Of course, you’re going to change out the information above with your appropriate information for your home. If you house is a fixer upper try something like this:

3 bed/2 bath Needs Work! Must Sell Quickly. Area, Price, Phone Number

For wholesale deals try:

Cheap House 45k CASH. 215-555-5555.

You can use any combination of wording, but make it seem URGENT that you need to sell. Now you need to place these signs all around your neighborhood. Put them at popular intersections, at popular stores (like Walmart, WaWa, etc.) and just put them in heavy traffic locations. You want extras because some of these will get taken down, some will blow away and some will just become dirty and ugly so you’ll want to replace them with fresh ones. I promise you that you will get calls.

You can buy your blank signs from a place like Dirt Cheap Signs or they have them a little pricier at Lowe’s and Home Depot or Steph over at Flip This Wholesaler recommends Laird Plastics. I haven’t used them personally but I do have a call into them.

Next you’re going to want to create what’s called a Postlet. Go to Postlets and create an account. It is free. You’ll want to create a postlet about your house. Post your pictures, list all of the features, write up a nice description. People want to know about square footage, school districts, beds and baths, taxes, etc. You can upgrade to Postlets Plus and this will allow you to post more pictures on your postlet and also allow you to post a video. Every little bit can help you market your house.

Now, you want to go to Craigslist and post your house for sale there too. This is free also. You’re going to want to post in the portion of Craigslist that’s for your area. Find your area on Craigslist then go to housing and real estate for sale. Follow the steps, it’s pretty easy. Also, there is a craigslist section in your Postlets, so you can merely click that link and copy and paste the code they give you into your craigslist post and a nice little ad will appear. Don’t forget that you’re craigslist ad is NOT posted until you get the email from them and publish it. That is the final step.

Those few things should get your phone ringing, but since you are saving thousands by not using a real estate agent you should really market even more. So here are some extra things you can do that will cost some money.

Place a classified ad in your local paper. There are all kinds of papers that will work. You can place an ad in a daily paper, weekly paper, monthly paper, throw away papers like the Penny Pincher, etc. You can even try them all if you like. The smaller papers will be more cost effective. And keep in mind that you do not want to just run the ad for a day. That’s a waste of time and money. I suggest running it at least from Thursday to Monday for a month. See what kind of action you get and go from there. If you are under major budget constraints then you can work out a game plan that works with your pocket book. Generally, your ad will look something like this:

Downingtown, 3 bd/2 ba twin for sale by owner. New roof, central air. Must sell. 610-555-1212

Of course, insert the info that is appropriate to your home. You can even use the same type of ad that you hand wrote on your blank corrugated plastic signs. Remember that with classified ads you are pretty much paying per word. One word of caution: don’t try to create crazy abbreviations for your ad so you can fit more words in. A lot of folks may not know what your abbreviation means so it may confuse them and keep them from calling. The classified ad rep from the paper will sometimes suggest abbreviations for words to make things fit, just be cautious that it is a standard abbreviation that most folks know what it means like br for bedrooms or ba for bathrooms. Don’t get fancy with abbreviations, trust me.

Post an ad on ForSaleByOwner.com They have all different pricing levels starting at $89.95 (which I don’t like because it’s a monthly fee) all the way up to an $899 one time fee. The basic plan is pretty decent, it gets you an unlimited listing on their site until it’s sold and an awesome thing about their ads is that you get a private voicemail system (so you don’t have to give out your home phone number!)

Just so you know, the Gold package for a $699 one time fee is definitely worth checking out. It’s the cheapest of the packages that gets you listed on the MLS (multiple listing service, which is what all real estate agents use to list properties and find properties for their buyers) and on realtor.com Please keep in mind though, if you go with an MLS option, you are going to have to pay a commission to the agent that brings you a buyer (typically between 2 to 3%, but commissions are negotiable and you state when you pick your package the commission you are willing to pay.) Keep in mind, if you make the commission too low for the agent with a potential buyer they may not even show your house. So, personally, I’d stay within the 2 to 3% mark.

If you’re wondering do you have to list your property on the MLS for sale, the answer is no. I just want to make you aware that the MLS is what over 32,000 real estate professionals in this area use to view properties for sale. That’s a HUGE market that you’d be missing. But it’s ok, the basic package will at least get you in front of folks who are searching for a house to buy for themselves.

This marketing method may be a little more than most of you want to get in to, but you can send out postcards to either folks in your area or to renters in your area. For folks who live in the area you can send out sort of a “Pick Your Own Neighbors” type of post card and let them know your house is for sale. For renters, you may just want to let them know how easily they can get into your home. Get 50% off postcards here!

You’re going to most likely want to purchase a list of renters and homeowners in your area from a place like InfoUsa. For homeowners in your area you can actually get their names and addresses from public records and that is free, especially if you go to the courthouse. Just get a simple House For Sale postcard or Why Rent When You Can Own Postcard? And send them out.

A free alternative to use is the same kind of House for Sale or Why Rent When You Can Own ad for the postcard above but print it out and make flyers at home. (Btw, if you are savvy with your computer you can even print out postcards.) A flyer that I like to put together to hand out to the neighbors on the same block as a house I have for sale is the “Pick Your Own Neighbor” flyer. Folks love that and you never know? They could have a friend or family member that is looking to move into the neigborhood. Your general flyers you can post in laundromats, grocery stores, around rental apartments, etc.

One last free marketing tip that I forgot to mention is word of mouth. Don’t forget to tell everyone you know that your house is for sale. You never know who knows someone that is looking to buy.

Ok so now you know how to figure out what your house is worth and market your house to find a buyer……now what the heck do you do when the calls start coming in? We’ll find out in part 3 of this series.

I’m going to give you an outline to follow and if you follow it to the T, you should be alright!

Do Your Research About Your Homes Value
You need to find out what your house is worth so you can put a price tag on it. How can you find this out?

Interview a handful of real estate agents (at least 3) and get Comps (Comparables of houses that have sold like yours) from them. Do not tell them what YOU think your house is worth, just let them do their thing and present you with their evidence of what they feel your house is worth.

Now as JP from REI Tips pointed out below in his comments it’s a very good idea to keep your eye on DOM or Days on Market when checking out the comps. This is how many days the house was on the market until it went under agreement. How do you use this type of data? Well for instance let’s just say you have a few different sold comps and 1 had a DOM of 9 and one had a DOM of 83 and one had a DOM of 197. Ok? Obviously, if you want to sell your home in the same time frame as one of those 3 comps, you’ll want to price your house accordingly to those comps. Does that make sense?

Check public records if you have online access or if you know how to do this at the courthouse yourself (or if you have a real estate agent friend that will allow you to look over their shoulder as they access their public records on the MLS.)

Drive around your neighborhood and call on all of the for sale signs that you see. If they are having open houses too then GO TO THEM.

Research your local papers classified section for houses for sale in your area. Call the numbers and get the facts on the house (remember, you’re comparing all of these houses to yours.)

Hop on Craigslist and reseach the real estate for sale ads there that are in your area. Alot of times folks will have pictures and even videos in here, so you can actually see the houses. If there isn’t much info then email or call the person who is selling their house.

Go to Realtor.com and research houses that are for sale in your area. Again, if there isn’t much info, then call the agent up and ask for some info about the house.

Check out zillow and cyberhomes and see what they come up with as values for your house. Also, the comps that they list, drive past the houses to compare at least the outside of your house and the sold house. (I wouldn’t put as much weight on these 2 sites, but there is definitely more information here for you.)

Now, you should have a good idea of what you could sell your house for. By the way, when looking at public records, comps from agents and places like zillow and cyberhomes you only really want to look at sold houses within the past 6 months. Some folks will tell you to go back a year, but I think that’s even too far. Honestly, in this market, I’d say look at them in the past 3 months!

Ok so you have a value in mind. Well I need you to be honest with yourself about the value and how you came up with it, ok? Does the value indicate a house that is in pristine condition and your house isn’t that pristine? Does the value indicate a fixer-upper price and your house doesn’t need any work? Those are the things you have to think about when getting the comps from all of your resources above.

Make note of the condition and location of all of the comps that you get from your resources above then you have to HONESTLY compare it to your house. Honestly being the keyword here. If your house smells like dog, well admit that to yourself and know that it’s going to lower the price of your house. If your house is right next to an active railroad track, well don’t ignore the obvious and know that it will lower the price of your house as well. If your house is totally trashed and needs a lot of work, please, please, please don’t think that you are going to get maybe a couple thousand less than what a pristine house sold for. That is UNREALISTIC!

And always keep in mind the type of real estate market we are in. Right now at the writing of this blog posting, here in Pennsylvania we are in a BUYERS MARKET. Please recognize that and adjust your game plan (and more importantly) your thinking accordingly.

If you don’t adjust your game plan and thinking accordingly, believe me your house will sit there and it will NOT sell (until you come to your senses.

Check out the 2nd part of this 4 part article and learn how to market your house for a quick sale.

As much as I can’t stand putting up bandit signs I must say that it is good to be back! I’ve missed real estate…….I’m ready to make some cash now. Initially I wanted to get my first deal by the end of this month and that still would be awesome and I’m still gonna work hard til the end of this month but I really would feel comfortable if I could get a deal by the end of next month.

Well I’m off to re-fill my stapler and then off to bed. Oh do you guys know about that sign stapler? Brandon and Joe (Kathy’s 17 yr. old and 9 yr. old) bought it for me for either xmas one year or my birthday…and omg I love it. That’s how I’m hanging up my signs until I get more (remember, I only have horizontal fluting type signs left, so no wire stakes for me.) Just banging ‘em up on poles with the sign stapler. If ya are still using wooden stakes or using ladders or what have you to put up your signs….well this lil sign stapler will safe you much time and many headaches. I think it’s only like $99 or you could go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and put your own together for way cheaper. But it’s a must have for folks putting out bandit signs, in my opinion.

Okey dokey pokeys I’m out like trout. Nitey nite.

Flippin’ Carey

Anyway, now it’s time for me to put out bandit signs. I’ve been putting out 10 a nite, but I think I’m gonna go put out 20. I ran out of signs that have the vertical fluting in ‘em so I’m just putting ones out to hang on poles, etc.

Btw, this is not my favorite thing to do but I have to tell you, it’s one of the ways that I’ve made the most money in real estate. Ya know I think they 20% of the things you do will make you 80% of your money or something like that lol anyway I figured out that the only things that have made me money in real estate have been bandit signs, vinyl lettering on the back of my car and deals from the mls so that’s where I’m focusing most of my time and energy.

I did check out the sold properties in the past month or so that were sold for cash. Got 13…sooo I’ll check them out probably tomorrow or the weekend. Who says people ain’t buying properties? Pffft!

Had a friend from high school tell me that she’d let me use her bank statements to submit offers….waiting for updated copies from her (still haven’t heard back from my uncle….I’ll have to call him again.)

But also, I have 2 guys that I’m going to set up meetings with that I think could be VERY good possibilities to be private lenders. 1 is the father of another girl that I went to high school with and 1 is a guy that Kathy sold a Rainbow to (that’s what we sell as independent distributors on the side.) He’s a friend of her brothers and he already asked us about investing in real estate cuz he has money so I just gotta get my spiel together and come at him from the private lender aspect.

I wanted to say one more thing but I completely forget what it was…..damn it, I hate that. Ohhhh I did check out a house today cuz I got a call from one of my bandit signs the other day. It was a mobile home on a rented lot but I figured I’d check it out just to get in practice again of meeting with sellers, etc. The place is listed but I may tell the guy I’d be interested in a 30 day option??? Can’t hurt, I mean he’s leaving the end of this month no matter what.

Ohhhh I do remember what I wanted to say….I’m switching real estate offices. I gotta figure out how to do shit in the right order but I’m moving from Keller Williams to a very small, local company near my house. Reason being…well the fees are wayyyy less, I mean BIG TIME…and he’s got a lot of investor connections, reo connections and private money connections….plus he told me that he’d give me all of the addresses of the bpo’s that his wife does every month (about 20 to 30 per week) so that I can see if I can do a deal with folks while they are still in pre-foreclosure.

Soooo I’m working on all of this at the same time with trying to pump my business back up. I figured he was the right step for me in going in the investing direction and for me right now, if I wanted to go in the real estate agent direction then Keller Williams would have remained the best step. Btw, not that there is anything wrong with KW….I think they are a wonderful company and they are very investor friendly and I can’t complain one bit about their profit sharing lol (I get a check every month no matter what and I will continue to since I’ve been with the company more than 3 years….6 to be exact.)

Anyway…..exciting things happening.

Flippin’ Carey

Anyway, I rested up Saturday and Sunday and now I’m ready to get back in action. My marketing schedule I made I think I’m going to alter it………I’m going to do a few things to do each day rather then give myself a whole slew of things to do….from my past I know that I made more money in real estate when I would actually write down 1 to 3 KEY things to do each day…..so I’m going to go that route again.

My to do’s today:

1) Take care of Vine St. heater problem (I got a call from my tenant while in Vegas that they have no heat.) – I already spoke to the warranty company about this and the hvac guy called me and should be coming out tomorrow.

2) Email Uncle Joe- my uncle Joe has a lot of money in certain accounts and he’s let me use his statements to make cash offers in the past…so I’m asking him for an updated statement. I already emailed him.

3) Clean desk- my desk is sooo friggin disorganized that I need to straighten it up. I haven’t gotten to that yet today.

4) Put out 10 bandit signs- haven’t gotten to that yet.

Now those are just 4 little tiny things……but accomplishing them today would really feel like I did something worthwhile, ya know? I think I also added to my list to determine and write down my daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.

Btw, the atm’s rocked while we were on vacation. The gentleman’s club kicked asssss

Ok it’s good to be back…..I hope to hear from you all and coming soon I want to talk about debt a lil bit.

Flippin’ Carey

All in all I was suppose to see 9 houses I believe and only got to see about 4 or 5, but I think they were 4 or 5 decent places and I’ll make offers on them all. Problem is….Kathy and I are getting ready to leave for Vegas for a week on Saturday so we’ve been busy getting ready for that. Soooo, I’m gonna just have to force myself to do it this evening I guess….but it may be REALLLLY late cuz we’re heading to an ATM that we own that is in a Gentlemen’s Club (if you can ever get your atm inside a gentlemen’s club my advice is to JUMP ON IT! Our surcharge for that atm is $7 So we’re heading there tonite to actually take cash out of that atm and put it into an ATM that we have at a cash only chinese place for when we go on vacation. The chinese place goes through roughly 2k a week……so we gotta stock it with cash since we won’t be here to fill it.

Anywho, I also just accepted a BPO offer…why? I have no friggin’ idea…..I should have just took the address and started marketing to the lady in case she’s goin’ into foreclosure. But I’ll do the bpo….maybe it’s one of my small ways of getting back into the swing of real estate shit. Ya know?

Oh and that short sale deal that I was working on for a listing I have….the friggin’ buyers backed out again! This is why the real estate agent gig I feel is a sucky full-time thang. Buyers are soooo damn annoying! They don’t want to not receive their $8k tax credit from the government. Oh wait….here’s the funny part, they wanted an answer from the bank whether they were going to accept the short sale or not in 8 days! But when you counted only business days….it gave the bank 6 days to respond lol

Needless to say, they back out of the deal when I told them it would take roughly 37 days from beginning to end for the banks answer (Wells Fargo sent me a time table for their short sales.) So annoying….

Ok I’m off to shower as I’m stinkin’ and sweaty from workin’ out…….off to make something happen! I have put 0 bandit signs out, which I need to do because they are by far my biggest money maker…..no questions about it.

Flippin’ Carey