Finding Buyers For A HUD Home

[Winston Spence]

I'm trying to figure out a way to find buyers to wholesale HUD homes to. I have been noticing buyers are going behind my back to get the properties themselves. I'm just curious as to how other BP investors are wholesaling HUD homes to buyers? Are you using bandit signs, craigslist, networking, etc... Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Jon Holdman]

IMHO trying to wholesale off the MLS is a waste of time. For most properties you're going to have to get a significant discount off the listing price in order to add your markup and then still have a price that's interesting to a buyer (i.e., lower than what's its listed for on the MLS.) This isn't specific to HUD, but applies to any MLS listed property.

Specific to HUD is that bids are initially only open to OOs. Since you're an investor, you can't bid during this period. In the investor bid period, if you do get an accepted bid and give them your earnest money (it won't be $10, either) you will never get it back. OTOH, if you don't have it under contract its pointless to offer it to your buyers because its unlikely you'll ever get it under contract. If you're going to wholesale off the MLS, you need to make hundreds of lowball offers with the hope of getting a few acceptances.

Really, if you want to wholesale, you need to do your own marketing for sellers.