Finding Deals through Direct Mail

Have you ever wanted to purchase a deal off market but are unsure of how to find a deal? One easy way to find an off market deal is through direct mail.

What is direct mail?

Direct Mail is the process of composing a list of potential sellers and sending a message to them. This message can be sent via postcard or letter and can be typed or handwritten. I personally believe that handwriting the letter adds a more personal touch to the letter and makes it seem like you care more about the deal because you took the time to hand write the letter.

How to make a list?

There are many ways to create a direct mail marketing campaign and in this post, I would like to share with you the three best ways. These are driving for dollars, list brokers, and county/public records.

Driving for dollars

This process consists of driving around an area that you are interested in buying in and looking for potential properties to purchase. A good place to start would be to find homes that are in distress meaning ones that are in bad shape. This can range from an overgrown yard to a house that needs a new roof. Driving for dollars comes at no expense to you other than to pay for gas.

List Brokers

List Brokers create lists of people’s names and addresses for investors to contact. The lists may be based on the seller making late payments, the number of bedrooms or bathrooms in the home, or the year it was purchased. The purpose of purchasing one of these lists would be to meet an investor’s goals for the property or potential seller. An example would be wanting to contact people who are late on payments to see if they are willing to sell and eliminate the problem of being behind on payments. On a final note, it is important to remember that these lists do cost money and a lot of the information can be found by yourself for free or of little charge.

County/Public Records

To find the information talked about above, you can go to your local county public records website to create your own list. Here you can find data about homeowners and begin to compile addresses and names. This can take some time and work but will pay off in the long run.

Upon creating your list you can now write letters and begin sending them out to the homeowners. It will take time to hear a response back and it is not guaranteed to receive a response back at all. This is why it is important to send out a lot of letters because the success rate is not that high.

If you don’t hear back from the owner, don’t worry. Give it some time and send another letter. Sometimes the homeowner may not want to sell at the time of your first letter but maybe at the third one they do. It is important to be consistent and to not give up.

Direct mail can be a powerful tool to find off market deals. I encourage anyone reading this to give this a try and see if it works in your local market.