First flip closed by door knocking the foreclosure list
From buried in debt to closing his first flip through door-knocking and strategic partnerships.
About
Philip Jordan spent 12 years in oil and gas before working for himself in real estate from his family farm in Nebraska. After years of stop-start attempts, he committed to door knocking foreclosure lists and closed his first flip in Lincoln.
Operating market
Phil works Lincoln, Nebraska and the surrounding small towns, with one subject to deal across the state line in Kansas. His list is the trustee foreclosure auction schedule, and he reaches owners by knocking on their doors.
Favorite features
The Challenge
Phil Jordan spent 12 years in oil and gas before the work dried up and he moved his family home from North Dakota. He had studied wholesaling since the first auto lead gen challenge in June 2020, but studying was the problem. He would work hard for a couple of weeks, stall for a few, and start over. The debt piled up until he could not keep up with anything. Four little girls and a small farm depended on him.
The standard playbook did not fit him either. He set up the systems from every challenge, then let them sit, because he hated sitting in an office working the phone. His CRM was notebook scraps and phone alarms. By July of last year he was at the end of his rope and out of excuses. The question he asked was blunt: which sellers need help right now, today, from someone willing to show up in person.
What They Built
Door knocking the county foreclosure list
Phil pulled the trustee auction list for his Nebraska market, with sale dates from a day to a month out, and started at the top. He knocks the door, explains who he is and what he does, and works the prospect face to face. Phone sessions never stuck for him. Standing on a porch did.
It's just something that works well for me and I'm able to relate to people.
Finding the family behind a vacant pre-foreclosure
The flip started as a vacant hoarder house three weeks from auction. The owner had died, so Phil tracked down his two sisters, who had walked away from their childhood home. One conversation at the door turned into an agreement to work together, and a fast-tracked probate cleared in about a week and a half, ahead of the sale date.
A capital partner instead of hard money
Phil partnered with a former coworker who had flipped houses for years. The partner funded the acquisition, let Phil pull some equity up front to keep operating, and let him fail forward. Without him, Phil says, the deal meant hard money at 18 to 22 percent and would very quickly not work.
Lean on your relationships and just be strategic about who you partner with.
A contractor who doubled as a mentor
After three weeks of chasing single-trade bids, Phil hired Billy Nino of New Era Construction, an investor with dozens of local rentals. Billy priced every new item against outside bids and came in under them. Phil got a finished flip, a construction education, and another person in his corner.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- Every No Recycled On A Two-Year Rehash Cycle
- Three VAs Clean Data Before A Single Dial
- Three First To Market Niche Filters Worked Daily
- Loose Onboarding And Under-Corrected Bad Hires
- Team Swung From Large To Small To Solo
- Broad Marketing Across Every Niche At Once
- Mornings and evenings back with his family
- 8 person crew handles whole projects in sets of two
- 40+ properties across three portfolios in about six months
- Afraid to take on payroll and a crew
- The bottleneck on his own projects
- Software job eight to five, real estate five to midnight
- 55% Answer Rate On One-By-One Click To Call
- Free County Data Replaced Every Paid List
- $45K Fee Closed One Week After The Callback
- Podio, Slack, And Multiple VAs, No Traction
- 30,000-Record Lists Dialed Two Or Three Times Through
- At Least $40K Wasted On Lists And VAs
- Four Marketing Attempts on a Couple of Lists
- A Three-Person Team at About $1,800 Cost Per Contract
- Almost Two Years Nomadic Across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East
- Behind a Jacksonville Desk 95 Percent of the Time
- Tens of Thousands Spent on Masterminds That Never Fit
- Got Crushed Wholesaling Cleveland Virtually From New York
- Career-biggest payoff under agreement after a year of deep prospecting
- A 1,300-lead vacant property gold mine in two counties
- One shared database with his agent wife for three years
- Guru models demanded VAs and a big company he never wanted
- His investing and her listing business never connected
- Ten years flipping houses with no shared system
- One Call and One Text Found His Last Buyer
- A Deal About Every Three Weeks, Pushing for Two
- Eight Deals Working in the Middle of the Slowdown
- A $7,000 Mail Campaign Went Out at 56 Percent of Value
- Three to Five Active Listings in Every Subdivision He Underwrites
- Colorado Prices Down 9 to 11 Percent by May
- Callers Hunt Correct Numbers, Closers Take Over
- Returned Mail Tagged And Worked As Its Own Bucket
- 6 Deals In One Month From Year-Old Data
- Eight Months In Before Working The Data Right
- Bulk Dials On Call Tools Produced Nothing
- 100K Records Added, Team Spinning Its Wheels
- Mail, three call attempts, then the rehash pool
- 150 records a month, skip traced twice before dialing
- Full authority probates only, five Southern California counties
- 15 to 20 grand across seven months of last year
- Calling agents and MLS, never direct to seller
- No CRM, just a phone, a computer, and email
- $56K Largest Single Assignment
- A VA Pulls County Probate Data Daily
- $5,300 Total Expenses, About $441 A Month
- $210K In Fees From 7 Deals In A Year
- Every Conversation Started Cold
- No Pipeline, No Aged Database, No Team
- Random Calling On Whatever Records He Found
- Started September 2023 With No Probate Experience
- $95K Spread Closed In 21 Days
- All Four Questions Answered On Every Lead
- 120 Qualified Sellers In The Pipeline
- $1M+ Company With SMS As The Core Channel
- Tracking It All In Podio, Then Another CRM
- Doing What Everybody Else Was Doing
- Downloading Every Record Providers Would Give Him
- Churn And Burn Message Blasts
- One Contract For Every 10 Leads
- 100% Of Deals Sourced Inside The System
- $1M+ In Assignment Fees In 2023
- Almost All Deal Flow From Driving For Dollars
- Bouncing Between Tools Looking For One That Stuck
- Leads Tracked In Excel Sheets, Antiquated And Scattered
- First Flip Finished And Live On Market
- Partner Funding Instead Of 18-22% Hard Money
- Probate Cleared In A Week And A Half
- About One Deal Per 15 To 20 Doors
- Door Knocks The Foreclosure List Top To Bottom
- Severely In Debt, Couldn't Keep Up
- A Couple Of Years To Get In Gear
- Worked Hard For Two Weeks, Then Stopped
- 12 Years In Oil And Gas, Then Nothing Left
- $10K Deal From A Q3 Not Interested Lead
- Follow Up Brought The Seller Down $40,000
- Two First To Market Contracts In One Week
- Dedicated Caller Works The First To Market Flow
- Eviction Records Pulled Straight From Two Counties
- Outbound Marketing Completely Phased Out
- Credit Card Debt From Bad Marketing Advice
- Two Years Of Shiny Object Crash And Burn
- Absurd Data Subscription Costs Draining The Business
- $61,644 Net From A Lien List Rehash
- Tracks Wrong Numbers, Cuts Skip Trace Spend
- Emails The Township For Exact Lien Payoffs
- Rehash Filters: Mobile Numbers, No Response, Liens
- Next Day Follow Up Text Gets The Reply
- Lien Lead Silent Since February 2024
- No Follow Up Text After A Silent First Message
- Unknowingly Recycling The Same Data
- Pulling 10,000 Record Lists The Old Way
- 15 Heirs Signed, $37,500 In One Month
- Skip Trace, Upload To Sift, Call Fast
- Small Problem Lists Over Huge Data Sets
After DataSift
- Difficult Team Management
- Reactive Marketing
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Empowered Data Management
- First to Market Strategy
- Automated Processes
- Strategic Focus
- Improved Lead Prioritization
- Enhanced Data Tracking
- Low Level CRM
- Successful But Hitting a Wall
- Missed Opportunities
- Poor Data Management
- Data Driven Decisions
- Full Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Lacked Marketing Clarity
- Difficult Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Lead Management Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Achieved Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Little Data Clarity
- Relied On Google Sheets
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Data Clarity / Organization
- Wholesales, Flips And Does Retail
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Didn't Understand Data Management
- Strong Real Estate Agent
- Wanted To Break Into Wholesaling But Didn't Know How
- Healthy Scale
- Data Driven Decisions
- Consistent Deals
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent
- Little Data Insight
- Unorganized Bulk Marketing
- Strategic Focus on Niches
- Enhanced Lead Flow and Certainty
- Streamlined Marketing Process
- Efficient Use of Data
- Direct Mail & Deep Prospecting
- Broad, Unfocused Strategy
- Inconsistency in Results
- Dependency on Luck
- Marketing Clarity
- 6 Figure Months
- High Deal Volume
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Proper Data Management
- Weak Marketing Flow
- Poor Data Management
- Lack of Focus
- Manual Efforts
- Successful Scale
- Total Data Clarity
- Clear Marketing Approach
- Large Deal Spreads
- Improper Data Management
- Poor Marketing Method
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Clear Data Management
- Clear Data Management
- Successful Scale
- Many ways to close deals
- Large deal spreads
- Poor data management
- Unable to scale properly
- Poor marketing flow
- Smaller Deal Spreads
- Increased Deal Volume
- Platform Utilization
- Realtor Collaboration
- Funding Efforts
- Lots Of Deals
- Data Driven Decisions
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Poor Data Management
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Relied On Bulk Marketing
- Lack of Clarity
- Automated Acquisition
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Data Driven Decisions
- Structured Follow-ups
- Increased Lead Generation
- Achieved Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Manual Acquisition Processes
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Minimal Lead Insights
- Poor Follow Up Flow
- Inconsistent Lead Generation
- Lacked Sales And Marketing Clarity
What changed
Phil pulls the trustee foreclosure auction list, with sale dates anywhere from a day to a month out, and starts knocking at the top. The flip came from a vacant house on that list, three weeks from auction. He tracked down the late owner's two sisters, knocked on her door, and moved the estate through probate in about a week and a half.
A financial partner let him pull equity up front instead of borrowing hard money at 18 to 22 percent, so the flip stayed workable. The rehab ran over budget and the deal still makes money, his third or fourth overall since he committed to door knocking.
We'll probably get a deal out of every 15 doors we knock. So it's pretty good, maybe 15 to 20.
The Results
The Lincoln flip finished in a couple of months and went live the day before his mastermind post. The rehab ran over budget after some mid-project direction changes, and it still makes money. The probate that made the purchase possible cleared in about a week and a half. Counting the flip, an equity-split deal with a local partner, and a subject to takeover in Kansas, Phil has 3-4 deals done or in motion. His own funnel estimate: one deal for every 15 to 20 doors he knocks.
A year earlier he had no income, severe debt, and a start-stop habit. Now door knocking is the job, partners cover capital and construction, and the next goals are set: debt free by year end, systems in the software instead of notebooks, and a first hire in three to four months.
My goal is to simply systematize what I'm doing, cause it's not real complicated.
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