This is the first article in my “How To” series. Most people already know about Craigslist but I’m not sure everyone realizes how powerful the service can be.
As an investor just starting out, we have nothing. No buyers list, no leads coming in and no team members to speak of. This is where craigslist can help you get to your goal of wholesaling real estate.
Below are the following things you can get from craigslist with little effort!
- Find a Realtor to help you access the MLS to locate properties and make your offers
- A contractor to help with estimates
- All the buyers you could possibly want
- Find Sellers
- Other Wholesalers
- Mortgage Broker
- Lawyer
- Accountant
- etc…
You can find all these people in the Real Estate Services section of the site. You can either post an ad looking for someone or reply to an ad. Now it’s easy to find someone who says they can do the job. You will probably have to go through a few Realtors, a few contractors, etc…before you find a good one.
When posting an ad, I have found, that the key is to keep it simple! Try to keep your ad no more then 4 lines and in the ad place a link to your webpage for further info and guidance. Here is an example I used for finding buyers…
Houses for 60% of ARV in Whippany
Bread and Butter neighborhood
Call or Email me today!
http://www.ScottyBuys.com/properties
This ad will have other wholesalers and investors contacting you very quickly. Typically I’d get 3 or 4 investors interested and added to my buyers list per week. When interested investor asks about the houses, say you don’t have any right now but you can contact him when ever you get a property in this area. They will always agree. BINGO new buyer!
Okay, now that you got the idea behind craigslist, here is the How To basics. I always assume a total newbie is reading this article so I’m going to go through it all.
Step 1: Sign up for a craigslist account here..Craigslist Signup
Step 2: You will get an email with a link to activate your account. Check your email (also your spam folder) and click on the link. it’ll look something like this….https://accounts.craigslist.org/login?ui=xxxxxxxxxx&ip=g7k8te77bdy/login?ui=xxxxxxxxxx
Step 3: Enter your new password
Step 4: Read and accept terms of use
Step 5: Now you are at your “My Account” page. Here is where you can see all past ads you’ve posted and where you can post any new ads. Note:you may only post 1 identical ad in a 48 period. You can however change up the wording and links in the ad and post multiple times. Don’t abuse this though.
Step 6: Posting an Ad. In the upper right hand corner of your “My Account” page you will see post new ad in <drop down box> Go. Select the region you want to post the ad to. I select Northern Jersey because that’s where I’m investing.
Step 7: Select the type of Posting. If I’m looking for a Realtor I’ll select Homes Wanted. That is where the Realtors will most likely be looking. You can also use Services Offered or Homes Offered as well.
Step 8: Select Real Estate Wanted
Step 9: Create your article. make sure the heading will attract a realtor “Realtor Wanted” should do. Then fill in the location of where you want to look in the Location field.
Step 10: Hit Continue to preview your new ad
Step 11: Press Continue if you are happy with it
Step 12: enter in the captcha and press Continue.
Step 13: you may then get an email with a link to click that confirms your posting. This happened to me the very first time but after that I just got a confirmation email.
Well that’s it! It’s very easy and you should plan on be religious about posting your ads. Keep doing it even when you are satisfied with your team and lists. You never know when one of your team or buyers will no longer be there.
Hope this helps…
by Scott Costello
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