A Mailer for One House Led to a Completely Different Deal
Dylan T. has been investing since 2019 and is now a full-time investor with a VA and a lead manager on staff. He works a combination of wholesaling, rehabbing, and buy-and-hold, and completed 22 deals in 2021.
Here's a deal that didn't go the way the mailer intended but turned out better because of it.
The Problem
Dylan mailed a homeowner about a distressed rental property he owned, a house needing extensive repairs in a lower-value part of the market. But the seller wasn't interested in selling that property at all.
The Plan
Dylan's mailing used a custom letter followed by a second touch, a "No Realtor Commission" comic postcard, targeting absentee owners with failed MLS listings.
The Execution
In Dylan's own words:
"I mailed a guy about a rental property he had. But, ironically, he didn't even want to sell that specific house. Instead, he wanted to sell his mom's house to close out her estate — a $300K+ ARV house instead of a $60K distressed property. His brother had been living in it for about 5 years and let the place go pretty badly. It hadn't been touched since it was built in 1964, but it's a solid 3-bed, 1-bath rancher in one of the hottest towns in my market."
The seller trusted Dylan enough to sell a far more valuable property than the one Dylan had originally targeted. The two had only spoken by phone but Dylan met the seller's sister and brother in person at the house. The brother and his daughter were still living there, so Dylan structured a 2-month lease-back into the deal to give them time to find a new place.
This is Dylan's first-ever flip.
The Numbers
- Purchase price: $182,000
- Rehab costs: $40,000
- ARV: $310,000
- Projected gross profit: $88,000
Note: these figures reflect the deal as structured at time of purchase; final numbers will depend on the completed rehab and resale.
The Lesson
The mailer targeted one property, but it opened a conversation that led to a completely different, more valuable deal. That pivot only happened because the seller trusted Dylan enough to bring him into a family estate situation, proof that consistency and rapport can surface opportunities no list or mailer can predict on its own.
