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Ayesha,
Nice call and nice job on your persistence doing HBS. This is Jackie’s idea not mine. Try putting your signs advertising the sale up after 4:30PM on Friday for the open house the next two day. Then take them down after the end of the open house. I have done 6 HBS in about 6 years. Started out with 50 signs still have 50 signs and no complaints.Also for your next one since it is a gated community discuss with Patti the idea of maybe sending a mailing piece to each home in the community. You might even consider EDDM with the US Post Office. A nice flyer like Jackie uses for her nice home HBS. Just a thought.
DonOn Sunday morning of Ayesha’s HBS, we discussed how all the signs where gone. Since she was doing everything herself, it was hard to be at the open house AND be out there checking on signs and putting more signs up.
Gated communities usually have a community newsletter. Since 50%+ of the potential bidders come from the neighborhood, it makes sense to advertise in the community Newsletter for the HBS.
If there is a particular neighborhood you are interested in, you can advertise “i buy houses” in the community newsletters too. Prices are usually super cheap.
Ayesha’s next HBS is in a gated lake community. She should advertise in http://www.lakehouse.com They have 1,000’s of people who get an instant notification of any new lake houses. Could you advertise “i buy houses” there too? I have not tried but I bet you could. The ad prices are really cheap. A good time to get a great deal on lake houses is the late fall and winter. Most people are looking to BUY a lake house in the spring and summer so there is less chance of getting a good deal unless there is an extreme motivation in the seller’s life.
Don,
I have been trying to get the HOA of the gated community out put in a flyer for their monthly newsletter. I have already found out the rates of doing an EDDM for the community with the flyers to introduce them to the upcoming sale.
I did put up the signs as per the book, but you know one does come across some overzealous people who think they can rip them out even far outside their own neighbourhoods. I hired a guy off of Craigslist to place 15 sign on Thursday evening, and 25 on Friday evening, but i was only left with 10, I think. Some of the private/franchisee gas station owners wanted the deal for themselves so made it a point to rip out my signs so nobody else would find out about the Highest Bidder Sale in the vicinity 🙂 Go figure!
Jackie,
I am definitely going to advertise in http://www.lakehouse.com. I shall be calling them tomorrow to talk about ad placement. As you had previously suggested, we’ll also have a walking billboard guy on a weekend before the sale at a major shopping junction, as well as the days of the open house. On the day of the open house he can be at the gated community’s gate area.
Jackie also suggested advertising in the Dallas area as people from Dallas own lakeside and golf course community houses as their second homes, or retreats. Since the sale will be at the tail end of spring, and beginning of summer, we hope to generate a lot of interest.
Again Jackie, thank you for taking me on the coaching call today. I hope I can help other people out too. I have answered the questions on the coaching call’s introduction forum page.
Ayesha
I lived near the area of your April HBS before moving to Panama. So, I know the area well. Advertise in these places too:
In CANTON there is a huge 4 day event every month called First Monday. It actually starts on Friday and lasts all weekend until the first Monday. So, the first weekend is a better title.
The first Monday, you need to get a LOT of flyers at this event in Canton. There are hundreds and hundreds of vendors. You can ask to leave flyers at their booths. People come from all over Texas, Oklahoma and Louisana, etc to this event every month.
Also leave flyers in the restaurants in the area. Just down the road is Ben Wheeler Texas. Leave flyers there too – Moores Store and all the shops. Anyone who goes to Canton usually drives to Ben Wheeler for lunch and to check it out.
When Dallas people see these areas, they fall in love with East Texas and want to BUY A HOUSE in the area. You just hooked ’em!
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Just some thoughts on some of the obstacles to bandit signs in Texas. This organization is a group of fanatics whose secular religion is that bandit signs are a mortal sin:I think they have chapters in several other states as well.
Other obstacles are some of the city ordinances. For example, I live in a town where the city prohibits any open house sign unless it is installed no more than an hour before the open house begins, and taken down within an hour after the open house end.
Not HBS friendly at all.
–Dee
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Someone may have suggested this on the call (I wasn’t able to join that night) but what about hiring a few kids to hold your bandit signs at the busiest intersections?
We had a charity sale in a mini storage and the foot traffic really picked up when we sent volunteers to the intersections with directionals.Somehow this thread has picked up more comments than the one specifically about the call. For the people who could not get to hear the interview – it is not available either because of a technical glitch – I am going to write down what I had done for the first HBS in Fort Worth to clarify things.
For starters, there are many moving parts to HBS, and once you get your head wrapped around the concept, and the mechanics of conducting one, you’ll run with the idea.Every deal is different, and depending on the market, market dynamics, etc, your approach to marketing will be different. I can get a very nice, large house in the DFW market, that in California may only buy you a shack, thus the focus market to whom you are selling to different. The lower end house in your market may be a mid to high end house in my market.
*So first define your market area’s buyer’s demographics – your marketing will change accordingly.
*If you are in the low end area, you may get away with bandit signs, but in a upper middle to higher end area, you may not be able to do so, and a lot of advertising, including social media advertising, press releases, videos, etc may be needed.For the first HBS:
1. I started marketing 2 weeks before the HBS with online marketing.
a. Then I started putting ads on Craigslist 2-3 times a day in the immediate area, and the vicinity. As the day of the Open house approached, the frequency of the ads increased. I changed the ad copy too.
b. I started putting up the handmade Coroplast bandit signs at key intersections in the neighbourhood, and major retail stores like Home Depot, Walmart, etc
c. I designed, printed, and distributed flyers in the parking lots of these stores too
d. 1 week before and the day before, I also distributed flyers to the neighbours (it was a non-gated community, but with an HOA).
e. I had my blog done and referring people to it through my flyers, and the bandit signs. On my blog were all the rules, timings, and basic information about the property.
f. First I claimed the Zillow listing as a “For Sale by Owner” one, since I had an equitable interest in the property through my contract. I updated it with newer photos, and wrote details, and selling points about the house. Zillow syndicates it to Trulia, and Hotpads. Postlets was bought out by Zillow, so we cannot use that platform any more.Problems faced with the Bandit Signs, and how I overcame that, and what I would do differently next time.
1: I placed an ad on Craigslist for Bandit sign placement, and flyer distribution, and hired the most responsible sounding person. That is the best one can do for a one time “gig”.
2. I marked on a map he areas where I wanted the Bandit signs to be placed. The spots were narrowed down/pinpointed, based on traffic patterns, and visibility.An active HOA member of the neighbourhood decided it to be her civic duty to not only take out signs in the neighbourhood, but also the immediate vicinity. She also left a threatening message from a blocked number of dire consequences:-)
I made out more signs and placed them myself late in the night, only to have them disappear again.
I placed a large 6’x4′ coroplast sheet sign on the front yard that nobody could miss, so that it would become a topic of discussion too for people in the neighbourhood.
Flyers were skipped from distribution to many homes, because the ores guy was not that honest, and did not have an incentive to do the job right. How do I know? He was done with whole subdivision of 400 or so houses in 30 minutes, and I did not see the flyers in the door handles as I had instructed him.
What I would do differently with the Bandit Signs & Flyers:
I said this in the Coaching call too, that I would hire someone to hold the signs on 2 or 3 major jumctions at peak time on the Friday of the Open House weekend, and then again during the Open House hours – with added hours before the open house timing.
For Flyers, I would go a few blocks with the hired gig person, to oversee him, and to hold him accountable. I may also distribute it to the other side of the street with him.
If I have the budget, I would make the flyers and use the EDDM service of the USPS.
GOOD NEWS!
We were able to clean up the recording of Ayesha’s call about her first two Highest Bidder Sales. The replay will be posted in the Highest Bidder Sale section of the Premium Member training later today. And remember, now premium members can download all coaching calls so you can listen to them anytime, anywhere.
I’m researching a different way to do these Coaching Calls. I can’t have this happen again!
For the HBS I did in October last year, the blog address is:
Highest Bidder Sale in Fort WorthFor the one I did in Cleburne, in March of 2017, I did not make a blog, but just did lots of marketing on Craigslist, Offerup, Facebook, and through a few bandit signs.
For the HBS I am doing in Hideaway on April 22nd & 23rd, 2017, the blog address is:
Highest Bidder Sale in Hideaway, TXThank you.
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There are some more resources that might be helpful for such marketing:http://www.whitepages.com/reverse_address
Once you get a list of physical addresses in a neighborhood, you can plug in each address into that whitepage reverse_address link and get a likely list of who lives there. It doesn’t distinguish between owners or renters. I just tried it on a house I knew was a rental and it pulled up all three people who live there. With the names and addresses, one could easily do mailings to that area.
NextDoor is trying to be the Facebook for local neighborhoods. Lots of garage sales get advertised there and all kinds of neighborhood events. It might be a useful venue for HBS announcements.
http://www.komando.com/tips/393406/3-ways-to-check-out-your-neighbors
The article above is all about using those tools (and more) to check out a neighborhood.
–Dee
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Dee,
I signed up for my own neighbourhood for Nextdoor.com, but in trying to do so for the HBS I am conducting in Hideaway, TX, it wanted to verify if my name, street address, and phone number match, or a SS # match! There must be a workaround that, since I cannot have my phone number associated with every house I may be trying to market.
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Ayesha, are you saying that NextDoor was asking if your name, your home address, and your home phone number were all correct for your home location? Or were they asking if your name, street address and phone number were all a correct match for the address of the house you will be doing an HBS for?
If the latter, I’m thinking a combination of ideas might have a possibility. First, if you were to set up a VOIP phone number such as Vonage or MagicJack or any number of other VOIP services provide, usually those phone numbers are not tied to a specific location, whether home, business, or “on the road” — at least, as far as the general public can determine. Second, is it conceivable that your NextDoor ad or announcement could be made in the name (with permission and cooperation) of the home seller using his/her house address, name, and a VOIP phone number that you temporarily “loaned” him/her (1) for the purpose of posting the NextDoor announcement, but (2) that you will be using for phone communication for the duration of this HBS project?
Such a VOIP phone number could be reused from HBS to HBS without compromising your personal home phone or personal home address — unless NextDoor has some sneaky trap set in place to block such a strategy. Many people have VOIP phone numbers in addition to whatever phone number that might be tied to their physical location, and lots of people have multiple VOIP numbers which I can’t imagine how NextDoor could object to — even if one of such numbers was just temporarily “loaned” to them for the purpose of running an announcement or coordinating various aspects of an HBS project.
But I could be mistaken. There might be a gotcha in this strategy I haven’t thought of.
–Dee
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Dee,
I started out signing up for Nextdoor using the HBS house address, the next page was a verification one that had a few options to verify if I am the owner who has utility bills, or a phone bill with the house address as the mailing address.. the second option was proving it with the last 4 digits of my social security number, a postcard could be sent to my “claimed to be my home” address, and one more item of verification.
Since my phone number would not match the billing address, , and I could not depend on the Seller to send me any codes that may come listed on the postcard. The house is more than 2 hours away, and the Seller is in the process of moving with the likelihood of such items getting lost highly possible. I changed the address to my actual address and got it verified with the last 4-digits of my mailing address to get myself registered. Hat way I got a peak into the actual website and how it works. Many people asking for handyman suggestions , or lamenting the newly hiked property taxes and appraisals, but also many people from other neighbourhoods chipping in too. Now that was odd. So much pressure on verifying if I lived in my Neighbour hood, yet, my neighbourhood’s forum open for all neighbourhoodss to chip in. I have no idea if those other subdivisions were actually near mine, and I am sure any layperson would not either.
I have a Vonage number, as well as Google voice numbers. I use one specific Google Voice number for HBS. It helps me remember things, as well as associate it with all my HBS marketing on different platforms. Your suggestion of asking the Seller to “borrow” their name and address to set up the number may, or may not work.
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Ayesha, your mention of the owner in the process of moving inspires additional questions. Typically, an owner who has been living in such a house (for which you want to do an HBS) would likely file a notice with the local post office to forward his/her mail around the time of the actual move. That owner may or may not have a replacement living address lined up, and might even forward mail to some distant relative until a future dwelling can be arranged. So such complications could make NextDoor verification by mail a bit challenging.Another case might be if the HBS project house is currently being lived in by non-owning tenants, with the actual owner(s) living a long distance from that community.
Even another case might be if the HBS project house is vacant, and all mail to that address has been stopped at the Post Office, and possibly no forwarding address was ever filed.
How NextDoor would respond to each of these cases for verification would be of great interest here on CashFlowDepot. You might get to become our pioneer in these workaround challenges.
–Dee
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Dee,
Excuse the typos in the earlier comment. Last 4 digits of my SS # were used to verify my mailing address.
As to the questions you have raised:
Yes, Nextdoor’s verification through postcards can become challenging for anyone trying to do an HBS for a vacant house, tenant-occupied house, and for a Seller in the process of moving out with no new “permanent address”.I think your idea of asking the Seller to borrow their mailing credentials to set up a virtual phone number would be the best way. Then one can just set up a move to a new neighbourhood for the next HBS project, and carry the same number.
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