Episode 149: Pass Your Competition with Skip Tracing

Larry Higgins is a real estate investor based out of Houston, TX. After graduating from Texas A&M University in 2003 he began his career in construction project management which he thoroughly enjoyed until 2013 when for the first time in his life, he found himself in a job from which he got no sense of satisfaction and decided he needed to make a change. That’s when he decided it was time to quit and jump into real estate full time although he had zero experience in it and had never even done a deal.

Fortunately, during this transition, Larry stumbled across Mitch Stephen, whose mentorship helped him hit the ground running.

Like so many other investors have experienced before he knew it, Larry had a huge stack of returned mail from his mail campaigns and he knew he needed to do something with it. After getting in touch with several skip trace services he realized how expensive it can be to skip trace so he decided to learn how to become his own skip tracer. Two deals later and he fully realized how crucial it is to be able to skip trace returned mail.

But it wasn’t just the returned mail that got Larry’s attention. As he worked his business he couldn’t help but notice that some letters weren’t returned for weeks, months, or even years (yes years) after they were initially mailed.

He also witnessed first-hand how in most cases where his mail was received and he happened to get an appointment, it had a lot to do with luck in what he calls the yellow letter lottery. This is where the seller has received a stack of mail from other investors and the seller decides to pick just two or three people to call and get offers. No matter how great you think your mailing list is, if you’re in a larger market, the odds are there’s at least a dozen if not dozens of other investors mailing the same people.

So with a keen understanding that he was losing valuable time and leaving too much to chance with mailing, he knew he needed to create a system that allowed him to skip trace high volumes of people or lists and then call or text them. In another stroke of luck, Larry had just started partnering with Will Denker, an established and successful investor in Houston. With their combined knowledge and experience, and the great team Will already had assembled, they were able to create the system they envisioned.

Now that they have created this system they no longer do mail campaigns and they rely strictly on skip tracing lists of potentially motivated sellers and contacting them via phone calls or text messages and it’s transformed their business. The ability to skip trace high volumes of people in a cost-effective manner has not only given them the ability to find and call or text the potential sellers, but it allows them to scan the lists and identify great deals that are flying under every other investor’s radar. The bottom line result is that they are more successful at getting deals and the deals are much more profitable. After first implementing their system their average assignment fee grew from $10,000 to $22,000 and then after becoming much more targeted they doubled it again to their current average assignment fee of $44,000.

Because they now have their strategy defined and much more targeted, Larry and Will recently decided to create skipgenie.com to begin sharing their high-volume skip trace system with other investors in various markets around the country, and helping them develop and tailor a system around their specific goals.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

How skip tracing compares to mail

How your cost-per-buy is dramatically lower with skip tracing

Why you should not be using lower-tiered skip tracing services

One issue with skip tracing that a lot of people complain about

Why you shouldn’t hesitate to contact relatives if you if you have good leads, especially with vacant properties

Why every deal you do should involve skip tracing

Why you should focus on being more targeted whether you’re mailing or calling

How to get a tighter ratio of leads to deals

The best way to get your footing when you’re just starting out

Resources:

REInvestorSummit.com/skiptrace

REInvestorSummit.com/5Free

REInvestorSummit.com/Grow

REInvestorSummit.com/live

REInvestorSummit.com/aof

Here’s How »

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