Lease options. You know I love ‘em. And that’s the topic of my email today.
So, I created a 1-page guide to doing lease-option deals. And I’m going to walk through it, with all the steps on how to do a lease option deal from beginning to end.
See, I noticed that people — me included — easily get overwhelmed when learning about lease options. Investors would give long, complicated presentations, and courses had way too many videos. It was all just too much.
Thing is, it’s not that difficult. So that’s why I created my 1-page document. It’s the actionable steps needed to do a lease option deal and make a quick $5 grand in the next 45 days using 1 piece of paper.
So, let’s get to it. Step 1 coming at ya…
Step 1: Find motivated sellers.
That means marketing. Look, we’re not in the real estate business, we’re in the marketing business. We’re not investors who do marketing, we’re marketers who do investing.
So what kind of marketing?
Well, I like to send emails, text messages and voice messages to properties on Zillow, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace — specifically the rentals and the For Sale By Owners. I’m not posting ads on Craigslist, I’m responding to ads.
The best part? A VA can do ALL of this for you. Here’s a few ways we respond to ads:
- “Hey, we saw your rental property 123 Main Street on Zillow, and it looks like a nice house. You wouldn’t be interested in maybe renting it for a year, and then selling it would you?”
- “I saw your property on Zillow. You wouldn’t have any interest in selling it would you or would you entertain an offer to sell by any chance?”
- “Would you consider maybe a lease to buy, rent to buy, rent to own?
- “You wouldn’t consider maybe leasing it for a year and then selling it, would you?”
- “Hey, I’m an investor. Is your price negotiable? Or would you be open to maybe selling it on terms?”
Keep it simple!
When your VA does this, you can actually build a HUGE database of landlords, property managers, realtors, wholesalers and investors — and you could potentially do deals with all of them in the future.
Every 6 months or so, send a ringless voicemail to your entire list: “Hey, we talked a while ago, I’m looking for another property in the area. If you have anything that you would like to sell, please call me. I’d like to talk with you about it.”
I love that strategy. And my VA uses my CRM database — REI Simple — to send mass text messages and emails, even phone calls. So efficient.
Ok, my 2nd favorite form of marketing for lease options is networking with other investors and wholesalers.
A lot of wholesalers out there are throwing away their dead leads. They don’t have enough equity in the house, so there’s nothing they can do with them, and they don’t want to do anything with them…
So, find wholesalers and say: “What are you doing with your dead leads? If you send them to me, and I do a lease option on them, I can split the deal with you 50/50.”
If you’re just getting started in REI, that’s what I would do if I were you. Network with other wholesalers, and even landlords, to get their old, dead leads.
There’s a lot of potential there because these wholesalers are spending thousands and thousands of dollars every month on marketing, and throwing these leads away that don’t have any equity.
You come in and do a lease option with them. BOOM! Make $5,000 to $10,000 on a lease option assignment pretty quickly and easily.
2 more ideas: Another marketing strategy is sending letters to rental properties on Zillow and Facebook Marketplace — most of them are vacant homes. I also like to send mail to expired listings, which needs to say, in part: “I am not a realtor. I am not looking for a listing. I want to buy your house. If you’re interested in selling it, please give me a call.”
Final note for today…
Make sure you have a simple marketing plan. Break down your revenue goals into things you can control, like the amount of outbound marketing that you do. You can’t control how much profit you’ll make on each deal, for example.
And, track your numbers every day.
Look, if you’re struggling, I guarantee it’s because of this: You’re either not doing enough marketing OR you’re not talking to enough sellers nor making enough offers.
Your speed to income is directly proportional to the number of offers you make. Period.
How do you make lots of offers?
Well, send 20 texts, voicemails or emails a day to Craigslist; 20 to Facebook Marketplace; 20 to Zillow. Call 2 wholesalers a day to say hi, network with them and ask for dead leads. Send 20 letters a day.
There are so many ways to build your marketing, many of which are free. Actually, so many ways for your VA to build your marketing!
You should focus on talking to at least 5 sellers a day and making offers to every single one of them. Then, follow up. Let me be very clear on how important following up is…
75% to 85% of your deals will come from following up. Truth. So you have to keep your leads organized in a CRM or spreadsheet to know when you need to follow up. Research shows it takes an average of 7 touches before a seller says yes to you. You must follow up again and again and again.
My strategy when following up is asking lots of questions. And, I never answer questions. I only answer questions with questions. That’s super important because you want to stay in control of the conversation…
You don’t want to be the motivated buyer. You don’t want to be chasing sellers. You need to exude confidence when you’re talking to sellers on the phone, and you do that by asking simple questions.
Ok, that was a lot, right? Well, we’re just getting started…
The main takeaway — you can begin these marketing strategies right away. Today. NOW. Or better yet, have a VA do it.
Coming up soon, more helpful, actionable info about the not-so-complicated lease option steps. 🙂
