subject: Creative Solutions To Sell A Home: Use Direct Mail To Contact Potential Buyers [print this page] After I get the contact information for other property owners in my neighborhood, easily available at my county assessor's website and totally free of cost, I organize it for the purpose of sending postcards to my neighbors in order to sell my house.
Does that sound like somebody else's job? I know that real estate agents have been doing this for years. But it's not just the agent's job, not really. In fact, these days most agents don't send postcards at all. They will sometimes send out a mailing for high-priced properties, but not for an average home, it's too much trouble. But I can do a mailing on my own behalf and it's not too much trouble for me because I am motivated to sell my home!
So I get plain little postcards and write them out by hand because that definitely gets the attention of anybody opening mail these days, since we all get a lot of junk mail and mostly bills. Hand-written postcards are rare.
Usually I write something like the following: "Hi, I have my home at (fill in the street address) is for sale. I'm writing to you since you have a home in the neighborhood so you might know someone else who would want one, too!"
I follow that short message with my personal cell phone number so that a caller gets me and not my receptionist or anybody else who works for me. Anyone who calls me from that postcard deserves to speak to me personally because what they want to know or what they have to say is important to me. People like that. Even if they reach my voicemail because I'm speaking with another caller they know that they got through to my own phone, so they leave me a message. This is an important key to my success as a real estate investor, taking the time to speak to homeowners personally.
Then, I mail out the postcards in small batches, not all at once. I send a few one day, and a few the next day, etc. That way I don't take the risk of getting more phone calls than I can handle all at one time. And if homeowners talk to their neighbors and happen to mention my postcard, they are actually doing some of my advertising for me. I like to get people talking about my home for sale because you never know who will be the one who is interested enough to pick up the phone and call me when I'm trying to sell my home!
