Once you've invested in a real estate property, you've completed half the work necessary to profit from your venture. Now, you have to find a way to sell the property and create a source of income. In order to do that, it is essential to build an aggressive advertising and marketing campaign in which you hit your target audience from several angles. The problem with advertising is that it can be quite costly and time consuming. You need to find ways to get your message out that don't cost a lot of money and don't take up all of your time.
As a real estate investor, you know that the target audience for your home selling opportunities is not the average buyer that qualifies for a standard mortgage loan. Rather, you are looking for a buyer with less than perfect credit who needs another means of getting set up in a home. Therefore, your target audience is looking at a different kind of advertising than what most mortgage and real estate companies are working with. You can use certain methods of aggressive advertising and marketing that are much less costly than television commercials or printed flyers for mass mailing.
Start with hand-made Bandit signs. These are the signs you see on the side of the road that say, "rent to own, easy qualify, no down payment," etc. However, rather than paying to have them made, get some poster board, a stencil set, and some magic markers and create your own, saving you money. Put out 10-20 on a Friday evening and leave them out over the weekend, when the most people will see them. Do this every weekend, and you'll be inundated with calls from potential buyers.
Put a short classified advertisement in the newspaper. This can be relatively inexpensive and reach a huge target audience seeking a good deal on a home without having perfect credit. Make sure you advertise that you have a 24-hour recorded message that the caller can listen to for more details and that a recorder will take the name and number of the interested party, letting people know they don't need to be intimidated at the idea of calling and being asked a number of questions right away.
In order to save time on showings of the house, you can use the recorded message to advertise group showings, asking potential buyers to sign up for the show times and allowing 5-6 viewers to make the appointment. This assures that you will never waste time on a potential buyer who doesn't show up for the appointment, and it allows you to get your message out regarding your terms and conditions to several people at one time. Using the recorded message to tell people about group showings also means you don't have to repeat yourself with every caller. During a showing, if you have multiple homes for sale, you can offer to show some of the potential buyers the other real estate properties, in hopes of making more than one deal with a single appointment.
There's no reason to pay large sums of money to handle aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns when you can be frugal and still reach your target audience. By offering group showings, using a recorded message, setting up a newspaper ad, and posting homemade Bandit signs, you'll receive a huge response for minimal work and expense.
