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If you really want the best deals in investment properties, you have to increase your odds by finding more deals. Who is more likely to get a cheap house or apartment building, an investor that looks through the MLS listings and calls it a day, or the one that uses ten different resources? Here are the ten:
1. Talk
Let people know you are looking and sometimes the properties will come to you. There are a lot of owners out there who want to sell, but haven’t yet listed their property.
2. Use the Internet
Go to a search engine and enter the type of real estate you are looking for, along with the city you want to invest in. You never know what you might find.
3. Driving for Dollars
Drive around looking for “For Sale By Owner” signs. Owners often don’t want to pay to list the ad every week, so you won’t see all there properties there. Joint down addresses, take pictures of the homes and call the owners offering to take the house off their hands.
4. Find Abandoned Properties
Drive through local neighbor hoods and look for housees with tall weeds in the front yard and look like no one is living in the homes. That’s a pretty clear sign that the owner doesn’t want to deal with the property. He might sell cheap just to avoid the property taxes and upkeep.
5. Find Old “For Rent” ads.
Look online and in local papers for for rent ads that have been listed for a long time. Call if they are a few weeks old. Landlords are often ready to sell, especially if the haven’t yet rented the units out.
6. Talk to Bankers
Bankers are a great source of foreclosures and distressed properties. If you can establish good relationships with key bankers around your town, you might get a foreclosed-on investment property before anyone else and get it cheaper if you buy it before they list it with a real estate agent.
7. Offer Someone a Finder’s Fee
There are some people who always seem to hear about the good deals. Make connections with theses people, give them your business card and let them know how made you will pay for a lead that turns into a sale. Have such people coming to you.
8. Eviction Notices
If your local papers publish eviction notices or, if you can get the information online or at the courthouse, it can be useful. A landlord who just went through the process of evicting tenants is a potential seller.
9. Old FSBO Ads
If you call on two-month-old “For Sale By Owner” ads, and they haven’t sold, they may be ready to deal. Owners often give up the effort, but still would love to sell. Help them out!
10. Put an Ad in the Paper
Place an ad on Craigslist, Facebook, in local newspapers or anywhere potential sellers my look. Simple state “Looking for investment properties to buy” and list your email and phone number. That might be sufficient to generate a few calls.
These are just ten of hundreds of ideas you can use to find great properties. Be creative. Think like a seller and look where sellers would look to seller their properties. You’re only limited by your imagination.
Bill Manassero is the founder/top dog at “The Old Dawg’s REI Network,” a blog, newsletter, and podcast for seniors and retirees, that teaches the art of real estate investing. His personal real estate investing goal, which will be chronicled at olddawgsreinetwork.com, is to own/control 1,000 units/doors in the next 6 years. Prior to that, Bill and his family lived in Haiti for 11 years as missionaries serving orphaned, abandoned and at-risk children.
