Getting Frustrated w/ the Buying Process

[Tim Sughrue]

My house search has gone from a fairly large area, now narrowed down to 4 towns. Price range is $250,000 - $375,000. I know you need to keep emotion out of the buying process but my area is starting to get ridiculous. Houses that have been on the market for more than two weeks are seriously defective. Ex. awful additions, main roads, swampy yards. All i want is a solid NORMAL looking design that needs work; I'm in the construction field and I can do roofs, hvac, siding, all that good stuff. The problem is every house that is like this literally sells almost immediately and every time I am too LATE!!!!! I have about 3 Realtors working for me sending me email lists daily but this doesn't seem to help. I've been looking for a year now and I just happened to stumble on this perfect $260,000 house which was prime location and a very simple design that needed some TLC and it was a score. On trulia.com it was a "pre-forclosure" but when i contacted my agent she said its under-agreement and suppose to close April 15th. Now i am wondering why i never got this listing sent to my email by any of the agents, is there something I am missing here?

[Jon Klaus]

Tim, it is very tough if you are relying on MLS in a hot market. Another way is to find proven wholesalers in your area and dialogue with them about what you are looking for. An even better way, though with more work/investment, is to execute your own wholesale marketing campaign.