What does an effective email auto-responder series look like for real estate wholesalers?

Having a real estate wholesaling website and strong opt-in magnet is great. However, all savvy marketers know that it can take several touches to convert new prospects, and especially in the world of flipping houses it can take recurring outreach to connect the right deals with your buyers list. So what do successful email campaigns and auto-responders look like for property wholesalers?

Right Expectations

Success in email auto-responders, and avoiding complaints and wasted time requires building a list with synergy, and setting the right expectations. Your opt-in needs to be relevant to what you’ll be emailing them about on a regular basis. Be transparent. Let them know if they should expect instant updates when you post a new real estate blog, weekly updates on new wholesale property deals, or something else.

Style and Design

There is no single right answer about what your emails should look like. The best look is really about who your list is made up of, and your branding. If you are simply messaging personal contacts and have a basic real estate website then a personal looking, plain text email message can be the perfect fit. In contrast; if you have a high profile luxury brand, in a high end market with a very design conscious database it may be wise to include visuals. New templates from AWeber and other email services can help wholesalers craft emails which mimic their website pages for a seamless user experience.

Content (What to Email)

What should you be emailing to your list? What you promised. It can be quarterly newsletters, daily real estate wholesaling blog posts, an email training series, or notifications whenever new wholesale deals come on board. There can be occasions to deviate such as holiday wishes and notable product or service changes, but don’t stray too far from what they are anticipating, or they’ll turn off, doom you to the spam folder, and cause issues with your email provider, regardless of how much value you think you are adding.

Length

Email auto-responders should never really end. Messaging should be ongoing once a name is added to the list. To get started new real estate wholesalers may want to launch with a set of 4 to 7 emails and then invest in more as their list takes off.

Length of individual emails can vary. Some of the most effective are just a line or two. At the same time, some very successful bloggers and email marketing experts claim that extremely long emails (running into multiple pages) have performed the best. Think about who is receiving them, why they want them, and what action you want. If it is clicks to site then make that as easy as possible.

Calls to Action

Don’t forget your calls to action. Use multiple links, social icons and URLs and your phone number if you want to generate live calls.

Want More?

Want more tips like this in your inbox? How about hot news on new investor funding for wholesalers form Best Transaction Funding? Use the link at the top of the blog post to subscribe to weekly blog updates for wholesalers and get notified first when we roll out new funding programs…

Some local municipalities around the country have declared "wholesaling" real estate as illegal.  They contend that selling houses without owning it first is a violation of the law and may require a license.

Not so fast...

 

PS: Apologies for the audio in advance.  As always, we try to give you the best content we can to help your business.  In case the audio is not clear, our guests are Maurice A. Thompson, the Executive Director of 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, and Vena Jones-Cox, aka the Real Estate Goddess.  Maurice's website is ohioconstitution.org and Vena's website is regoddess.com.

New data highlights massive pool of wholesale properties available for investing…

While the US housing market has rebounded quickly, many real estate investors continue to seriously underestimate the amount of house deals available to them for flipping for quick, and sizable profits.

New real estate statistics firmly buck the media spin suggesting it is hard to find value and foreclosure properties in the US in the second half of 2014.

While thousands of American homeowners have been lifted above water thanks to rapidly rising home values and equity, millions more remain in distressed situations. 9,100,000 remain underwater according to the latest numbers.

Per figures from RealtyTrac over a third of Nevada homeowners still owe at least 25% more on their homes than they are valued at (even values are going up daily). This is only topped by one central Florida city.

Unsurprisingly Nevada remains one of the top 5 states for foreclosures in the US. The other top 4 states for foreclosure activity include; FL, MD, NJ, and IL.

RealtyTrac’s VP says the time it is taking lenders to foreclosure in Nevada has actually risen as of June 2014. It now takes 494 days to foreclose on average, versus just 420 days in 2013. That means many more foreclosure homes coming down the pipe.

In fact, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports NV foreclosure starts rose 56% year over year, and 66% month over month to June 2014. This puts 1 in every 138 homes in NV in the default process. Twice as many Florida homeowners in currently in foreclosure.

Still, home builders don’t appear to be fazed and are still rolling out new projects. The market is heading up, and great times for real estate investors are ahead. However, there are still millions of great opportunities now, for taking advantage of spreads, and rapidly rising home prices. It is just a matter of honing in on the best locations.

Armed with fast cash from Best Transaction Funding real estate wholesalers should find no limits on deal volume, expect what they can personally handle.

Do new market shifts and data signal vacation area properties as next sweet spot for real estate wholesalers?

Multiple factors appear to be merging to give vacation area rental properties a significant boost in profitability. This could present substantial opportunity for flipping houses in these regions over the next couple of months.

According to the National Association of Realtors’ Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun, vacation home sales have been the one consistently improving housing market sector.

New forecasts call for the vacation rental market to become a $25B niche in the coming months. Equity fund giant Blackstone’s new travel-booking company IPO also suggests a sizable boom to come as this market regains steam and blossoms. TripAdvisor claims a recent survey shows 90% of respondents plan to travel this summer.

At the same time Zillow and REIS have reported rental vacancies falling sharply in 2014 to the 4% range. Landlords have been lapping it up, and boosting rents to the tune of 22% year over year in areas like Boston. In parts of SW FL rents are seeing vacation area rents soar by 50%, and during the summer low season. This means growing equity and far healthier cash flow spreads for those investing now, and some extremely wide margins for wholesalers to capitalize on, even without having to dig for distressed property.

There are popular vacation destinations all over the U.S. from San Diego, CA to ski resorts in the mountains to the Jersey Shore and sizzling South Florida. However, many are not in their peak seasons during the summer. Snow birds return north, temporarily depleting markets of local buyers and leaving sellers nervous. That means negotiating power for wholesalers. A few more weeks and these properties could have lines of buyers beating the door down for a shot.

Armed with the best transactional funding wholesalers ought to be able to get in flip houses for big profits to their heart’s delight.

Are aging, low tech real estate agents and investors actually making it easy for newcomers to win more business on the internet?

Inman News and NAR have recently raised the issue of today’s aging real estate professional population, and the opportunities it offers for the young and ambitious. Even though most Realtors say they plan to stay in the business for another two years, the average agent is now 56 years old. This, along with the new growth phase we are entering, has led to real estate has been dubbed one of the best careers to get into.

While older generations have been adopting technology, and iPads have become one of the most popular presents for grandma during the holidays, many real estate workers have been very slow to integrate. It took years for many to start using email. The latest statistics suggests that despite the presence of drones and Skype, many are still not embracing the most basic forms of online real estate marketing.

A new 2014 Member Profile report from NAR suggests the vast majority of Realtors are spending very little on internet marketing.

The report found Realtors spend far more on their vehicles than any other business expense. The median amount spent to maintain their real estate websites in 2013 was just $200. Many top real estate wholesaling gurus spend far more than 10 times this amount on online marketing per month.

A little more than half of Realtors say they now use social media for real estate marketing, but few reported have a blog. Industry news analysts have been criticizing agents for their poor use of SEO, while others highlight the data showing low repeat business and referral statistics as a percentage of total business volume.

This suggests good wholesaling websites, real estate blogs with sustainable SEO strategies, and automation for follow up and asking for referrals could help both agents and wholesalers quickly rise above much of the perceived local competition, while increasing net earnings.

Those on extremely tight budgets could find the web their best ally in getting more out of their marketing dollar.  Affiliate programs which generate referral income for everything from real estate books to recommending the best transactional funding lenders, can also be used to increase income and offset online marketing investments, all while increasing their value in the marketplace.

For those without the patience or desire to learn new technologies, summer interns, apprentices, and hiring young tech savvy freelancers on an as needed basis could provide a dramatic edge. Who knows, you may just discover the next manager to help you head up your real estate business so you can hit the beach or golf course, and simply collect the rewards of the infrastructure you have created.