First Rental Property

Personalized hand written notes are an effective sales tool that are utilized by business owners in order to create rapport with their customers.

Businesses that have a good understand of effective relationship management techniques will effectively use these notes in order to win over their customers.

Have you ever bought something or received service from a business, and then subsequently received a personalized thank you card in the mail? Was the card hand written? I am willing to bet that it was. If this card was handwritten, it was not by accident. The business owner does this intentionally in order to foster a stronger relationship with you. Their intention is that you become a satisfied customer, willing to refer other people to their business, or that you become a loyal customer, that will come back and buy their product or service.

Here is an example of this relationship management technique in effect. I once took my car in to my car dealership in order to get some scheduled maintenance. There was nothing special about my scheduled appointment in terms of customer service. The dealership completed the required maintenance, I paid, and then I left. About a week after my maintenance appointment, I received a letter in the mail from the Service Manager thanking me for my business. I thought that this was a noteworthy gesture, and I made a mental note of it. When it was time for my next maintenance appointment, I ended up taking my car back to the dealership for the required maintenance. I could have taken my car to another service dealership that was a bit cheaper, however, I decided that I would take my car back to my original dealership.

Perhaps their personalized hand written note worked, and resulted me in becoming a loyal, repeat customer. I don’t think there is a measurable way of knowing what effect that hand written note had on me or any other of their customers for that matter. For whatever it’s worth, I am still taking my car to that dealership for maintenance, despite it being a little bit more expensive than other service locations.

Hand written notes are used all of the time in the world of real estate investment. They are used for many of the same reasons noted above. As such, I would like to share with you how writing hand written notes as a real estate investor, can positively impact your real estate investing career. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the benefit of using hand written, personalized cover letters.

There are select, experienced real estate investors who always use personalized, hand written cover letters whenever they are submitting an offer to purchase a rental property.

If you are looking to purchase your first rental property, I strongly recommend that you adopt this strategy. Here are some reasons why you should use this strategy:

1) Very few people use this strategy

When I say, ‘very few people’. I should actual being saying, ‘hardly anyone’. Because hardly anyone uses this strategy when putting in an offer on a rental property, you will, and your offer will stand out from all of the other offers, if there are any. This is a good thing because with increased attention on your offer, chances are that the seller of the property will want to at the very least enter into some sort of negotiation with you.

2) You are adding a personal touch

A personal touch also helps you to stand out from the crowd. In your personalized cover letter that you send to the seller, include things such as who you are and give a little background and some of your experience. If you like the house that you are putting an offer on, comment on some of the features of the house that you like, and why you like them. If you compliment the seller in the personalized cover letter, this can go a long way. People generally like to be complimented, and as such most people who are complimented will take a liking to you, and your offer, despite the fact that they may have never met you before.

3) It opens up a communication channel

In your personalized cover letter to the seller, you can also add any questions that you may have for the seller. For instance, you can ask the seller if they know of any defects in the property. Although, this is a simple question to ask, it can have a very powerful effect. If there are any problems with the house, at this point, because the seller has been asked directly by you, they may be willing to disclose this information.

I have been using personalized, hand written cover letters for 5 years, whenever I have purchased a rental property. Every cover letter that I have used has resulted in opening up a communication channel with the seller. With these channels I was able to obtain information from the seller that probably would not have been disclosed to me otherwise.