Hey Taylor! Where's My List?

My last couple of jobs were so flexible I actually forgot how restricting it is to have an office job. I'm in that freakin' chair from 8:30-5 every day, on the phone calling people that don't want to be bothered (by me or any other salesperson) or be bothered with the product I'm peddling (commercial insurance.) It's mind-numbing work, but, I am the dad and that's what dad's do. Like my little one says as he wanders through the house while I'm gone all day "daddy work!" At least I have a nice place to come home to every day. My little oasis... But I digress...

With the day hours taken up by J.O.B. and Daddy-time from 6-9, that leaves the night hours from 9-midnight for real estate. So this evening I am back to pulling my own foreclosure info out of the paper for my researcher(s).

You may ask yourself, "Self, why would he pull his own numbers? Why not have the researchers do that? Isn't that something that a true real estate investor wouldn't deign to do him/herself?" Well, that's a very good series of questions my young learner... come here, sit down and listen to heytaylor and I'll tell you a story...

Back when I was a young foreclosure door-knocker, my mentor had an assistant who would gather the FC info out of the public notice section of the local newspaper every day. She would input the data into an excel sheet and fold/mail his "WE BUY HOUSES" flyers and then she would email me the excel list of all the foreclosures for the entire Hampton Roads area. (That's something like 7 counties.)

The info was not sorted or grouped in any way, just the raw data. So, being the go-getter, can-do kind of guy I am, I filtered out the Virginia Beach leads by zip and sorted them by auction date and started knocking doors. There were lots of names and I couldn't keep up with the entire city so I focussed on 2 zip codes. Eventually I figured out what to say by trial and error and started actually getting to the point where people were responding to me in a positive way! As each "deal" developed I'd call my mentor and run the numbers by him... Sorry Taylor, there's just not a deal there... I heard that phrase over and over, and eventually I gave up on FC's and moved on. Because of the workload and little success I burned out after a few months at the door.

I have since clued in to the concept of only chasing those leads that have a real potential to be a deal in the first place. (brilliant!)

In fact, I am setting up my entire operation on that premise...
Better yet - My Credo...

Only chase the deals.
Leave the "not deals" alone...

Of course I built a spreadsheet. First, the basic info about the foreclosure: (name, address, loan initialization date, initial loan amount, auction date) and then added a few key pieces of info:

1. Comp (usually realquest.com, sometimes zillow)
2. Tax Assessor amount (good to use as indication that comp may be way off.)
3. Formula calculating the % of equity based on the loan in FC vs the comp#.

My lovely bride and I used this formula to mail to FC's, but our numbers were too few to get a large enough group to see success. There's too much competition in mailing. Ergo - The Researcher!

As we have discussed before, there are very few people who have the guts to go knock doors. Plus, even if someone else has researchers going out, my researcher has all the info he/she needs to chase only potential deals! Other door-knockers are likely to be out there banging on every door in FC! My guys will be only chasing DEALS. And, more importantly, they are relying on me to get that info to them!(which creates more loyalty.)

It is extra work on my part, but I feel like my researchers will be better informed, better motivated and not add to the aggregate of wasted time in the world... (as always, I'm doing my small part for humanity!)

So I gather the info. As soon as we pop one of these deals I'm going to hire a stay-at-home mom from church to take care of it for me, but for now it's me.

They say that when you're in charge, "the buck stops here" or "the buck stops with you."

Well, I say that there is no buck.

And it all stops here anyway.

Welcome to entrepreneur-hood.

Leave a comment- let me know you were here.