Sending Pre-foreclosure letters

Me and my husband has also been sending pre foreclosure letters for the last 2 weeks. you said you got some responses what did you do when they responded?

We use a three pronged approach when contacting pre foreclosure home owners.

1. We call them 1st if we can find a phone number
2. We mail our postcards
3. If we get no response, we door knock!

Before we call or door knock we do some basic, quick research and qualify the lead so we don't waste our time. Then we ask the questions to learn the following.

1. They must have equity.
If they don't have equity and are potential short sales, we still call and mail but we do not door knock short sales at this time. If we get permission from the homeowner we have our short sale negotiator contact them and we go on to the next. We don't do anything until we can make an offer or wait until it sells, We collect our referral fee at that time.
2. They must be motivated, not in denial, etc.
3. We must be talking to all the people on title, husband and wife etc.
4. They must be willing to sell at wholesale.

Do research before blindly mailing, calling, door knocking or you will waste a lot of time! Even so, you will contact many, many people for every killer deal you get under contract. If it was easy every one would do it!

When you contact them by phone or in person you have a much better chance on getting a good deal then just a mailer. I know people that say if you are not on the phone and door knocking than you are not a serious pre foreclosure investor. When you do contact them it is critical the way you approach them. With COMPASSION! Your mailers need to be worded properly also.

If we get a no or its taken care of or we are going to sell, we follow up in about 2 weeks.

Good luck and go make some offers!
Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC

Thanks Michael! Your words certified what I have been doing, which although seems like an easy task, can be very difficult (as you suggested). As feel as though when I attempted this before, I wasn't quite sure how to approach them so it wasn't very successful. I am working pre-foreclosures now and hope to be more successful this time around! Will update soon, hopefully with good news...

For me, the first thing was to reach out to them so that I would have a better understanding of their situation. You cannot successfully negotiate with someone if you do not understand the whole picture. From there, I would run the numbers and determine the likelihood of figuring a deal that would work with all parties.

One thing to remember: it always works best if you already have a buyer lined up.

Hi,

I too am starting to work with pre-foreclosures. I actually have someone who wants anyone that has no equity and needs to short-sale. I was talking with the success academy on Friday and they told me to send something out to the pre-foreclosure's in my area and then follow up with an in person visit to the neighborhoods.

So, How are your postcards worded that you send out initially? Or letters I guess. I just figured postcards would be cheaper and might catch their eye more.

Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Susan

Where do you find these pre-foreclosures. Are most of these people willing to talk to investors? What is a good strategy for buying?

Just wondering are you using the letter that is in the BARM book pages 225-226 and are you letters hand written?

I have been working on mine and I decided to hand write them on a note card or stationary. I know this can be a little expensive but I like the personal look.

I decided to try to make them as personal looking as possible too. I used word to create a 2 column document and printed my letter on one side of the page in both columns and on the other side printed a design which was "greeting card like" at the top and my logo at the bottom. I then printed out the first side, flipped it over and printed the other side. I used card stock, which for anyone that is unfamiliar, is a heavy paper (110 lbs). I used my paper cutter to cut them each in half, so I then had two 8 1/2 X 5 1/2 pages, folded each in half and voila, I had two personal looking greeting cards with my message on the inside.

I sent them out in colored 4 3/8 X 5 3/4 envelopes with a silver return address label I had made up with my name and address. I also hand wrote each of the addresses to the potential sellers and put a business card inside as well.

It took quite a bit of time to get it all together, but after it was all done for yesterday I feel like I have a system down now.

The hardest part was going through the Legal News for the county I was working in and pulling out all of the foreclosees and pre-foreclosees. A lot of them did not have the physical address so I then had to look them up on peoplefinder.com. Evidently in Michigan these notices are not filed with the courts but just placed in a newspaper. I also have PropTrend, but it seems to be very behind in it's listings because of the above.

So, I now am anxiously awaiting my responses.... I will update this when they start coming in. If the rest of you could try to do that too... then maybe we can compare our results and techniques?

Happy Mailing!
Susan

Wow thanks for sharing, sounds like a nice presentation. Let's know how it worked out. Much Success to you.

I do not use the letters in BARM, I have hand-written some but type them for the most part.

I also use postcards. Vistaprint often offers specials where you can order 100 free postcards (and other promotional items) and just pay for shipping. I paid $6.00 for my last postcards (s&h).

msthomas317 wrote:

I also use postcards. Vistaprint often offers specials where you can order 100 free postcards (and other promotional items) and just pay for shipping. I paid $6.00 for my last postcards (s&h).

Lenee,

What kind of response do you receive to these postcards? How quickly do you generally get responses?

Thanks!
Susan

Two weeks ago I sent 20 postcards. Of the 20, 6 came back as undeliverable. Of the 14 that were received, I have been contacted by 4. So imagine if I had sent more... :0 Most responses are that they are either rented or vacant and the owner is willing to negotiate a sale. First response came back in about a week.

I received my first response 2 days ago and was able to connect with him yesterday. I have not received any other responses, but that first one was 2 days after I mailed them out, so it might be a bit unusual. I was able to forward his information to my short sale investor (he met the initial criteria).... so, that may have been my first deal! I'll have to wait and see if he is able to work with him.

That is a great percentage I think for you. (4 out of 14)!!! Would you mind sharing what you say on your postcards? I'd be more than willing to share what is inside my card if anyone is interested.

Susan

where do you purchase your postcards?
Are they blank Postcards and you just hand write them?

I usually buy them through vistaprint.com

Can you please give me an example of what your letter and postcards say? I really need to push forward and I feel like I'm getting hung up on little things.

Here is my letter..... Susan

Dear Homeowner,

Are you one of the many homeowners facing foreclosure today? Do you wish you had a way out? DON’T let the bank take your home! You do have options! To learn what they are, please call me at (888) ###-####.

My desire is to provide services to homeowners who are struggling in today’s economy and to those having a hard time becoming homeowners with the new, stricter lending guidelines. I provide these services to homeowners free of charge. I am not an attorney or real estate agent. I live and invest in Southeastern Michigan.

So, if you, or anyone you know is in need of help with the following, please, don’t give up! Call me and see if I can help.

· Avoid Foreclosure
· Negotiate a Short Sale
· Sell Your Home Quickly
· Buy a Home When the Bank Said “No”

Sincerely,

Susan Thanks so much....I am going to cut and paste it to my word documents. I am sending out more letters and notecards this week. I really appreciate you for putting this on the site.

I hope it works well for you. Make sure you come back on here and post your response rate. With a little tweaking we should be able to get this process nailed down!

Susan

So I am keep a list of what I sent where so I can track what works - some are hand written and some are computer generated.

Hi Susan,

Thanks for sharing your information you put in your postcard. I will do that & tell you what happens next.

carmen

Hello All!

Where do you get this info about people who are falling behind on their payments? How far behind should they be before contacting them?

Jay

Well, I think each state might be a little different. For me in Michigan, I have to subscribe to the Legal News. Through that, I am able to see all of the pre-foreclosure notices that are out there. As soon as they hit, I send them a letter.

I also use PropTrend, the software that was given to me by the Success Academy.

Hope that helps!
Susan

You said you are also using Carol's letter? Is that the one she sends to vacant properties? or is there another one I missed?

Thanks!
Susan

I am not sure but if you have been followind Dean's latest videos he gave a packet of free info away with 3rd video and in that packet Carol's letter was there. If you didn't get the email pm me with your email address(you have to write it out like dot com) will send it to you.

It seems like every investor working with pre-foreclosures simple gets a hold of the list and sends out letters. This technique certainly works, but a big part of real estate investing is thinking creatively. Greg Murphy gave me a great tip some time ago and I thought I would share it with the family. He suggested that after getting a Notice of Default list or the Lis Pendens, to create and place a bandit sign in the neighborhood where the foreclosure is taking place. The sign may say something like "We Buy Houses, Any situation, Any condition!" This is a very subtle technique for contacting people in a distressed situation and a great way to creatively out think the competition. Thanks Greg!

In response to putting the signs in the residential neighborhoods.... are those areas not controlled by the ordinances and the bandit police like the main roads are? Is that one of the reasons there is a better response rate with them?

Thanks!
Susan

Yesterday I tried another way of contacting pre-foreclosures and had a 1 in 10 response rate so far. I wrote a note on a large sticky note saying that I was looking for homes in their area and if they were interested in selling to give me a call. I then drove to each of the houses (I picked a local area for my pilot of this technique) and placed a sticky on each of their front doors.

Not a tremendous response, but better than the letters!!!

Susan

You have once again proven that personal contact (a note on the door showing you had actually been there) will get triple the response of a mailer! When we leave a note we do not mention anything about the property, Just hello_____came by and you were not home please call_______ at 11111111. What did your note say.
Also, if someone is home you might just knock and say hello! 10% is good response, most mailing campaigns average 2%.

Great thinking outside the box!
Michael Mangham
MD home Acquisitions LLC