How to Score on Your First Mailer (CFFL 433)

How to Score on Your First Mailer (CFFL 433) Transcript: Jack Butala:                       Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit:                           Hi there! Jack Butala:                       Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to score on your first mailer. Man, do I have some stories for you. Jill DeWit:                           Goal! I don't know if I can do it like those guys. Jack Butala:                       You crack me up after all these years. Jill DeWit:                           You said score. Jack Butala:                       Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit:                           Okay. Brian asked, "I'm looking in a rather sizeable county and I'm looking for ways of staying away from certain parts of the county that don't look so promising. I see two possible ways right off. I was wondering if anyone had tried them and what they thought. In CoreLogic ..." Jack Butala:                       Real quest. Same thing. Jill DeWit:                           "... you can enter as a criteria school district and also mailing zip. My concerns about mailing zip is that it might rule out some undeveloped areas. However, as best as I know, there isn't a square foot of property in any county that isn't placed in a zip code area ..." Jack Butala:                       This is so intelligent, Brian. Jill DeWit:                           Yes. Jack Butala:                       I love this. Jill DeWit:                           "... even if there is no mail delivery." Jack Butala:                       I think it's great in this business. Jill DeWit:                           "Anyway, what about using those criteria for narrowing the search in a large county. Is there a better way of using RealQuest Pro/CoreLogic and I'm interested in these areas, but not that area." Jack Butala:                       Brian, I am not blowing smoke. I have no idea who you are. This is one of the most intelligent questions that we get. The way that you phrase it is even more intelligent, because you halfway already have solved it. You've solved the question halfway and you're just wondering if it's right. I love that. You're 100% right. Mailing. Picture a county, maybe it's the county that you live in or the county, one over, the one that you're most familiar with. Picture mailing a letter and offering it to every single five acre property owner. Then saying, "I'll buy property for $5,000." You're going to really upset some people and some people are going to sign it. How can you make it more efficient? That's your question. There's a few ways. My favorite, absolute favorite way, is to take a look at the assessor parcel number scheme in the county. Assessors issue parcel numbers when developers sub-divide property. Every piece of property that's not government owned or Indian tribe owned or municipality owned, has an assessor parcel number. Why? Why do they have this? Well, they have them so they can assess the land and send the owner taxes. Picture a map of the county that you're thinking of. In the northeast corner, maybe there's like the assessor parcel numbers start with 104. In the southeast corner, it starts with 996 and on-and-on-and-on. In 104, it's pretty cheap property because it's really rural. In 996, that's where the big city is, maybe like Dallas. You want to stay out of there or maybe you don't. Maybe you really do want to ... You have to get the assessors map or the assessors scheme, how it's all mapped out. It's called an index map, west of the Mississippi. Lots of different counties call it different stuff, based on where you are in the country, but get one. Even if you have to go into the county and take a picture of the one that's on the wall. Jill and I do that all the time.