My top 2 questions used to be:
- How do you find motivated sellers?
- How do you get started with no money or credit?
Now… my single biggest question – hands down – is “How do I find buyers?” Whether you’re looking for wholesale buyers for your quick flips or you’re looking for retail buyers (or renters) for your existing properties.
So, how do you go about finding these people? We do all sorts of things like: Craigslist, Bandit signs, MLS, open houses, etc. However, there is one tactic that very few people know about, let alone talk about. And that is individual property websites.
Sure, there are lots of places you can get a “property” website put up for you, but the sole purpose of this website is to sell a particular property. You are not a Realtor trying to appease a seller. You are an investor that wants to move a piece of property. So, it is essential that you have a very clear way – and reason – for people to contact you. So, let’s talk about how to do that…
Well, last night, we were kicking around some ideas on new websites for our own properties. Here’s the template we came up with:
http://www.performanceteamkw.com/properties/maplewood_driv.htm (You can check it out right now). So, today, I went ahead and put this one up and one for another one of our properties. They’re very simple, just a couple pages each and a web form so the person can contact us. Now, we didn’t tie it to any autoresponder, but you could if you wanted to. This was just a quick and dirty project that we wanted to test.
Okay, so we got the websites up, but that’s not going to do us a lot of good. Sure, we could advertise from Craigslist or eBay to get traffic, but that kind of defeats the purpose. So, how do we get traffic?
We’re going to use GOOGLE ADWORDS. I wanted to use this as a case study to show you how to do it and watch the process. I’m going to go through it step-by-step from A to Z so that you can duplicate it. This way, you won’t have to spend thousands of dollars on an Adwords course :-). However, there is a catch! We’re going to move through this stuff pretty quickly, so you’ll want to carve out about 15-30 minutes a day so you can stay on top of it and follow along because we’ll be doing it in real time!
So, first things first…
- If you currently HAVE a property you need to market, get a basic website put up. You can search for one online or you can email us and we’ll have our webmaster duplicate our template for you for $150 for an 8 photo site. (If you use an online template service, MAKE SURE that it is designed to CAPTURE INFORMATION)
- Visit Google Adwords Learning Center
- Go through the Adwords Basics
- If you really want to learn the details, also go through the Adwords Policies. It’s valuable information and will help keep you on the right side of Google’s “laws” moving forward.
That’s it for now! This will give you the basics Google Adwords. But, go and do it now because tomorrow, we’re going to start sending some traffic to the site!
Awesome… count me in! Been meaning to do this myself- but now you sent the call for action. Let’s do it!
No updates on this? I track all the pre-foreclosures, REOs, Short Sales, Rehabs, Fixer-uppers and rental property deals in Maricopa County, Arizona. I am constantly finding deals at 20-30% or more below market value for my investor clients. I would love to read the update to this article.
Hey Heather,
Happy New Year !
I hope that the holidays were a time of great joy and being with family.
I am so looking forward to an awesome and rewarding New Year !
I too am cleaning out and tossing out and shredding tons of paper.
I think 2008 brings us to a new frontier in Rreal Estate investing such as we have not known before
Let me explain.
Right now banks are overwhelmed with foreclosures and trying to figure out a way to deal. They simply are not equipped to be in the real estate marketing and sales business let alone property management. This issue alone will force them to reconsider the way they do business. They continue to seek legislation to be able to market Real Estate. It simply wont happen. Add to that the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to totally turn the whole thing upside down in regards to the way banks market their paper and you will see what I believe will be a new horizon for want to be homeowners. Add to that the huge credit squeeze and the fact that the average american is up to their neck in credit debt and you have all the ingredients for a new business philosophy. It has to be because the foreclosure debacle is only the beginning to an even bigger problem, We dont save enough money in this country and politicians now have people convinced that the government can fix everything. I’ll just say that you cant fix whats broken with the very thing that caused it in the first place.
I see a hard time ahead in this election year. People will still make poor choices. Ultimately we see a new mortgage industry. Someone will still do subprime loans!
Someone will still lend to those people with poor credit, only on different term because Government regulations will force it. Fannie and Fredddie will put the new face on mortgages and it will happen soon. Mortgages will have different default subjegations overall as we saw bankrutcies change so will we see foreclosures become different .
Those are my thoughts. What a great time to be a real estate investor !
Ryan
Yes, I find it amazing that lots of courses just glance over the buyer side and building a buyers list. In my opinion, it is, and has been, critical to have a list of buyers and investor buyers lined up before you consider buying a house.
James
Decent info, cheers.
By the way, if you couple that with listing in all of the free websites, like Craigslist and http://www.888EZToOwn.com it can help too. It only takes the 1 right person looking at your property to get it sold.