off market properties

[Ryan White]

I'm a new real estate investor looking to purchase my first BRRRR property. Unfortunately in my area, I'm really struggling to find properties on the MLS that I can get cheap enough to qualify for the BRRRR method (most are overpriced or my purchase + flip cost is higher than the 70% ARV that is desirable to make the BRRRR method work). The most important thing to me is to find a property that I confidently know I can invest and pull all or most of my capital back out because I'm confident I want more than 1 property and I can't have all my capital tied up in my first property.

My real estate agent has told me that in my area, there are too many investors that are willing to pursue houses on slimmer margin (i.e., they are willing to purchase higher than the 70% ARV) and that I should really target off market deals. While I'm still going to look on the MLS, I was interested in hearing if anyone knows of good ideas for obtaining off market deals? I'm specifically interested in local recommendations. If there are any local wholesalers around I'd love to connect as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I bet I've looked at hundreds of deals and seen a dozen houses recently that got snatched up before I could even put in an offer.