How To Acquire Motivated Sellers and Buyers in Any Market And Why You Should – Part 2
Posted on August 7, 2014 byThis month I will be discussing even more ways to find all the buyers you need for your real estate investing business.
If you have taken the time to build your dream team, you might also want to talk to your dream team Realtor to see if they work with any wholesale buyers in your area. They almost always have clients looking to buy wholesale deals. They may also have pre-qualified buyers for your other deals as well. Having a Realtor on your dream team is a necessary part of building a successful Real Estate Investing Business and if you have trained your Realtor correctly from the beginning they should already be providing these leads for you.
Many home buyers in the current market are asking friends and family members for possible leads on properties. So another technique I employ to find more potential buyers for my properties is to offer incentives to folks who have already purchased properties from me in order to get referrals. This is a technique that many Real Estate Investors simply forget about, but it can be very profitable for you.
I also discovered early on in my business that there is another market of folks who have money for down payments and want to buy homes for their families that most Real Estate Investors are not tapping into. These are buyers who just need help in getting through the process and sometimes they need help by way of creative financing.
The market I am referring to are Spanish Speaking buyers. The obstacle for many Real Estate Investors is that many of these folks don’t speak any English and most Real Estate Investors don’t speak any Spanish. But they often have the funds they need to purchase a home or put down a significant down payment.
So I developed a system in my own business to market to these folks effectively since they have the same problems every other buyer has, which is finding a home they can afford with the financing they need. They also have the additional problem of the language barrier.
Several of my students had also contacted me to find out how they could effectively use direct mail and other types of marketing techniques to reach the Spanish speaking market in their areas, since I am the country’s leading expert in this area. They are finding, as I am, that these folks are looking to sell homes and purchase homes for a variety of reasons in a variety of ways and no one is tapping into this market. Part of the reason for that is the difficulty caused by not being able to speak their language and not being able to make themselves understood. I found the way to solve that problem for these sellers and buyers, and for you the investor.
I simply had all of the marketing pieces I use in my business every day including my direct mail pieces, Post Cards, ads, advertorials, business cards and flyers to find qualified sellers and buyers translated into Spanish. It was a huge undertaking since I had to make sure I addressed all of the dialect differences but it was well worth the effort. It has caused a huge influx of new sellers and prospective buyers into my pipeline which means more deals and more paychecks. Check out my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com for all the tools you need to reach Spanish Speaking sellers and buyers.
I send these post cards and print ads targeted to the specific market areas where I want to find buyers for my properties, such as apartment complexes and areas of town where there are large numbers of duplexes and rental homes, which means large numbers of renters who may be looking for homes they can buy…. just like I did for the English speaking market. I also targeted areas of town where there were high numbers of Spanish Speaking homeowners, since many of these folks have family members looking to purchase a home. This has proved to be a very effective marketing plan.
You can either send these Post Cards or flyers out written in English on one side and Spanish on the other, which can be a little confusing, or you can create a specific advertising piece in Spanish. This is the way I prefer to do it to keep it really simple.
One of the things I discovered very quickly right from the beginning was that while I was getting a lot of response from the Spanish speaking market, I was unable to process the sellers and buyers due to the language barrier. I solved this problem in two different ways. The first was to send the calls from the post cards and marketing pieces to a 24 hour recorded message which I had recorded in Spanish describing my buying program. I used a professional translator to do this for me so that the grammar, the dialect and the language were correct.
The second way I solved this dilemma was to use a Spanish answering service to take the calls and translate the responses into English so my office staff could read them. I provide the telephone scripts for them to use. I have them both in English and in Spanish so I can provide them to the answering service in whatever format they want it. The telephone questionnaires have all the pertinent information that we need in order to qualify the sellers and buyers.
I then use an interpreter who will meet with me and my sellers or buyers so I can put the deals together. I will also use an interpreter when I am having open houses, lease/option open houses or Round Robin Auctions in Spanish speaking areas. The interpreter’s fees are very reasonable for their services and they are easy to locate. I found the person I usually use in the yellow pages listed under “interpreters”. Do try to find someone who specializes in real estate. This makes the whole process a lot easier. By putting a system in place to deal with this market, I am able to do a lot more deals, make money and help Spanish speaking buyers find homes for their families. I am also able to buy houses from highly motivated Spanish speaking sellers with absolutely no competition whatsoever.
Another method you can employ is to use a Spanish speaking Realtor to help you with your deals and act as an interpreter, and pay them a fee you decide upon ahead of time for providing this service for you. If you already have a Realtor on your team performing a variety of services for you, this shouldn’t be difficult to do. This is just another way to find a reliable person to act as an interpreter for you when you need to structure these deals with Spanish speaking sellers or buyers.
Of course, you will be closing these properties with a title agent or real estate attorney. Almost every title agency in the country is bi-lingual. If yours isn’t find one that is.
Once you get past the language barrier, there are lots of motivated sellers and buyers within this marketplace. You can easily set up systems in your business that will bring you many sellers and buyers from the Spanish speaking market. And remember…now you have a distinct advantage over almost all of your competitors since none of them know how to do this.
I also have a couple of other easy solutions for finding and tracking motivated buyers. One solution to this dilemma is to make sure you keep good records of all prospective buyers who visit your website, answer your Craigslist ads, or attend your lease/option open houses or round robin auctions. Have a registration desk at the front door of the home you are selling and get the information of everyone who visits your property.
Another solution to this problem is to simply run an ad in the newspaper advertising a property for sale or lease/option, even if you don’t have one available at that time. When the prospects call you or visit your website, let them know that the property advertised is no longer available, but that you, a Real Estate Investor have other properties that come up for sale or lease/option regularly. Make sure you get all of the prospect’s information, including what area they want to buy in, how much of a mortgage they are approved for and how much of a down payment they have available. Then add these prospects to your buyers list.
In order to simplify this process I personally send these responses to an answering service or my website where all of their information is captured. It is then input into a software system that was developed for me that tracks all of my sellers, my buyers and my deals. That way I have all of the information I need on potential buyers giving me a lot more power when I am out negotiating deals with motivated sellers, knowing that I have a specific exit strategy for each deal I buy.
For all the information you need on how to buy and sell houses quickly in any market be sure and check out my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com.