Finding Motivated Sellers (Without Breaking The Bank)

[Nathan Claire]

It’s all about the leads, fresh leads, qualified sellers, the ones we really want to talk to. Yet, even after extensive marketing, these deals can be elusive and near impossible to find. Often times, a whole budget can be blown without securing a single profitable property. This can make many people frustrated, and want to shy away from the real estate investing game; causing them to give up on ever finding a deal. However, it doesn’t have to be this way! There are a few solid marketing tactics to generate motivated seller leads where you’ll never have to spend a single dollar! You heard that right, free marketing!
Here are the top 3 ways to target motivated sellers without ever breaking the bank:

1. Driving For Dollars

Driving for dollars consists of driving around neighborhoods looking for homes that seem to be vacant or in distress. These properties often have large amounts of deferred maintenance such as overgrowth of shrubs and tall grass. Many of these homes also feature structural damage like holes in the roof or boarded up windows. When driving for dollars, try to find between 50-150 properties each trip, but know that it’s up to you as to how much house hunting you’d like to do. Simply jot down the addresses of your prospect properties and find out each owner through county/city records. After this, get in contact with them via call, text, or email and see if they’d be interested in selling.

Cost- $Gas For Vehicle$ (Or take a friend’s 😉)

2. Cold Calling

When it comes to sales techniques, no other has held its weight more over the years than cold calling. But who do you cold call? There are many reasons why someone would want to sell their home. With all of the data available today, it isn’t too difficult to obtain very specific lists catering to people who would be motivated to sell. Some popular motivated seller lists to target are:

- Probate
- Pre-Foreclosure
- Vacant
- Absentee-Owner
- High Equity

All you’ll need to do is obtain a niche list (can often be found from city/county office). This list will contain all of the addresses for your specific location criteria and motivation target. From here, lookup the owner’s contact info online and give them a call. Phone calls are a great way to build rapport through your voice and the specific questions you ask. Some phone numbers can be hard to obtain so skip tracing your list can lead to a lot more opportunity to reach prospects. Skip tracing can cost anywhere from 6-30 cents per lead, depending on your service provider.

Cost- $0
(Skip Tracing Cost Varies)

3. Door Knocking

Another old fashioned way to find sellers is by walking up their front steps and bringing yourself to their attention. This is one of the most direct ways to market yourself or your business. This practice can be scary but it gets you right in front of the seller and allows you to build instant in person rapport. You can skip past all of the cumbersome time spent trying find an owner’s phone number or email and get a chance to offer your services to the prospect face to face. However, knocking can be time consuming and walking around streets can get tiring. In addition to this, many owners might live at a different address than the subject property, so knocking on the door of a vacant house won’t get you very far. Door knocking is very effective as long as there is someone there to answer your knocks (preferably the owner).

Cost- $0

As you can see, there are a few great low-cost marketing methods in the REI space. If you're budget is tight, and you don't want to go in over your head, try these techniques out. Maybe you've spent a lot of money on marketing in the past and didnt see the ROI you were hoping for. Now you aren't willing to put anymore of your hard earned dollars on the line. That's ok! You can market for FREE, and still be successful! Even though these marketing methods are inexpensive, they have been proven to generate great leads for businesses, year after year. The biggest thing to remember is to not give up! There's always a way to make it happen. Now go out there and close some deals!