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You really want to find motivated sellers for real estate investing? What is really necessary? The problem is that most people are looking for distressed sellers when they should really be looking for distressed properties!
Despite a slew of advertisements on social media and in print, there is no easy answer for succeeding in real estate investing. Expect to put in long hours and hard, migraine-inducing work in order to generate results. Repeated direct mail, to the right list is really the best way.
Who Are They?
Just what makes a motivated seller (or buyer) any different from any other real estate seller or buyer? “Motivated seller” is a euphemism for someone who is in a distressed situation who needs to act quickly. It also means they are willing to negotiate in order to sell. They are to be distinguished from the average person who is just curious what he can get for his property on the current market, or who will only sell under strict circumstances.
A motivated seller in real estate investing usually means that they are desperate to sell, but it could also mean that they could be experts in negotiation, are beginning the foreclosure process or are thinking of removing the property from the listings altogether. Think of motivated sellers as a really successful used car salesmen. You will not be able to pull any kind of wool over their eyes.
Why would you want to find a motivated seller when you’re in real estate investing? They are truculent, argumentative and going to give you a hard time. However, they are also the ones who will wind up eventually selling you the property you want and often at your price. They need to get rid of the property that they have.
Finding These Guys And Gals
There are many online services that claim to do all the work for you to find motivated sellers for any real estate investment newbie. Don’t believe them. Sure, they will find you some motivated sellers, but you could find them anyway if you concentrate on the property and not the on the seller.
The best way to find motivated sellers in real estate investing is to not look for them. If you market right, they will show up like buses. What you need to do is concentrate on the property available first. Is the property worth buying in the first place? Is it within your price range? How much fixing up does it need?
Location, Location, Location
In order to select the property that you are going to work to buy, you need to consider the location it’s in and the real estate market in that particular area. Select the area before you select an individual property to target. Once you’ve hit a target area, then you can get to the specifics of looking at real estate listings and even doing a direct mail campaign for that particular area.
If you do a direct mail campaign, make it short and sweet. A regular (and economical postcard) with the necessary information is all most people will need to generate a response. And people can see your message on a postcard immediately as opposed to having to open an envelope. People will often not even bother to open an envelope from an unknown or unfamiliar return address, just assuming its junk mail.
When you concentrate on a location and get the word out that you are interested in buying for this location, then you will start to generate momentum to create an environment where the sellers will come to you.
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.
