Best Deal Ever: How a Postcard Gets the Phone Ringing

From sunny Boca Raton, Florida, Lex Levinrad shares how he turned a quick and clean profit in a very short amount of time.

Lex began flipping and renting homes back in 2003. Today, that portion of his business flips about 30-35 properties per year. In 2008, he started a training program for up-and-coming entrepreneurs, showing them the ropes and procuring deals alongside them.

The beauty of training others has been its ability to create “bird dogs” for Lex’s company. The students’ work has become a good portion of the 180 deals Lex’s company brings in each year. In addition to that, he does a good number of wholesale deals.

Landing The Deals

Lex created a unique postcard mailer with a caricature of himself. He found an artist that created an eye-catching design and as a result, the postcard has produced a ton of leads over the years. Genius!

He received a call about a property in Port St. Lucie from a postcard mailer (using the caricature) that he sent to an inheritance list. The seller was asking $100,000, Lex offered her $95,000 and she agreed. After about four months and $25,000 in renovations, he sold the house for $209,000—a net profit of $80,000.

Selling a property quickly has a specific formula, according to Lex, that is imperative.

A price slightly under the comps (two words: bidding war!)
Professional wide-angle pictures
Good lighting
Amazing smells
No odd sounds (like mechanical or off-balance fans)

Lex’s takeaway for those of you not experiencing such quick, clean sales: Don’t be discouraged.

Not every deal is perfect. His typical profit numbers are $15,000 for wholesale and $25,000-$30,000 for a fix-and-flip. Don’t get hung up on finding the perfect deal.

Lex knows from experience that it’s about volume. He hates seeing beginners give up when they don’t have instant results. It’s a numbers game.

His second takeaway: Don’t underestimate the potential of mailers.

Mailers don’t always have immediate results. You never know when your mailer will be on someone’s fridge at just the right moment. All of a sudden, they need to sell and they remember your name and make that call (or in this case Lex’s case, they remember that caricature!)

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.