Justin B. McClelland

So it’s been over a week and the calls have drastically tapered off.  I had planned to give some exact call counts, but I kind of screwed that up when I was altering the settings for my Vonage account when setting up my Google Voice accounts (the counts got off).  So I’ll approximate.  After 1 week of the letters being in possession of homeowners, I received about 70 calls with about 12 of those being leads.  Out of the 12 leads about:

4 turned out to have their house listed on the MLS
2 I’ve played phone tag with
2 I’ve yet to call
1 Is in Pre-pre-foreclosure*
1 Plans on moving to ATL in February
2 Will most likely sell retail when ready

* The guy who is in pre-pre-foreclosure is disabled and is soon to be receiving disability checks.  He said he just caught his mortgage up from being 4 months late to 1 month late.  He said that he wants to sell because he doesn’t know how long the disability checks will last and needs to downgrade.  I’ll check back in with this guy in a month or so and see where his motivation is.

The guy who wants to move to Atlanta this winter may turn out to be gold as well.  He didn’t seem too motivated when I spoke with him, but this may change.  I’ll also check back in with this guy next month.

One of my letters hit the property of an investor in town that has over 60 properties.  He responded to the letter just to chat for a bit about investing.  We met in person last Friday and he’s looking to divest his portfolio and needs someone (me!) with a creative mind to market them.  He also invests in Tax Lien certificates and needs someone to perform some follow up with the liens that may soon convert to deeds.  So perhaps we can work out something there, we haven’t negotiated any particulars but I expressed my interest and we may meet later this week.

** One quick note about this guy. I don’t think I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to the County Recorders’ office one day and looked through the judgment books.  I wrote down the information of all the purchasers from the previous years’ tax sale (for buyer’s list building purposes).  I then Google’d each person to see what I’d learn (did I ever mention that I love Google, I could almost be a P.I.).  So when I met with this guy, I already knew a little about him.  But then again, I’m pretty sure he Google’d me before he called me because he mentioned my blog.  So that means he may read this…awkward…

Another letter made its’ way to a Real Estate broker who was a former investor and she called to chat about investing, what she’s doing Real Estate wise and her consulting business.  This lady was cool as a fan.  She was very wise and said that I’m free to call her whenever with questions.

So besides the leads there were many positives to overcome the negativity from early last week.  Sometimes I post my frustrations and speak of slacking and what not, but that’s all part of the experience.  The purpose of this blog is to document it all.  So don’t think that I’m going to give up or get depressed by these suckers who waste their time hating.  I would never lie to you and I honestly think half of what people say is funny.  Now the other half can meet me in the octogan…but I digress.  The point is I’m going to blog about it ALL…give it to you straight, no chaser.

Since I’ve launched my Yellow Letter campaign, I’ve also launched some other marketing.  I’ve got a Sunday classified ad that is going to go in the Champaign News-Gazette, the Savoy Star, and Accent.  I’ve also got an ad that is going to run in the American Classifieds.  And my Yellow Pages Ad prints and should be delivered in November.  I’m going to follow-up to my mailing list in about 6 weeks with a postcard.  I’m also thinking about buying a list from YellowLettersComplete.com, perhaps the pre-foreclosure list.  And the Bandit Signs will go in effect again very soon.  I ordered some more.  This time instead of buyers, I’m going to target sellers.  And I’m going to place them out on Friday and pull them on Sunday.  All of the Realtors do this.  I just needed to cross the line so I knew where it was the first time.  I shouldn’t get any heat for this.  If I do, I have an arguable case.  I also am going to ramp-up my CraigsList activity.  So as you can tell, I’m grinding…but still have a ways to go.

Yesterday, there was a Rich Dad Poor Dad seminar in town.  You know the seminar that gets people amped up about Real Estate investing, and claims that they’ll teach all of the ropes for $500 3-day seminar.  Once you get to that seminar you learn that to really learn all of the ropes, you need to pay $30,000.  I mean, I’m not saying this is a bad deal but DAMN!  At least that’s what the attendees usually say as they leave the hotel banquet room.  I’ve been there done that and so I spontaneously thought of a way to capitalize.  I made up some flyers at the last minute that were aimed towards finding someone to birddog/partner with.  The flyer was folded into a 3-part brochure and in a nut-shell it said

Interested in starting out in Real Estate but can’t afford the training? Call Me! I’m a house-flipper that is looking for partners to work with in Champaign-Urbana.  No experience necessary.

I put those flyers on about 40 cars in the parking lot outside of the entrance to the seminar.  I was scared to death, I didn’t want to get caught and fined.  I almost didn’t do it.  But I did it anyway.  It’s time to start making things happen.  I really don’t care anymore about the rules.  I ask myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?”.  And if the answer doesn’t involve an arrest or bodily harm, then I’m doing it.  So anyway, I did all that and didn’t get one stankin call!  Oh well.  Maybe next time.

Welp, that’s all for now.  I need to kick out a BiggerPockets article for tomorrow.  I think I’ll focus on the features and uses of Google Voice for investors.  Writers’ block, here I come! Peace out.

- Justin

Internet Marketing, Marketing, Real Estate, Tutorials CraigsList, Google, Marketing, Real Estate, Real estate broker, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Vonage

So I’ve covered alot of ground since Tuesday’s post.  I met with my Realtor on Wednesday and we went over my plans for making MLS offers.  The majority of our meeting was spent going over the Champaign County Association of Realtors contract.  I don’t know why, but I was expecting that contract to be more complex than it turned out to be.  That thing is only 4 pages long and very easy to understand.  I now have it saved in PDF form and since I have Adobe Acrobat, I can manipulate it so that I can do everything electronically, even my signatures.  You know I’m all about using technology for sake of efficiency so it’s on now!  To supplement each offer, he suggested that I enclose a letter explaining who I am and why I want to buy the seller’s house and also a bank pre-approval letter.  The bank pre-approval letter is going to be a mini-hurdle.  I have a 700 credit score and a decent income, but my debt to income ratio is through the roof (I finance a lot of my business on credit cards)!  I’m pretty sure that is a deal breaker.  I mean it’s not like I’m going to close on any of these houses, I just need the letter.  This is a classic, “It’s not what you know but who you know” situation.  I’ll figure it out.

I blogged yesterday at BiggerPockets.com and gave a very descriptive tutorial regarding the use of Yahoo Pipes and Hootsuite to automate some of your activities on Twitter.  Check it out:

Also, a while back I mentioned that CallFire interviewed me for a case-study.  They noticed the blog post at BiggerPockets.com I made about the use of the CallFire VoiceBroadcast service for Real Estate.  Check it out:

And speaking of VoiceBroadcasting; the other day I logged in to my MOHELA student loan account to check out how much I had left to pay and such.  I rarely log-in and check my account, I just send them my payment every month.  When I logged in I received a notice that said:

Required Profile Update:
The following items need to be updated on your profile.

Our records indicate we have a mobile phone on file for you. The following applies to mobile phones:

I authorize the school, the lender, the guarantor, the Department, and their respective agents and contractors to contact me regarding my loan request(s) or my loan(s), including repayment of my loan(s), at the current or any future number that I provide for my cellular telephone or other wireless device using automated telephone dialing equipment or artificial or prerecorded voice or text messages.

If you do not wish to give us consent to call you on your mobile phone, please update your profile.

Since I happen to be “in the know”, I knew exactly what this message was all about.  And this knowledge was obtained from researching the laws and regulations behind voice-broadcasting.  The FTC changed the rules on September 1, 2009, where every company now must obtain written consent from their clients to call them in an automated fashion with an recording.  This new law changed the game a bit for my marketing strategy, but I have another trick up my sleeve.

Today is the big day, well second biggest.  I’m going to pick up my 900 stamps from the post office.  Maybe they’ll let me get a couple of those bins to borrow to bring all of the stamped envelopes back in.  And check this out.  So I already mentioned that on Wednesday I had a meeting with my Realtor.  I was telling him about my Yellow-Letter technique and what my plans were and how I still needed to find a receptionist.  And he volunteered to take the calls!  This should be good because he is also an investor, he has the added edge of being a Realtor as well, so he should be great at taking all of the pertinent information and answering any real-estate-specific questions on the fly.  All I have to do is forward my phone to his and I’ll be all set.  I’m still thinking of getting another person to take calls in addition to him though.  He’s very responsive, but I’m expecting alot of calls and I don’t want any going to voicemail.  I can setup another receptionist and forward my number to that person as well.  The beauty of my Vonage line is that I can forward to as many numbers as I want.  Whomever answers the phone first receives the call. And I can track all of the calls online.  Gotta love VoIP!

Welp, that’s a wrap.

- Justin

Marketing, Real Estate Adobe Acrobat, biggerpockets.com, Voice over Internet Protocol, Vonage, Yahoo Pipes, Yellow Letter

It’s almost time to start my accountability posts again.  I said that I wouldn’t do so until I got my direct mail campaign launched.  As soon as I find one, preferably two, good phone receptionists and create a script for them, and create a lead sheet for them to complete, I’ll be good to go.  From the naked eye, it looks like I’m procrastinating on this marketing launch but I’m really not.  One of my freelance checks just came in, so now I have the capital to fund the postage for all 900 pieces of mail and it should also cover some of the labor paychecks.  I just need to make sure that I’m utilizing technology to work most efficiently to my advantage.  I think I’ll check into using Google docs for my assistants.  That way, I think I can share a document so that it is writable among multiple users.  They can enter in leads that way.  Or maybe I’ll just create a simple orphan webpage for them to use that has a form for them to submit the information.  I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with this yet.  I need to decide immediately!  Time to get going!

Also, I just reminded myself by typing that first paragraph that I need to get some of my other marketing up and going to.  I was holding off on some things due to the fact that I’d need a phone receptionist (I never want anyone to call and reach a machine, there’s a good chance they won’t leave a message).  And I didn’t want to get a phone receptionist until there was a justifiable amount of incoming calls.  The direct mail campaign alone justifys the phone receptionist and the additional advertising responses will be covered.  The other marketing includes; what I’ve included here in this document that was created back on June 17th of this year.  So that I have somewhat of a strategic approach for my advertisement tracking, I will purchase some virtual numbers through Vonage.  I already have a Vonage account that I use for my office business line.  With additional virtual numbers assigned to specific advertisement mediums, I will be able to track who responded to what and what generates a better response rate and etcetera.

Today, I just mailed out 6 letters to properties located outside of SW Champaign that I found when “biking for dollars“.  One of the properties that I found (the one that looked abandoned) is tax delinquent.  I found this out after running a search on it at the County Assessor website.  When I was at the property, I spoke to the neighbor’s about it.  They said that the guy hasn’t lived there for at least two years and they don’t know where he’s gone.  The bad thing is that the mailing address for the property is the same as the physical address.  So unless his mail is forwarded somewhere, the piece of mail I sent isn’t going to get to him.  I’ll wait a week or two and then get a Skip-Trace on the guy.  By the way, is there anyone reading this that knows of a good Skip-Trace software?  I know I can hire someone to Skip-Trace, but I’d rather do this myself if I can find a comprehensive and affordable software to work with.  Also, while I’m thinking about it who knows of where Divorce data is stored per county?  I’m looking for names and dates of divorce cases, I know this has got to be public somewhere on the web, suggestions?

And speaking of tax delinquency, the Champaign tax sale is coming up at the end of October.  I failed to do so last year, but this year I’m going to go and round up some property buyers.  I did some research today at the County Clerks office on the tax lien sales of 2008.  I looked in this big-ass book called the “judgement book”, it was basically a ledger that showed the property address, the property owner, the date they did/didn’t pay their real estate taxes, and if they didn’t WHO did.  That lame office closes at 4:30pm every weekday and I got off of work at 4 so I didn’t have much time, but I was able to record a few names of individuals and companies.  I don’t have any contact information on them but I plan to do some digging (you’d be surprised what I can find about any one person on the internet, maybe I should become a Skip-Tracer).  I bet some of them will be good wholesale buyer candidates.

Also, I’m currently doing some research regarding municipal code violators.  Specific municipal codes that are violated would indicate to me that the property owner may be in distress.  Like say, if a fallen tree laid unattended for too long (maybe can’t afford removal and perhaps the mortgage too…pre-foreclosure), or if a property’s grass and shrubs are overgrown (maybe the property is vacant…absentee landlord, probate, etc.).

Got some other stuff going on, but I need to get back to work so I’ll report more later.

- Justin

Marketing, Real Estate Advertising, Business, Google Docs, Mail, Real Estate, skiptrace, Tax, Vonage

I ran into a bit of a cash-flow problem so as of now, the yellow-letters sit in a box still on my living room floor.  Waiting on one of my checks to come through so I can part with the $400 in postage needed to send them out.  I should nickname my bank account LIFO.

I checked out some properties last Sunday.  I rode my bike throughout Southeast Champaign and scouted FSBO signs, lousy out-of-place properties in nice neighborhoods and vacant properties.  I was surprised to only come up with 6 after about 3 hours of riding.  However, I unfortunately did spend alot of time doubling back on same streets most of the time.  For some reason it’s easier to loose your bearings when on a bike versus a car.

The two offers I put in last Friday got rejected.  One owner fooled me.  I got notification that I received a fax via text message since I have Vonage.  I figured there was going to be a positive fax waiting for me, because if the seller wasn’t willing to negotiate, why would he waste the time?  I checked out the fax and it was the seller thanking me for my offer and he mentioned he had already passed on an offer that was higher.  So oh well.  On to the next one…

I’m wrapping up the quote for the web project I’ve been speaking of lately.  Hopefully, it will get accepted.  If not, oh well I have two more projects on deck.

I’m more-so nonchalant about things now than I ever have been.  If one thing doesn’t work out, oh well…eff it.  There’s always something else.  When one door closes, another opens.  Things always work themselves out when you work hard enough and pray about it.

Welp. I have 4.75 hours before I need to be at the 9 to 5.  No sleep planned for the night (big surprise right).  Got work to do.

- Justin

Real Estate Bank account, bike, Cash flow, fsbo, offers, Vonage