First let’s start with what you should write on them and is it better to have them Printed or hand written.

I’ve done both hand written and printed. I think that hand written signs get a better result. Not sure why that is but my thought is people think your not a big company and wont take advantage of them. Try them both and come to your own conclusion.

Now what to put on your sign, its really simply WE BUY HOUSES xxx-xxx-xxxx . That’s all you have to put on there the phone will ring off the hook with all different kinds of situations. People don’t have time to read a book on a bandit signs. Now there is one other phrase I like if your doing Subject To or sandwich Lease option. Which with the economy the way it is right now be careful. For those deals I put

We Buy Homes Little Or No Equity xxx-xxx-xxxx that will make the phones ring too.

Now where to place your signs. The best places for them are at the end of the on ramps or off ramps to major highways. There is a ton of traffic there and they are waiting on the light to turn. Other good places are at stop lights in town make sure you put them on all four corners off the street. You can also staple your signs to the telephone poles or use roofing nails and hammer them on the pole. Your signs will last longer on the poles.

Also make sure were ever you put your signs there is good visibility, you want to make sure that everone can see them.

Make sure to place them on Friday night or early Friday morning around 4:00 am. That’s when I do it. That way you have all weekend for your signs to be seen before the bandit police pull them on you ( city code enforcement ). Most of the time you will get a week out of them. To make bandit signs work you have to put a lot out I’m talking 20-30 a week. I know that sounds like a lot but trust me its worth it.

Good luck till next time.

Sean Marmoy

MOKSRealEstate.com

Although if you still want to get printed signs or you don’t have a local place here are a couple sites you can get them from. Need signs? Placement of signs is important too. You want to put them in high traffic areas. Like at merger intersections you want to put one on each side of the road. Put them on telephone poles high up so they won’t be pulled down. If you have a subdivision you are targeting make sure you are putting signs at all ingoing and outgoing entrances to the subdivision.
You must be willing to put at least 200 signs a month out to be successful. This shouldn’t cost you no more then 175-225 a month.

Good luck and don’t give up,

Sean Marmoy
MOKSRealEstate.com

First, what is driving for dollars?  The term diving for dollars came from driving around the area you want to invest in. Another term would be farming the area you are investing in. I prefer to call it driving for dollars.

Things that you will need to do the job.
1.    A mapsco or key map book of your area you can go to http://www.mapsco.com
2.    Note book yellow high lighter
3.    A friend or partner preferable
4.    Digital Camera
5.    Business cards

Ok now that we have all of our material we can get started. You need to pick out 8 to 10 blocks that you want to work in.  Mark it out on your map and choose a starting point. Now take your note book and on the right side and draw a line down the paper about an inch before the side of the paper. In this area you will put a (V for vacant D for distressed R for rental and F for fore sale buy owner) we will get into what all this is for later. Now the reason I like to bring a partner or friend is to write all the info down while you drive and you don’t have to break your neck looking at both sides of the street. The camera is to take a pic of the front of the house to put in to your file so when you  get a hold of the home owner you can look at the pic to give you a better visual of what your talking about.  Business cards are to leave at the vacant properties the owners do come around from time to time.

Now start driving down the street. Make sure you high light all the streets you drive down so you don’t end up back tracking. You are looking for properties that are vacant. How do you tell if they are vacant, if there’s tall grass, gas meter missing , a lot of mail in the mail box , news papers pilled up in the drive way , electric meter missing. These are just a few of the things you can look for. At this point you can take a picture of the front and put your business card in the door. Write the address down and put a V next to it. You might also knock on the two houses next to the house and see if they now were the owner is. You could tell them the first person that can give me the info on the owners and it leads to me buying the property you will give them 250.00 dollars. You are also looking for distressed properties these are properties that have a lot of junk in the yard maybe gutters hanging off property that isn’t taken care of. These properties could be motivated sellers.  You could send them a post card or letter. Which I’ll be going over in another blog.  The properties that have a rental sign in the yards are a hidden gold mind that people over look.. These are sellers and buyers, call the land lords, and ask them if they are in the market to buy or sell. This can help you build your buyers list which we will cover in another blog.  Last but not least the FSBO these properties can be used in a couple ways, you can ask if they will do owner finance in which you could take the property over through owner finance. Or you can match a buyer and seller together and charge a marketing fee.

Make sure you highlight your area you have driven and put your V D R F in the edge of the page to determine which property is what.

Good Luck,

Sean Marmoy
MOKSRealEstate.com

First thing to do with this list is to contact the Owners of multiple properties and find out if they are interested in your services.  Next find those with just a property or two and setup a route to view these properties.  So its time to start driving for dollars while being a little more targeted.  Don’t forget to continue to watch for additional vacant houses (tax records are not always up to date).  Now you should have a nice long list to start calling on or to take to your investors.  If you are a bit more patient you can also send them a postcard.  They may keep it for when they are ready to sell or pass it along to a friend that is ready to sell.

In this instance I used Autoit, which runs on the screen and does not allow you to do other things while it is working.  This is why I set it up to run overnight.  I have seen programs written it Perl that retrieve email addresses from web sites while working in the background, and they seem to be faster.  Unfortunately I have not worked with Perl, but now have a reason to start learning it.  If you have questions on getting either method to work feel free to email me and I will do my best to help or point you in the right direction.  There are also several Rent-A-Coder sites out there where you can get an experienced programmer to write it for you.  If you are experienced enough with scripts to write this on your own let me know and I will send you one of my current scripts.  Since every county has its own website you will probably need to tweak your script to work in another county.

Networking – Simply talk to everyone you run into whether it be a cashier, waitress or the guy next to you at the pump and make sure you leave them with a business card.  Business cards are very inexpensive, so give them out like candy.  You should never stop networking.  You may not see immediate results here, but you never know when a simple conversation will lead to a potential deal.

Ads and Signs – Whether you place an ad in the local paper, a free listing site on the Internet or on a bandit sign keep it simple.  A simple “We Buy Houses” works that’s why so many people use it.

After you have your list of vacant properties it is time to start locating the owners.  The easiest place to start is the county tax assessor’s web site.  This site usually contains lots of useful information about the property (i.e. # of bedrooms and bathrooms, lot size, zoning, current tax information).  Since a lot of counties are not completely up to date this is just a starting place.  We have a county near where I live that until recently their site said upfront that the data was 2 years old.  Another place to check is with neighbors.  Some locators will even offer cash if the neighbor has the owners contact information and it leads to a deal.

 Remember, this is a numbers game.  The more time you spend and the more houses you look at will result in more deals.  Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find a great deal the first week or even month.  The more you get your name and number out there, the more deals will start finding you.

• REI Groups     -     These monthly meetings usually include everyone from first time investors to seasoned investors.
• We Buy Houses Ads     -    These signs are all over the place and the ads are in most papers.  Both property locators and Investors use this method to find houses as well as contacts.
• People working on vacant houses     -     Whether these people are investors or not they usually know one or more investors.  Leave them a way to contact you and ask them to pass it along.
• Craigslist or other listing sites     -     You can use these sites to contact people who have listed or you can create a listing telling about yourself and what you are looking for.

Once you find your investor(s) or bird dog(s) you should have a casual meeting and talk expectations.  Remember the bird dog is taking minimal risk but finding potentially great deals for the investor.  So compensation should be fair, if the fee is to high the investor can find properties another way but if it’s to low the bird dog won’t be as motivated.  Some people will recommend you put together a contract (or find one on the internet) to keep things fair and this may not be a bad idea.  Remember though there is no substitution for trust. An investor with a heart of a teacher and a bird dog with an ambition to learn can make a great team. This investor will make good money off this bird dog and probably gain a new perspective. The bird dog will more than likely become a smart investor while learning the ins and outs with minimal risk.

Some Bird Dogs get their leads from networking and finding people that are motivated to sell for one reason or another.  Others look for the distressed property first and locate the owners by talking to neighbors or looking up tax records.  There are infinite ways to find these properties’s so be creative.

A Bird Dog should always talk expectations and fees with the investor before providing the properties.  This ensures that neither the Bird Dog nor the Investor is disappointed with the results.  Trust is a very important element between an investor and his Bird Dog.  A Bird Dog wants to trust that the investor will pay the fees after the deal is complete.  The investor wants to trust that the Bird Dog is not holding out the “good” deals or providing the same listing to another investor.  It takes some of the negotiating power away from the investor if there is another investor calling about the property.