Learn How to Find a Truly Motivated Seller that Needs to Sell a House

How can you find motivated sellers in today’s real estate market?  Finding motivated sellers can be difficult but they are out there.  The most important thing you need in this business is a motivated seller.  We make our money on the purchase of the property and not on the sale of the property.  To have success in this business you will need a reliable source of motivated seller leads.  There are so many different groups to market to, whether they are pre-probate, tax delinquent, foreclosure or vacant home owners.  There are a variety of ways to find these folks, ranging from bandit signs to direct mail to online resources.  I would suggest doing a combination of those above and to make sure you surround yourself with experienced investors so you can learn from them and don’t have to learn on your own.  I always say learn from others mistakes so you don’t need to make the same ones.

Real Estate Investing can be very lucrative when dealing with motivated sellers.  Working with Motivated Sellers opens up many more possibilities, increases the number of profitable deals you can do, and keeps more money in your pockets at the front end of the deal.  It is just simply easier to work with sellers who are emotionally committed to getting rid of their real estate quickly and without these folks this business is almost impossible so you need to be committed to finding them.

Below are a myriad of ways to find motivated sellers, many of which are proven and/or low cost. In addition to all those avenues mentioned below, my favorite and most highly recommended way to find those motivated sellers is through a lead generation plan.  I have tried many different lead sources over the years ranging from pre-foreclosure to estates to short sales and many more.  A few years ago, I came across Real Estate Sales LLC, a company that truly changed my real estate investing fortunes forever.  This company provides their clients with motivated seller leads in the specific areas they are looking to invest in as they can drill down in very specific locales.  Real Estate Sales finds motivated sellers for their clients by locating folks that own vacant properties with equity, in other words folks that own non-producing assets, this group can provide other type of leads as well but the very best in my opinion are those folks that own vacant properties.  Out of all the lead sources, I have come across, none have been as accurate and as strong as those from Real Estate Sales.  I am so glad to have access to these leads as it definitely gives me a competitive advantage against my competition.  Real Estate Sales is a company that can take your business to the next level.

Below are other avenues to find motivated sellers.

Calling for Cash:

This is one of the best ways to find deals on a budget.  The idea with any marketing is to talk to sellers that want to sell you their house.  What better way to talk to someone than to just pick up the phone and call them?  You will likely make a ton of calls to sellers that are not motivated enough to negotiate with you, but this is a numbers game and some will be motivated.  The more sellers you talk to, the closer you get to finding the one that will sell you the house at a price or terms that will make you money.  You can get lists of people to call from ‘for sale by owner’ websites, ‘for rent by owner’ sites, and online classifieds such as Craigslist. Sometimes there will be phone numbers in foreclosure listings, which you can get for free at the county building or get for a nominal fee from a title company (or free if you know people who get those lists from the title company and would not mind sharing).  If you drive neighborhoods or go for walks or bike rides, you can get phone numbers from ‘For Sale by Owner’ or’ For Rent’ signs too.

Door Knocking:

Although calling can be much less stressful, this may be the best way to land the most profitable deals.  If you have the time, go knock on doors.  The doors that you will want to consider knocking on are any that you would consider mailing to.  Foreclosures seem to be a popular one, but evictions, probate, and code violations all work well too.  Another strategy is to just go to a neighborhood that you like and knock on every door.  You merely tell them that you are interested in buying a house in the area and ask if they know anyone wanting to sell.  You will end uphearing gossip about neighbors and get to know who was in trouble and might need to sell.

Flyers:

There are a lot of ways to use flyers without it costing you money, aside from the money it costs to print.  You can hang flyers on community boards like grocery stores and coffee shops.  Again this is free, so even if it does not work well, you should be doing it.  A picture of you on the flyer will probably work best if you are hanging them on community boards.

Networking:

The only costs here should be your business cards.  You can do this without them, but you shouldn’t.  Business cards are cheap, so go order them.  The idea here is to tell everyone you know what you do.  This is easier at networking events, but even going to a ball game or riding the bus gives you an opportunity to tell someone what you do.   I have found that the best deals come from people that are really trying to help someone they know out.  So when you explain what you do, be sure to focus on the problems you can solve.

Online Classifieds:

Many of these are free, so I would suggest posting ads.  You are going to be on the sites getting phone numbers to call anyway, you might as wells go ahead and post a free advertisement.   It works best to refresh or post a new ad every few days.

Direct Mail:

This is one of the better ways to get your message out there. You should find a lead source generation system and start sending letters out every week.  Remember if you are not marketing than you don’t have a business.  Don’t get upset because you have a bad week or even month, stay after it because if you do you will find a deal and then another and another one.  Don’t give up and remember to always keep a positive mindset.

You can see that each of the ways mentioned above take effort. This is not a get rich quick business, if you want to have success you better be ready to put in the necessary work.  This business does not take a lot of money but it will take a lot of effort, especially when you start out.  If you have the right mindset and work ethic you will have success.  Have belief in yourself and go out and find those motivated sellers.