Transcript:

Hey there, it’s Casey Denman here with TaxSaleAcademy.com and I want to thank you for joining me today for this week’s tax sale tip video.

Today I want to talk about prequalifying your tax sale buyers. If you’re in real estate already, especially if you’re a Realtor, you’re likely familiar with the term prequalify. As a tax sale investor, you will likely be fielding calls and emails from many potential buyers. The problem, however, is that many of these buyers are tire kickers or they aren’t actually able to purchase the property they’re inquiring about.

The issue is you really don’t want to waste your time working with a potential buyer of a property. The only buyers I’ll work with are those who I know are ready, willing and able to purchase the property they’re calling about or they might be willing to purchase another property I own. The fact is I don’t want to block off an afternoon to go show a buyer one of my homes, if they can’t afford it or aren’t serious. My time is too valuable as is yours.

So, how do you guarantee you’re not wasting time? By prequalifying your buyers. And I’m not just talking about a mortgage prequalification as the large majority of my buyers are cash.

For many of my properties, the prequalification process will start in the marketing itself. I know my target audience. I know the type of buyer I want to work with. I know that the properties I sell will usually be priced so that an investor can purchase them. So, I’ll prequalify them in the marketing materials. After the description of the property, I’ll say something like “Cash buyers only, closing must take place within two weeks, buyer pays all title and closing expenses.”

And this can really discourage a lot of people right off the bat, but I’m completely ok with that. In fact, that’s what I want. I don’t usually sell to the end user who will take 45 days to close and who expects all of the normal stuff. So it’s filtering that person out right away. That’s great. If I’m selling without clearing title or something along those lines, that will be disclosed too. In the end, the person who calls off of that ad will likely be prequalified to the point of someone that I probably do want to work with.

And you can take that verbiage and tweak it however you want, that’s just the wording I use in some situations.

From there, truthfully I’d really rather deal with emails, so I’ll mention that in the ad as well. If they call, it’s a good possibility that I won’t answer and my voicemail asks them to email me. This way I can track everything that’s said, I can respond to questions on my timeline, and I can research anything I need to research for questions I don’t know off the top of my head since I deal with so many properties. Again, I’m all about not wasting time.

In that email exchange, I can usually tell right away if they’ll actually end up buying or not. If the exchange isn’t moving quickly, I might then try to setup a phone call to gauge interest. If they decline, they wouldn’t have purchased anyhow. If they accept, I’ll simply ask them how soon they’re looking to purchase and then provide them with the available properties that I have to let them make a decision.

It’s a fairly simple process when you approach it correctly from the start. Simply marketing correctly to emails then phone calls.

Now, two very important things to note here:
If they are not ready to buy right now or might be a tire kicker, I’ll still put them on an email list that’s created for potential buyers. They will still get occasional emails from me and can simply unsubscribe from that list whenever they decide to. It’s no additional work on my part and it keeps my properties in front of them, just in case they’re interested in the future.

The second note is that this isn’t the correct method for many people in real estate, it’s simply my method. If you’re a Realtor, for example, this specific method might just kill your business. It would show a lack of sensitivity, a lack of communication and maybe even a lack of caring. That’s because most end user customers expect zero friction and expect people to be there when THEY need them, not the other way around. And this is not the process I use when brokering real estate for friends and family, which I rarely do anymore. Instead, I operate just about entirely off the numbers for my tax sale business. Prices are so low that the buyer either wants it or they don’t. At my price points, I’ll still make money, but I’ll also deal with serious buyers who know if they don’t purchase today they won’t get another chance. This allows me to run my business the way that I want to, instead of working at someone else’s beck and call. It’s more of a design for my lifestyle than anything else, which allows me to put time back into my members of the academy.

So, hopefully this has helped you to understand how I prequalify my tax sale buyers. Again, this is not the method everyone should be using. But the point of today’s video is to take the time to develop your own prequalification method and to really think about the way you market your properties. If you do it correctly, you’ll have prequalified your buyers without them even realizing it.

Hopefully today’s video helped out. If so, let me know by click that thumbs up button. And don’t forget that we have a number of links to help you get started with tax sale investing in today’s video description. One of those links will take you to our main site at TaxSaleAcademy.com where you can become a member of the academy for the most advanced step by step training we offer.

I’ll see you next time. Take care and make it a successful day! See ya!