Finding deals before they hit FB/Craigslist

[Peter Vazquez]

So I have started my real estate journey and I'm on the hunt for leads. I'm in the very competitive Omaha market and have been driving for dollars and sent out 1500 post cards and waiting for those to produce. As I can't just sit here and twiddle my thumbs I started looking through Facebook and Craigslist for leads but it seems to me that a lot of those houses are already under contract or are being sold at a price where wholesaling would be impossible cause I wouldn't be able to sell with assignment fee. My question is what is the best way to find off market property before it hits these sites so that I can buy them from homeowners vrs other investors.

[Abel Curiel]

Originally posted by @Peter Vazquez:

So I have started my real estate journey and I'm on the hunt for leads. I'm in the very competitive Omaha market and have been driving for dollars and sent out 1500 post cards and waiting for those to produce. As I can't just sit here and twiddle my thumbs I started looking through Facebook and Craigslist for leads but it seems to me that a lot of those houses are already under contract or are being sold at a price where wholesaling would be impossible cause I wouldn't be able to sell with assignment fee. My question is what is the best way to find off market property before it hits these sites so that I can buy them from homeowners vrs other investors.

Hello Peter,

Great question. I think post cards are very helpful for building brand awareness/recognition when looking for off-market deals. 1500 is a decent sized list of prospects as well. In addition to the postcards, I would say handwritten notes for SOME leads could be helpful as well - especially those you have built some kind of rapport with whether it be online, in person or on the phone.

 As you can already tell, 1500 postcards can get expensive pretty expensive. Furthermore, dozens or hundreds of hand-written letters is very time consuming. 

That being said, cold calling is less expensive than sending mailers. I would recommend hitting the phones 2-3 hours per day to slowly build your pipeline and within a few weeks, you should have dozens of people to follow up with. A great place to start would be the 1500 Addresses you already sent postcards to!

I hope this is helpful, please let us know more about your journey... the BP community is always happy to help!

Abel