Two Types of Lists

Let's talk about the list. The list is important. We've talked about two kinds of lists. One would be a group of houses in a particular area that you would designate. Two would be a demographic - what type of person - meaning people where the tax bill goes to a different address than the home address.

Those are two types of lists that you can acquire. They're certainly not the limit. There are dozens of other ways you can slice and dice this. You could get homes worth a million dollars or more. You could get homes worth $100,000 or less. You could get multi-family properties. You could say, "All I want is multi-family properties." You can get businesses if you want. Invest in shops and retail things of that nature. However you want to do it, whatever list you want.

Ways to Find Lists

What I would suggest is there are a couple of different ways you can get lists. You can go out to a list broker. There are two that I recommend. First is Info-USA and the second is Melissa-Data. Both are national list brokers.

I suspect that if you went to both of them and asked for the identical list you'd find that they'd be relatively close in cost. I don't know that for certain, but they compete head-to-head all the time so I'd gather that their prices are fairly close.

I would suggest you pick one of these, pick which one you like best, and go with it. It's always best once you've identified one of them that you get used to their website. Spend some time and get used to things.
You can call them on the phone or do it over the web. Tell them what you're looking for. They will call you or give you an estimate of how many people would be on the list.

That amount may be too many and you may need to use a smaller space or a smaller area. That's up to you guys. If you're looking for a list of 1,000 people and the first criteria you give them comes back with 5,000, then you may have to shrink down your criteria. You can play with that.
You can also go out to Google and search "list brokers." I'm sure there are dozens of others that would show up.

The popular notion that it is imperative to invest a great deal of money in order to make profits in real estate business is simply not true. The same goes for a credit or financing facility. There are many ways which can be applied for making real money in real estate business without investing your own money. The idea that I am going to put into words below is not an on-time quick-rich formula. It's a genuine real estate activity. One, which can be adapted as a career. The idea is called bird-dogging.

Bird-Dogging defined

Bird-dogging simply means locating and selling a property to a potential customer. The bird-dog finds a suitable property, locates its owner and convinces him to sell. If the owner agrees to sell, the bird-dog finds an investor who is ready to buy that particular property. The investor buys the property and pays a certain amount to the bird-dog for the services rendered by him. The bird-dog does not need to invest a single penny of his own in the whole transaction. Yet he gets away with a hefty sum.

How to become a bird-dog

The first step in this regard is to find an investor who enjoys good reputation and with whom you will feel comfortable. You can also seek a company that specializes in buying and selling properties.
Ask the investor or the company to register you with them. They will usually assign you a certain area to work in. It is your job to look out for suitable properties in that area and make contact with the owner, and then inform the company or the investor about that property.

What do you need to become a successful bird dog?

There are many attributes that are necessary for you to become a successful bird-dog. Fortunately, you don't have to be born with them. A little time and effort is needed to cultivate such properties. Some of them are noted below.

A knack for properties

You must train yourself to be on the constant look-out for available properties. You must keep your eyes open all the time even when you are driving in the neighborhood or going to the gym.

Moving in the right circle

If you want to be a bird-dog, you must move in the right circle. Your acquaintances must belong to the real estate community so that whenever a particular piece of property or an opportunity arrives; you are first one to hear about it.

Impeccable interpersonal skills

This is the key to success. The bird-dog is like a double agent. He has to convince the owner that the deal he is offering is good enough for him. At the same time he must convince his investor or principal that the deal is good for them too. The activity needs a cutting edge sharpness of mind and impeccable negotiating skills. Fortunately, this is something that you can achieve after spending some time in the field.

You may be a brand new investor or a seasoned investor looking for new ways of increasing your income. Some of the real estate guru’s have made big money selling real estate investing courses touting the benefits of government programs, specifically Section 8 housing, and how you can make money hand over fist. Others take a more cautionary approach, essentially arguing just the opposite.

With two opposing views, who’s right, who’s wrong, and what’s the difference?
There are a couple of Pros to Section 8 investing. But as you will quickly see the list of Pros is much shorter than the list of Cons.

First, if you rent to Section 8 tenants, you know you’re going to get your rent money. As a general rule, it’s going to come in like clock work. You’ll have your money each and every month, conveniently deposited into the bank account of your choice.

Second, if you advertise the fact that you accept Section 8 tenants, you will have no shortage of prospective tenants lining up with a housing voucher ready to move in on a moment’s notice. When tenants are hard to come by, say in a strong housing market, it’s an excellent way of guaranteeing a steady flow of renters willing to be your tenants.

Unfortunately, this is where the list of positives ends.

Section 8 tenants can present a host of challenges and problems to you from a variety of angles.

First, as a property owner, you may be lured by the easy money that renting to Section 8 tenants can generate, but if you think the Paperwork Reduction Act applies to Section 8, you have a lot to learn.
Whenever you deal with any government bureaucracy, there are massive paperwork considerations. If every I isn’t dotted and every T crossed on every form the government throws your way, you’re in jeopardy of not being paid, having your payment delayed or even worse being declared a slumlord.

We have also seen when all the paperwork and other delays can take anywhere from 3 to 5 months to complete. During this period your property sits empty with no income.

Second, Section 8 requires property inspections. In order to participate in Section 8 you first have to qualify as a property owner, which means an inspection. If the inspector finds deficiencies of any kind, they have to be corrected on the government’s timetable. Once you’ve met the timetable, you have to repeat the inspection process. When you’ve waded through all the red tape necessary to accept tenants, you really get into the heart of the problem of the Section 8 program dealing with tenants.

Third, there are Section 8 tenants who are attentive to your rules, but there are plenty of bad apples. If you have a troublesome renter one that can’t/won’t pay their rent on time or is a constant troublemaker, your inclination is to give them their walking papers (i.e., eviction). But if the individual you’re trying to evict is a Section 8 renter, you have to follow due process rules that are stricter than any state laws anywhere.

Once you’ve begun eviction proceedings, Section 8 tenants are entitled to free or very low cost legal assistance. Once an attorney enters the picture, this turns into an expensive, time consuming process. You need to ask yourself at what point does a guaranteed rent payment become not worth the hassle, the expense and the headache?

Fourth, we generally see that Section 8 pays about 70% to 80% per month of what you might get for normal tenant. So you need to make decision as to whether this discount is offset by the consistent payment source.

Fifth, Section 8 renters aren’t famous for taking care of your property. So unless you’re willing to entertain the thought of having to make extensive repairs with little hope of recovering damages it is probably in your best interest to not involve yourself in the program to begin with.

As you can see the Cons of Section 8 investing outweigh the Pros. Our experience is the program has many problems and we rarely recommend Section 8 investing.

Wow, has the real estate market changed in 2009! Real estate investors have been shut out of traditional mortgage money unless you have a 9000 credit score and a 50 year work history without missing one day of work (ok enough of the weak humor but you get the idea). Even hard money loans are HARD to get as they have all gone out business.

But just as the mortgage market is shunning the real estate investor - we are starting to see signs that the real estate marketing is starting to bottom and home prices have even gone up in some markets.

So how do you take advantage of this buying opportunity if you can not get mortgage money from traditional sources?

Private lending is the answer. You can start borrowing money from private lenders to fund your real estate investments. Raising private money allows you to take advantage of the low prices without ever using any of your own cash or personal credit.

There are several significant benefits and advantages of private money lending compared to mortgage money or hard money lending.

First, you can begin buying more houses for "all cash" offers and drive significant discounts from sellers who are highly motivate to get cash versus waiting and hoping another buyer will get a mortgage approval.

Second, very simple paperwork with a typical private lender transaction only requires 3 or 4 documents with less than 20 pages.

Third, you control the terms and conditions under which you will borrow money and the lender will lend. You tell the lenders what rates of interest you will pay, how long the term is and all the other conditions are set by you not a bank or hard money lender.

Finally, you can turn many non-deals with no equity into super profitable deals with substantial equity by paying off existing debt at a discount... using private money.

Six Steps to develop a private money program for real estate investors:

1. Develop your private lending program and the terms and conditions under which you will borrow money and repay your lenders
2. Build your info/credibility kit to establish yourself as real estate investing expert
3. Create a marketing plan with 5 to 10 different marketing techniques to attract potential private lenders
4. Create your group or one-on-one presentation
5. Schedule group or one-on-one meetings and follow-up with potential lenders
6. Present and close deals with your potential lenders

Given the new market realities, private lending may be the only option if you want to buy and own real estate investments and take advantage of the low prices.

As we talked about, post-it notes come in two sizes - large and small. They are different style templates. One is landscape and one is portrait, so you get a sample of both.

Importance of the Headline

The headline is "Attention Homeowner." It's got a big notice going the opposite way. Again, that's the FedEx and UPS concept. I don't have the word FedEx or UPS on here. We're not going to get in trouble with those organizations. If you look at this from afar I guarantee that's the first thing you're going to think that you've got a FedEx package.

The headline says, "Our Company is seeking to purchase several homes in your neighborhood..." That leads them on to read. "Are you looking to sell soon? Your home has been identified as a good candidate for our real estate buying needs.

Why the Seller Should Work With You

"When we become your buyer we can buy your house as-is for a fair price on the date of your choice. There are no commissions to pay. You'll get immediate debt relief. You'll get fast cash and a hassle free sale. You're putting your house on the market without fixing it up. We're professional home buyers. We're not listing with an agent. We can work with existing loans and we have private funds that require no bank financing. This allows us to offer you a quick and easy sale."

How to Get a Response

Then you are into the response mechanism. "If you would like to listen to a 24 hour recorded message, here's the number to call." Guys, the very first call we want is into pre-recorded voicemail, so you should have that. They can choose to go to my website and get a free special report, and that can talk about some of the special benefits. That's one of the post-it notes.

The other one is more of a bullet point style instead of paragraph style. It has "We buy houses fast, all cash, as is, if you need to sell quickly, behind on payments, facing foreclosure, divorce." It gives a series of bullet points and then, "You can get more details at..." and your phone number there and a website.

Printing

What you would do once you've picked a printer and have changed these around, you would upload these to your printer. Different printers have different ways, but there should be a way to upload these onto the printer site. Be sure you've proofed it and made sure it's right, fits, and all that.

Typically at some point they will ask you to initial a proof and then you would order your 20,000, 25,000, or 50,000 post-it notes. They'll come to you a few days later in a box with packets of 50 to 100 post-it notes per pack.

Once you've got them, you can start thinking about distribution. You don't have to distribute them all immediately. You can do them in segments. You can do 1,000 a week. Have one or two kids go out and distribute them at 1,000 per week.