Direct Mail Marketing for Real Estate Success

If you're selling a house in the $200,000 range you need to know who your target buyers are.

Are they married?
Do they have children?
How much do they make?
And of course they will need good credit and likely not already own a home. That is unless your property would be appealing to someone as a second home.

You can get very sophisticated with the process of defining your target buyer and for certain properties like beach front condos, that you will want to find buyers out of state who are looking for a second home that may be necessary, but for this example we'll assume this is a local sale.

You will likely be looking for renters within a few miles, who are making $65,000 to $90,000 household income (this is based off of the monthly payments and the price of the home – debt payments should be around 30% of income), and they should be a likely candidate for wanting to own a home. Usually people who are married and have children are looking to purchase a home. Age may also be a determining factor – maybe 30 to 45 years old would be good for this type of home. And the final thing you would want to look for is a credit score, if you can get it. Right now 700 is the minimum.

So how do you find a list of people who meet this criteria?

Utilize a list service like Listsource.com or InfoUsa.com. Create an account and select your criteria. You will have to adjust accordingly to get the desired number of leads. There is usually a minimum purchase amount of $50 and the leads cost between $.15 and $.20 a piece. Beware of the additional cost for additional criteria – only use what you need. After doing this once you'll have a good feel for it and will be able to select a list much more quickly the second time around.

If you're trying to reach a tenant you will you will need to select criteria that define someone who does not meet the financial requirements of a home buyer.Lower credit score, younger, and maybe just filed a chapter 7 bankruptcy – because when they lose the protection of that bankruptcy, current owner or not, they will need a place to live and renting may be their only option. However, you will want someone that's still making a decent income, so they can afford the monthly payments that you're asking.

Now that you have a list of names you need to create a postcard, put the addresses on it and send them out. Your easy solution is to go to Click2Mail.com. You will upload your list to the website, create a postcard, and this service does the rest for you!

If you're selling you can offer to pay closing costs or to hold a second mortgage for a down payment. If you're renting you can offer a free month or a limited time offer monthly rent discount.

Try this on your next property that you need to rent or sell and see how many buyers you can line up!