Can anyone provide some direction on how to perform a test ad? Do I get a local phone number with a cheap cell phone or is there another way?
Just use Craigslist without a phone. They will email you through Craig’s List. Your goal is to get interest, you don’t want to speak to these people.
I usually put something like “Great 2/1 newly remodeled $x,xxxx or make payments of $xxx for 24 mo and its yours. blah blah blah blah.”
All you are trying to do is see how many people are interested in the area. That’s it. Most of the time if its a known MSA you don’t have to bother but if you are looking somewhere that you are not familiar with then definitely worth some time to post an ad.
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I do what WTG says to do…
Get the burner app, or equivalent, for your smart phone for a local temporary number. I get a better response rate when I include phone numbers. Especially when doing bandit signs in smaller markets, or MSA’s where demand is not super duper strong.
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JWR,
Not intentionally replying to your posts but this is a topic where we made a big change a few years back. Because our business model is never to rent and we often do turnaround projects (ie infill or other), we need a very good picture of demand before acquiring a property. But here is where we were burned before:
- Imagine posting test ads on MH for rent, $700/mo…yada yada
- You get TONS of inquiries. Of course without being able to qualify these inquires as a test ad, you can only guess that demand is great
- Yes, demand quantity may be great but Quality may not be so great
I’m sure you get the gist. So now, we made a decision that all our test ads will always be:
- For Sale
- Push upper limits of price points
- New homes, financing, etc
Results: The number of inquiries will go down overall but this is all relative. The number of quality inquiries becomes a truer measure.
This is only our experience and decision - it may not make sense for all based on their market, bix model, etc. But for us its been a huge change for us!
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