5 Ways to Build a Real Estate Investor Buyers List
Question from a meeting:
We are just starting out in wholesaling. We are working hard on building our buyer’s list. My question is there any way to access and see email addresses in the member’s directory. I see we can send emails to other members, but we don’t see the email addresses directly. We were wanting to reach out to other members and connect.
And when you start any new business it is so much easier to start if you have a ready-made buyer’s list. We get a few people every year that only want to join the association for the sole purpose of obtaining an excel spreadsheet of all the contact names and email addresses. Rest assured we don’t do that.
And just emailing everyone in the MAREI database or any database randomly, without a prior connection, is considered spam and is going to get you blocked. So don’t try to do that.
So we are back to how to build a buyers list?
My best way to build a real estate investor buyer’s list is MARKETING!
Market the House
Here in my office, whenever we get a property to wholesale, we market the heck out of it. For every person that calls or emails, we collect their name, phone, and email. We add the information to our CRM (REIBlackbook, by the way, I have a great bonus package on this, if you would like to know about it, I can hook you up) and follow up when we have new properties.
At every opportunity, we collect contact info in an effort to grow and build our real estate investor buyer’s list.
So where do we market the house?
On Our Website
First we put the property on our website. If you don’t have a website, use the free one that comes with your MAREI Membership. And no matter what site you use, tell all viewers how to sign up on your real estate investor buyer’s list.
MAREI also has some great deals from Carrot and REIBlackbook to get a more professional website.
Zillow
Next, especially for our non-listed houses, we put them on Zillow for sale by owner. In the text write-up about the property, include YOUR website. We did this once with a duplex in Lee’s Summit and generated about 100 investor buyer leads in 2 days.
Next, we email the property out to our buyer’s list. Note that people do forward emails to other people. So every email has a link and instructions for the reader to sign up for our buyer’s list if they are not already on it.
Social Media
Next, we take the link from the property posting on our website and we put it on social media. We hit every social media group where real estate investors might be lurking and post about the house. That post drives them back to our website, the property, and our call to action – sign up on our buyer’s list.
We also tweet the property out on our Twitter feed. Post pictures on Instagram, and talk about it on LinkedIn.
Facebook Groups
If you are just starting, I would recommend finding the local investor Facebook group – there are a ton of ready-made buyer’s lists if you browse through the post for the past few months.
Collect Info
Anyone on social media who has an interest in the property will click to view and see your message about signing up on your buyer’s list.
People will also call us on the property – these are the best because we can talk to the person and collect their information, but be sure to enter the information into your database.
Market Your Business
This is not going to be as effective as marketing a property, but it does get your name out there.
Special Reports
The gurus will tell you to have a “squeeze page” that offers a free report in exchange for a name and an email. They tell you to use all of the above methods we use to market a house to market this “FREE REPORT.” And I am here to tell you that the gurus are selling you a total load of crap. Sure you will get a lot of names and emails into your database. But your goal is to get a list of people who buy houses, not wannabe investors who grab free reports off the internet.
Websites
So how do you market your business? Well spending some time on your website is a good start. Having your website on your signature line, your business cards, and anywhere and everywhere you might have a profile or a page: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google +, BiggerPockets, Connected Investor, and all the other online real estate investor sites.
Sharing Knowledge
Write blog posts for your local REIA or Bigger Pockets, host a podcast or guest speak on podcasts, teach workshops for local groups, share your knowledge.
Market by Networking Online
Seek out groups where investor buyers in your area might be – for example, all of the different groups that MAREI maintains (linked from the upper right-hand corner of the site). Start discussions, take part in discussions, ask questions and all-around get people to notice that you are there – not with ads, but with discussions.
So you might take some time creating a LinkedIn Profile that makes sure people know you buy and sell houses. Then find groups that pertain to Real Estate and the Kansas City area. Then go to town asking intelligent questions, sharing information you might have learned, taking part in discussions. As you join groups and see people you want to connect with, you can then friend them based on you both being in the same group – no emails needed.
Market by Networking in Person
Seek out live meetings where real estate investor buyers might be. So the MAREI meeting on the 2nd Tuesday of the month are a great place to network, Check out other events we hold on Zoom. And there are a lot of other groups that are on the MAREI calendar, be sure to hit them up too!
If some big wholesaler in town has a house that is open – go visit. Example here: Our company had a high-end home that we were wholesaling and we held a 2-hour open house. There were 40 investor buyers who walked through. These were real buyers who were begging for houses. These people came from our email being forwarded, social media, and social media being shared. We collected all their contact information and added them to our buyer’s list.
Market by Working the Phone
Reverse Prospecting
The gurus teach this and I am not sure how effective it is. Research who all the home buyers might be from the internet, newspaper, bandit signs, cards you get at meetings. Call the people up and ask them if they would like to be on your buyer’s list and find out what it is that they buy.
I would instead visit a social media group where local investors gather and look for the posts where people have a house for sale and all the comments on people wanting more info. About half of these are buyers and half are wannabe buyers.
Figure out a way to obtain a cash buyers list which often has a lot of phone numbers and call them. If landlords might be your target market, go to where rental properties are advertised and call the property owners.
We have all the tools you need to build a real estate investor buyer’s list here at MAREI. If you just dig in and spend a little time and effort, you should be able to have a quality list of about 20 good buyers in short order, and that is all you really need.
