Another week has past and we began to follow up on our first leads.  We were able to discover a few things.  Bandit signs and direct mail do in fact work to generate leads.  Other investors told us that these were two great strategies to start with, but it was a lot better to see it and believe it. 

One roadblock that we seem to be hitting though, comes with locking up these leads into contracts.  We are currently using option contracts to try to wholesale deals.  One seller agreed with us on a good price, is ok with us assigning the contract, but would not sign into an option contract for $10 consideration to bind the contract.  We do not want to spends hundreds or thousands tying up funds for every contract.  The seller was told by his lawyer that locking up a contract at this price was a joke.  We tried to explain that we we not locking up a contract where the deal would fall through if we ourselves did not buy the property.  We attempted to push the fact that we would immediately market the property to hundreds of area investors ready to buy.  We also tried to explain that by using a realtor they basically give one person exclusive rights to try to sell their property, when normally realtors do not have many buyers lined up ready to make offers.  They also would be signing usually a 6 month agreement with the realtor and would not be receiving any consideration.  We were going to gain rights to market the property, but the difference with us was that we have numerous buyers lined up to take on new rehab projects.  We also would only have the contract last between 30-60 days and if our hundreds of investors did not buy the property, then the seller would be free to explore other avenues.  Has anyone come across this objection from a seller?  How were you able to get around it?  We feel this will come up over and over as we try to wholesale deals...