One of First Touch’s owners, Bill Syrios, has been a real estate investor for over 35 years, along with this co-owner Tori Foss for the last 10 years. Needless to say, they’ve had a few wins and losses over the years, and have learned a few mistakes along the way. Here are some of their stories and lessons:
1.) Not having niche lists.
We’ve tried mailing every property located in a zip code before.
The results? Response rate tanked and NO DEALS!
The problem? We weren’t targeting motivated sellers.
Now, today, we ONLY mail niche lists that have motivated sellers.
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2.) Don’t let a good Seller Finance cloud your judgement
We don’t always hire an inspection on our properties (though I do recommend it if you are new, or even experienced, to real estate).
We purchased a triplex a few years ago. The owner was willing to seller finance the deal with principal payments only (hubba hubba!). The caveat? No inspections (only walkthroughs), and we weren’t able to see the 3rd unit due difficult tenants.
Despite our better lack of judgement on getting a professional inspection (after all, we’ve purchased lots of properties without professional inspections), we were sucked in to dreamworld with the price and seller financing terms.
Little did we know that the whole place was held up by broken beams!
Lesson learned: don’t let a good seller finance deal keep you from a thorough inspection.
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3.) Taking no for no.
We did a flip a few years ago on a large house that the owners had to sell fast due to job relocation.
They’re asking price was at market value, and it was in a great neighborhood!
After running the numbers with our contractor, we determined what price point we had to be at… which was far below market value…
When I called to make the offer the next day, the owner yelled in disbelief and hung up.
I ended up texting them 1-2 days later, saying we would cover closing costs and would work with them on moving out in their time frame.
Not only did we end up making the deal happen, but we ended up renting the house from them all through construction up until the sale of the remodel (far less expensive than paying a PL)!
We ended up netting $150k from the flip, all because we didn’t let an initial no be a no.
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Hopefully you’ve learned from your mistakes and are now crushing deals!
What’s the best way to get off market properties at a discount? Send your niche lists our handwritten greeting letters, our best response rate producer!
And follow up with our we buy houses for cash postcard!
Then rinse and repeat.
Deals come from not a one time mail campaign, but mailing consistently (we recommend on a monthly basis).
Get your mail campaigns going at firsttouchletters.com!