How to Use Post-it Notes to get Sellers Calling You

Dear Guys:

I was having lunch today with an associate and he was complaining about there being "no deals" anywhere and was frustrated he could not find profitable real estate deals. I was stunned to hear this when most of our students are doing very well and deals are everywhere - so I thought I take a moment and show everyone one of the best ways to get sellers calling you with real deals.

Post-it Notes are the answer

One of the top ways of getting really motivated sellers to call is to use post-it notes - if you are not familiar with these they are the small yellow sticky notes that 3M puts out in packs of 50 or
100 and people use for small notes or to book mark pages of book - but most people do not know that you can get post-it notes preprinted with your sales message on them for a very reasonable price - usually about 2 or 3 cents per page - you then get kids or friends to stick them on the doors of neighborhoods where you want to buy houses - they can typically put out 200 per hour if they are moving good - get two people for four hours and you have 1600 pieces delivered to 1600 homes - we typically pay about 10 cents per delivered post it note - total cost is about 12 to 15 cents per post-it note - that is about $200 to $250 dollars.

Now you may get as high as a 1% response rate or about 16 calls for $250 - now imagine getting just one deal for this amount and netting $5,000 to $15,000 - these are the kinds of numbers you should be getting.

This is one of the best ways to get sellers calling and is very targeted to the exact neighborhoods you want to buy in or even the exact street. I have attached two samples of post-it notes we use and you can modify for your purposes - once you have it adjusted to fit your needs simple go to Goggle and type preprint post it notes and select a printer - most of them you can upload your file for them to print onto the post it notes.

Please try and you will be amazed at how powerful this method is.

Also if you any marketing that is working and you want to share with the groups please email back to me and I will include a summary of it a future newsletter.

Thanks
Mike Lautensack
http://realestatewealthtoday.com/

Housing Prices Down 4.5% - Where is the Bottom??

Here is article about the continued drop in prices - where is the bottom?

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. home prices were falling in every region of the country in September, according to a closely watched index of home prices released Tuesday.

Home prices fell in September in all 20 major cities covered by the Case-Shiller price index, even in cities that had been holding up before the August freeze in mortgage markets, Standard & Poor's reported.

"There is no real positive news in today's data," said Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, and the co-developer of the index. Shiller said it's nearly impossible to forecast when the market could turn around.

For the national Case-Shiller home price index, prices fell 1.7% in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, and were down a record 4.5% in the past year. It was the largest quarter-to-quarter price decline in the 20 years covered by the index.

For the first time in this housing cycle, prices in all 20 cities dropped from the previous month, with the biggest declines in the former bubble cities of Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Tampa.

For the 20 cities, prices fell a record 4.9% year-over-year.

Meanwhile, prices were down 5.5% year-over-year in the original 10-city index, the largest drop in the 10-city index since 1991.

The last time prices fell so much, it took more than eight years for home prices to return to their peak level.

"We judge the recent decline in home prices to be the beginning of an extended decline," wrote Drew Matus, an economist for Lehman Bros., who said prices would probably fall 15% from peak to trough nationally.

"With supply overhang growing and mortgage financing tougher to obtain, home prices are going to soften considerably further in the quarters ahead," wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief economist for MFR.

The Case-Shiller index, which tracks multiple sales of the same homes, is considered by many observers to be the best gauge of national and metropolitan-area real-estate values.

Falling prices make it more difficult for homeowners to tap the equity in their homes or refinance their mortgages. Millions of homeowners who took out adjustable-rate loans in 2005 and 2006 face sharply higher mortgage payments this year and next, with foreclosures having already soared as the result of payment resets.

"It is surprising that the weaker housing market so far has had such a limited effect on U.S. household spending," wrote Gabriel Stein, an analyst for Lombard Street Research. "However, if house prices do continue to fall at their recent pace, it would be astonishing indeed if this did not badly hit consumer confidence and hence spending."

In a separate report, the Conference Board reported a sharp drop in the consumer confidence index in November, largely because of worries about the near-term outlook for energy prices and the stock market.

Plunging home prices will also be felt on Wall Street, where banks and other money managers have leveraged untold billions in complex securities based on increasingly risky mortgages.

Boom goes bust

Former boom towns in Florida and Southern California have now passed Detroit for the dubious honor of having the largest price declines in the past year. Prices are still up in the Pacific Northwest and in areas of the South, but they're rising at a slower pace.

Fifteen of the 20 cities tracked in the index have seen prices fall in the past year, led by Tampa, Fla., with an 11.1% decline, followed by Miami with a 10% loss and Detroit with a 9.3% loss.

Indeed, eight of the 20 cities recorded their largest-ever year-over-year price declines in September.

On a year-over-year basis, prices were up in five cities, led by Seattle and Charlotte, N.C., with 4.7% increases. After adjusting for inflation of 3.7% in the past year, real prices were up in just two of 20 cities.

Here are the year-over-year nominal price changes for the 20 cities covered by the index:

Tampa, down 11.1%; Miami, down 10%; Detroit, down 9.6%: San Diego, down 9.6%; Las Vegas, down 9%; Phoenix, Ariz., down 8.8%; Los Angeles, down 7%; Washington, D.C., down 6.6%; San Francisco, down 4.6%; Minneapolis, down 4.5%; Cleveland, down 4%; New York, down 3.6%; Boston, down 3.2%; Chicago, down 2.5%; Denver, Colo., down 0.9%; Dallas, up 0.2%; Atlanta, up 0.4%; Portland, Ore., up 2.2%; Charlotte, up 4.7%; and Seattle, up 4.7%.

Another Way to Invest in Real Estate

Guys:

In addition to buying and selling hosues, I follow the general real estae market very closely and have rcently started to buy home builder stocks - I am slowing adding to my holdings of the ITB iShares index which trades at around 18 to 20 now - this is down from a high of 45.
This is high risk stuff but I beleive that the hosuing stocks have been so beaten down thier downside is very low.

I do beleive that housing prices probably have another 10-15% to fall on average before this cycle ends. I bet there will be more bankruptcies among homebuilders before all of this is done.

When the cycle is done I thick we see many of the following signs:

• Surviving builders trade at 50-75% of written-down book value.
• Earnings are negative, but no longer getting worse.
• Early value investors will have given up on the sector.
• Old standards will return for loan underwriting.
• Financial magazines will talk about prudence in borrowing against residential real estate, and how it is not a “one way ticket” to riches.
• Inventory levels decline 20% from their peak levels

This is an interesting additional way to play the real etate market

Thanks

Mike

Investing Secrets in the Post-Bubble Real Estate Era

Attention Real Estate Investor: Learn the New Investing Secrets in the Post-Bubble Real Estate Era

You would have to be living in a cave or tucked away on a deserted island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean not to know that the American real estate market has effectively fallen apart. Real estate investing techniques and strategies that have worked so well and for so long are no longer effective. If you want to continue making money in real estate today, you'll have to adjust your strategies accordingly, or risk being left behind in today's post-bubble market.

One such strategy is the short sale.

A short sale is nothing more than convincing the lender to accept an amount less than the current loan payoff amount as full payment for a property. Because real estate as we know it has changed so dramatically so quickly, banks are more motivated than ever to quickly unload these properties and get them off their books as soon as possible. The reason for this is really quite simple: Most banks are required to maintain cash reserves of up to six times the retail value of each real estate owned (“REO”) on hand. Because an REO is actually a liability and not an asset – and there are so many of them – you have an unprecedented opportunity to simultaneously help a friendly banker as well as yourself.

Here's how it works.

Once you've located a distressed property owner and have convinced them that letting you solve their real estate problem is in their best interest, you'll need to prepare a real estate sales contract (signed by you and the homeowner) reflecting the amount you wish to offer the bank.

In addition, you’ll also need some additional documentation for the bank’s Loss Mitigation Department: A cover letter that fully explains your offer and the reasons why you simply can’t offer full price for the property. If you’ve properly done your homework, the accompanying documents will help build your case. I’m talking here about area comp sheets, photos of the property that highlight the negative aspects of the property, a hardship letter from the property owner explaining the severity of their current financial situation, as well as a HUD-1 net sheet showing the lender exactly how much money they’ll be left with after all expenses – closing costs, taxes, etc. – have been paid.

One last item you’ll fax to the lender is critical to your offer. You need to send them a list detailing all needed repairs – and the associated costs – to help your offer seem even more practical. You don’t have to tell the lender that the property is falling down. The estimate will do that for you.

Keep in mind: the lender doesn’t want property back. You’re doing them a favor by taking it off their hands. Because they’re in business to make money from interest and not owning real estate, they’re not going to try to get as much money as they possibly can from the property. Banks are far more interested in getting REO’s off their books and freeing up the cash reserves requirement.

While the bank could conceivably finance the property for you, don’t count on it. So be prepared to provide your own financing source either through your own bank or an alternative lending source that you’ve already lined up.

The new reality in real estate is that there is plenty of money to be made by investors who are prepared to seize the opportunity. Short sales are a great way to do this. As long as the foreclosure rate is rising faster than gas prices, you stand to have an almost unlimited profit potential. You can capitalize on these opportunities when they present themselves by lining up a ready supply of private lenders that are able to provide the cash you need at a moment’s notice. Then you can truly build your American Dream.

About the Author:

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur in Philadelphia, Pa and creator of the Private Lender PowerPoint Presentation Kit. This kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your business. To learn more about this powerful step-by-step kit and receive your FREE Real Estate Wealth Newsletter go to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/