As someone who’s been working with wholesalers for a while, I know how challenging those first few deals can be. From finding motivated sellers to building trust and navigating contracts - it’s a lot to juggle when you’re just starting out.
For those who’ve closed their first wholesale deal (or more!), what strategies worked best for you? Was it cold calling, direct mail, driving for dollars, or something else entirely?
And for those still working on that first deal, what’s been your biggest challenge so far?
Let’s share some tips and experiences to help each other out—after all, this community is all about learning and growing together!
What finally worked for me was using a combination of marketing strategies.
Direct mail was consistently my best lead generator for a long time (about 1% response rate using handwritten yellow letters to land owners with signs of distress or disinterest). But the deals that actually closed usually happened because I was contacting them in more than one way.
For those still working on your first deal - persistence really is important these days. My first 10-20 conversations led nowhere, but each one taught me something valuable about objection handling or identifying genuine motivation.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It’s always insightful to see how different strategies work for different people.
Personally, I’ve seen a lot of success with creative outreach methods like SMS marketing—especially for connecting with motivated sellers. It’s quick, direct, and gets a much higher response rate compared to some traditional approaches.
What’s your take on SMS as part of your lead-generation strategy? Have you tried it, or are you sticking more to cold calling and mailers?"
We’re new to land investing, but my husband is a land surveyor here in Georgia so our strategy is to purchase land from wholesalers (assignment deals). If you’re canvassing for wholesale deals and need a buyer, we’re looking for 5-15 acre tracts we can subdivide and flip to smaller builders or individuals who want to build or place a mobile home on the lot. Almost any county in northern Georgia would work for us, specifically Pickens, Rabun, Habersham, White, but there are many others. We’d like to find a wholesaler we could partner with here in GA long term to purchase tracts, subdivide, sell and repeat.
@Jana bulk skip tracing is what you’re looking for.
There are lot of services that can do this for you at varying prices and quality. If you don’t want to pay for a subscription, but just pay-as-you-go, you could try Direct Skip (affiliate link). They have a good service, but it’s one of the most expensive ways to do it because of the lack of a subscription.
If you plan to do a lot of skip tracing, it definitely makes sense to sign up for something like The Land Portal (affiliate link), because the price will be about half of what Direct Skip costs. This video shows how it works.
