OfflineI am doing bird dogging for a group of investors who are looking for home owners that are in default on their loans and would like to do a short sale. These are cash buyers and would do all the negotiating with the banks them selves. My problem is that I am not sure how to approach these home owners to see if we would be able to help them. If anyone has any ideas on how to do this it would be greatly appreciated.
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We have done letters to people that were going thru the foreclosure process, as well as probates/estates trustees. We found that if you introduce yourself, identify & relate with their problem, show compassion, and give them
a solution to remedy that problem, they will usually contact you for more information.
Now there might be circumstances regarding their situation that you can not rectify so don't expect to have a high success rate, but I'm sure that some deals can be had by this method and passed onto your investors so you can obtain your bird dog fees.
We have partnered with a short sale (SS) investor making it a little different from what you are doing because we split 50-50. Because of this we are willing to spend a little on marketing for a higher rate of return.
You can run ads on CL saying something alon the lines of "Are you behind in payments, we can help and your phone number." Have the investors told you what information they will need from you before they contact the homeowner if any? Or are you sending names and phone numbers there way?
When people call us who are behind in payments some of them already have a SS in mind while others are looking for answers and working on keeping their property. The folks looking for answers are not always at the point where a SS is what they are interested in. Many are in the process of a loan modification and looking for options a,b & c. When this happens wish them the best and let them know you will follow up with them to see how it's working out in a few months (You can ask them when they started the process to get a better idea, loan mods take 3-4 mos.) If it does great, if not a SS will be there next option to avoid foreclosure.
You could send letters we get a good response from this but depending on what your investors are paying you will depend on how much to spend on letters, lis pendens, postage, etc. You could put out bandit signs saying "avoid foreclosure and your ph#." Also put business cards out at local businesses where you can that have the words "We Buy Houses" and "Avoid Foreclosure" on them.
Be prepared for some anger and sadness from these homeowners. There have been times I've hung up the phone and cried. One of them times was 2 days ago.
If you have a moment feel free to check out my journal at http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/investing-journals/31033/... to read about some of our SS adventures.
All the best to you.
Lea
If I had a birddog doing this I would create a way to detect the leads coming from our birddog to us. I would have the calls come directly to me.
Lea