Finding deals

[Taylor Zenter]

I'm in the San Fernando Valley in the greater Los Angeles area and I'm curious how I should go about finding my first deal for a rehab and flip. Should I be starting to send out mailers, buying from wholesalers, and/or talking to real estate agents? What should I be starting with?

[Misty W.]

I think most new investors, and old, need to make a daily list of things to do. It's great to say you will network with other investors, or do a mailing list, but making a daily to do list gets you in the habit of marketing everyday and giving you much smaller goals that you can execute rather than saying you need 2 deals a month. So, on my list daily are things like checking for evictions on my local court website, mailing to 10 vacant houses, pulling expired listings, responding to craigslist ads.

I tell newbies to pick just 3 avenues of marketing and rock them consistently. Yes you can find lists of 50 different ways to market, but you will never be able to do them all at once, consistently, so pick three. Maybe it's bandit signs (commit to putting up 2 a day), expired listings (call 3 a day or mail them a letter), absentee owners (buy a list and mail 10 a day).

Find one REIA meeting to attend each month and commit to following up with 2 people there. Saying you will go and collect as many business cards as possible usually means you will just have a stack of cards that never do anything for you.

Find one local investor each week to call and network with, find them through local signs or websites or tax records of people that own many properties.

The key is to think small, while thinking big.