Data-Driven Deal Discovery

[Emmett O.]

Intro: I wanted to reach out to the greater BP community to get some comments/help on my approach to finding off-market multi-family deals. A lot of what I see related to finding deals in my area is the use of MLS, driving for deals, and wholesalers bringing leads to investors. I wanted to take my own approach using skills from my day job. I do a lot of data analytics currently and am really proficient at interacting with big data so I wanted to bring those skills to find deals, hence the name of the post: Data-Driven Deal Discovery.

Getting the Data: So where I looped my skills in was with the Philadelphia Properties database. I was not able to get the Excel data directly because the link on their website, it simply did not work and I could not pull it using Python. But where I was able to dive in was by using Carto, a spatial data platform. Philadelphia actually publishes their data to Carto's databases so I was able to combine Carto with another platform. This other platform is Alteryx, a self-service data analytics platform. I was able to use a connector between the two to get the Carto data into a format where I could peform basic filters on the data to narrow down my search. 

Using the Data: Below is the Alteryx workflow I made to find multi-family-zoned deals within a specific price range and zip code. There was more to work with is as well so I was able to filter out recent properties that exchanged hands and new constructions, effectively leaving me with a list of properties and their corresponding owners. To make this list more effective for an investor, I added a SQL query to the flow to find properties whose owners are not living at that address, meaning the owner is likely an investor.  

Next Steps: SO, now I have a list of properties and owner addresses and I am stuck. I am good at the data part and all that jazz but when it comes to reaching out I am not sure the best way to go forward. How do you approach owners who are off the market? Is there a way to come off less aggressive or threatening as I imagine many people do. Are there alternatives to yellow letters? Any feedback helps!