When it comes to the home buying business, the little “work from home” guy can easily dominate the corporate giants through simple creativity. Sure, Homevestors can afford to advertise on every billboard in town and have multiple TV commercials at the same time, but if you follow my strategy, you won’t have to. The amount of overhead they spend EVERY MONTH on Branding makes it somewhat prohibitive for the newbie. If you want to beat the corporate giants, you have to think about Guerrilla Marketing tactics. Also, a limited budget can actually be a benefit for the true entrepreneur. It will force you to look closely at earnings and how much you buy houses for. You will be driven by the numbers and saving money instead of throwing cash at your problems! Eventually, that cash dries up and your problems will still be around. It’s amazing how lack of cash will create incredible focus.
If you have a lot of cash… I want you to put it away… FAR AWAY… Pretend it doesn’t exist!
The key to wholesale Real Estate is attracting leads from motivated sellers, AS WELL AS finding tons of people who want to buy these homes at wholesale prices to put together the deal.
How do we do this “On The Cheap”?
Well I sat down the other day and wrote down all the techniques that I personally use to find motivated sellers and buyers for my offers and thought I would share them with my readers. Now, I must warn you that these techniques work best when used together. You don’t have to use all one hundred techniques at that point, but I DO try to use a combination of at least 8 or 9 for any given campaign. Different strategies will work better for different people, and once you find what works for you, keep shaking it around a bit and TEST TEST TEST…
Please comment and let me know if you have any other cool low cost strategies to grab tons of leads… In the meantime, here are 92 Lead Generation Strategies to help you grow your home buying business in no particular order. .
1. Sales letters to target neighborhoods
2. Classified ads in “Freebie Papers”
3. Craigslist
4. Create a simple “Magazine” with information that is of interest to people trying to save their home/divorce/etc. and drop them off at neighborhood convenience stores. (Can be simple black and white 2 or 3 pagers). You can get it printed CHEAP online (google it)!
4. Flyers on Cars: Pay neighborhood kids to go to every mall and Walmart in your area armed with “We Buy Houses” flyers.
5. Brochure dispensers in specific locations
6. Special reports
7. “We Buy Homes” Online Page – InvestorPro.com is a great prefab home, or you can build one yourself.
8. Telemarketing – Check your local property appraiser’s website for information on properties in a particular area that meet your buying criteria. Go to – whitepages.com and enter the address to get a phone number. Give them a call and see if they are interested in selling or know someone who is.
9. Electronic newsletters
10. Traditional newsletters
11. Viral Marketing
12. Ebooks – Write a book on how to easily sell your house without a real estate agent and link to your website.
13. Magazine and paper inserts
14. Bird Dogs – Have a group of worker bees scout property for you. Pay them $1,500 for every deal you make a profit on — They only get paid when they pay you, so get as many as you can!
15. Introducers
16. Bandit Signs: Some people are totally against them. I put these bad boys all over town… 🙂
17. Family and friends
18. Joint Ventures: There are tons of other investors who want to partner on your deals in exchange for your work.
19. Radio Ads
20. PR – Cheaper than TV ads and more effective. Call the local news and get a story that relates to “Local Real Estate.” Example: How to prevent the bank from losing your house in such a horrible real estate market and recession. – You will find tons of investors looking for partners or to buy properties from you in bulk. Visit my website for a list.
30. Take other investors who have been doing this for years to lunch. Do the same for local small bank presidents, probate and divorce lawyers, top real estate agents… you get the idea.
31. Attend industry seminars
32. Gather and use testimonials – I usually bring a video camera to the closing to get a video testimonial for my website.
33. Offer a free consultation to discuss saving the person from foreclosure. Of course, if you can help the person by moving some papers or getting a leniency agreement, you should do so. Trust me, it’s worth it because you’ll be known as the expert and you’ll start getting referrals for offers that pay much higher sums.
34. Offer to pay the person for their time just to get their foot in the door. Yes, it sounds bold… but it works!
35. Host a free procedure seminar or clinic.
36. Promote an industry event – have a booth and COLLECT AS MANY NAMES AS POSSIBLE!
37. Give sponsorships to outstanding people
38. Set up a Squidoo lens
39. Write articles online: EzineArticles.Com is great for that. You can link to your home buying site and rank high on Google.
40. Form alliances with other investors
41. Create a gift, for example, calendars, mugs, posters…
42. Write for the local newspaper.
43. Syndicate a column
44. Create a flyer and pay the paperboy to deliver it when you deliver the morning paper.
45. Conduct some local real estate research and pitch it to the local media. He’ll get credit for information in a story again, making him an industry insider.
46. Send articles to people in foreclosure that you might think would be helpful.
47. Advertising on buses, taxis
48. Talk at the local university.
49. Panel at professional seminars
50. Write an instruction booklet
51. Create cards that offer a finder’s fee
52. Do pro bono work for charities with real estate ties – Example: Habitat for Humanity
53. Put signs on your car
54. Make polo shirts or t-shirts and distribute them (I prefer the polo neck ones)
55. Do a publicity stunt – Be careful friend… 🙂
56. Cross promote with other investors: provide an 800 number and advertising. Split leads evenly or associate deals.
57. Enter a contest
58. Create a contest
59. Direct mail to homeowners who have just filed for divorce
60. Postal promotions
61. Business cards
62. Networking offline
63. Networking online
64. Go to the exhibitions of the house
65. References
66. Speeches
67. Knocking on the door: Take a list of houses that are in foreclosure and start knocking on a few doors. 68. Social networking sites -ActiveRain, StumbleUpon – DIGG – MySpace – Facebook There are tons…
69.Christmas cards
70. Birthday Cards
71. Thank You Cards
72. Add value notes/paper clippings
73. Promotional gifts.
74. Article writing
75. Online Forums – Think Local
76. Billboards
77. Free pens/t-shirts/mugs
78. Loss leaders when selling properties
79. Free teleclasses
80.youtube
81.ebay
82. Mini Courses – Send out a ton of free content to people who provide their contact information on your website. Investorpro automates this process.
83. Two Step Paper Ad
84. Rotary Club
85.Church
86. Schools: Advertise on the PTA flyer or sponsor a school function.
87. Chinese Food and Pizza Parlors: Pay them to send your flyer with every delivery they send out.
88. Drive through the older neighborhoods and locate the owners of homes that appear to be in need of major repair, boarded up, tall grass, vacant.
89. Code Enforcement Department.
90. Find Owners who have Tax Leins against the property.
91. Locate Recent Estates — Check Obituaries
92. Let real estate agents know you buy houses fast for cash and to let you know if they have any pocket listings.
