- [Seth] Hey there everyone, this is Seth.
Today, I wanted to show you a little trick
that has saved me just gobs and gobs of time.
This is something that, it took me a little while
to figure out that I could even do this,
and once I did, it really was kind of a game changer,
because I mean, if you run a business anything like mine,
where you send out just tons and tons of offers to people,
I mean you have to talk to people and get the information,
and evaluate the property, and put together a contract,
and send it all out, and that's just,
that's a lot of wasted time, given that most
of those people are going to be saying no to you.
Something that I learned to do over time was,
first of all, I created a, you know, a real estate website,
where people could submit their information,
so I didn't have to spend tons of time talking to them,
and then on that website, you can see here,
I mean, whenever somebody submits their info,
it comes to me in the form of an email,
kind of like what you're looking at right here.
Really, a lot of the stuff in this email is,
it just presents me everything that I need to know
in order to make an offer, and just test the waters,
and just find out, you know,
how motivated is this person really.
As you can see here from this list,
there's a number of questions that I ask,
but there's a few questions,
and I guess the answers to those questions,
that really matters the most as I'm thinking
about how I'm going to respond to them.
The first question that I want to see the answer to
is this one right here,
what is your estimated market value of this property?
In other words, in the mind of this seller,
how much do they think this property is worth.
The second pair of questions that
I really want to see the answer to our these two right here,
on a scale of one to five, how quickly
do you need the property to be sold,
and then, what is your level of motivation
to sell this property?
This is the persons opportunity to just tell me out right,
I either don't really care, it's not a big deal,
I don't need to sell it, or, you know,
the polar opposite end would be,
I need this property sold yesterday, send me an offer now,
and then, also telling me really,
just their level of motivation,
and how badly they want to sell it.
Pretty important stuff to know there.
Then also, for that matter, up here,
how much do you currently owe in property taxes,
because part of my offer, whenever I send offers is,
I'm offering to pay off their taxes
and pay for their closing costs,
so this number matters for the purpose
of factoring it into my offer.
Really, that's all I need to know.
Then, for an email like this, all I would do is,
you know, click reply, and then I'm just going to
send them an email saying, you know,
hi, Jason, is this person's name,
thanks for your submission on our website.
Would you consider selling this property for,
and then all and going to do here is
I'm going to take their estimated market value,
which in this case was 30,000,
and I'm going to just basically factor that by
anywhere from five to 15 percent,
depending on how interesting this property
even looks for me.
In this case, we'll just say, you know, 2500 bucks,
and then we could pay for all of your closing costs
on the transaction, and then,
if you have any interest, let me know.
Thanks, Seth.
That's it.
I just go ahead and send this email,
and I want you to realize something here.
First of all, notice how much time
I spent researching this property.
It was almost none.
All I did was look at what this seller said,
what their representation was,
what they thought it was worth in their mind,
and then I took that number, you know,
coupled with the fact that they are clearly motivated
to sell it, and I'm basically just sending them,
you know, my number, like
would you ever consider selling for this amount?
You will also notice, this is not the actual
legally binding purchase contract.
All this is is me just sending them a number
and saying, what if, you know?
I'm not saying yes I'm going to do it,
I'm not saying any terms or conditions,
or anything like that,
all I'm doing is just testing the waters and saying,
okay, you're saying that you're motivated
to sell this property, well then prove it.
Are you willing to sell it for
less than 10 percent of what you say it's worth?
Because if somebody's willing to do that,
then I know they're serious,
I mean, they need out of this thing right now,
they don't care how much they get for it,
they just want it gone.
Those are the kinds of people and looking for.
I'm not looking for the typical run of the mill seller
who once anywhere near full market value,
those are not my ideal client.
I'm just looking for people who are apathetic,
they don't care, they can't afford it, and they want out.
Really, to find those people, it's just
as simple as, you know, spending 30, 60 seconds,
how ever long it takes to send this kind of very basic,
generic email, and send it out to them.
I would say, I mean, on average,
I probably get yes response to these kinds of emails,
you know, maybe one out of every 15 offers I send,
maybe one out of every 20.
I mean, it's not like you're going to hear yes a lot.
It takes a while to get to those,
but the way my business runs at this point is that
I get dozens of these submissions on my website
on a regular basis, so I have no shortage of leads.
I have plenty of people who want to sell their property.
It's really just a matter of me going through them,
cherry picking them, and sending out
a lot of very simple emails like this.
They really take me, I mean, almost no time,
or thought, or effort to do.
All I'm doing is kind of weeding them out,
and finding out, okay, who is really serious,
and who really wants to play ball.
Whenever I do hear people who say yes,
that's the point at which I really start to dig
into the property, and really start to research it,
and spend time, and say, okay,
is this really something I want to do?
Another nice thing about sending these kinds of emails,
that are, you know, so crazily, you know,
less than the property's market value is that,
even if this person was way off,
say their property was actually worth like,
you know, 20,000, or 15,000, rather than 30,000,
well, I'm still very well protected,
because the offer I sent was only for 2500 bucks.
I mean, if they were even remotely close
on their estimated market value, and a lot of the times,
even if they're way far off,
there's just such a massive margin
that goes into the offers that I make,
so that even when they're wrong,
you know, if they've said yes,
I've still got a lot of wiggle room.
Hopefully you find that helpful.
I know, you know, I used to spend
hours, and hours, and hours, and hours
going through the painstaking work of
talking to these people on the phone,
or researching a property, and putting together these big,
you know, detailed contracts,
and signing them, and mailing them, all this stuff.
You don't have to do that.
It does not have to be that difficult.
If you're looking for that diamond in the rough like I am,
the fact of the matter is, it's going to take a lot of no's
before you find it, so don't waste your time
with a lot of people who are never going
to do business with you.
At this stage of the game, all you're trying to do
is get some very basic answers on,
are you willing to sell at this crazy low price, yes or no?
Just be prepared for a lot of no's, but just realize,
when you finally get that yes,
you can rest assured you didn't spend
an inordinate amount of time wasting on lots of people
who were really never serious
about playing ball in the first place.
This is the way that I've learned to make offers,
and it's saved me tons of time.
I hope you find it helpful too.
Best of luck!
See ya.