Having trouble getting my first property....

[David Robertson]

I have walked 25+ homes and placed bids on 10+ properties in the last 2 months without any luck:

I am sitting on a short sale offer that I submitted 3 months ago, that I have not heard anything on in weeks...

I have submitted on 5 HUD homes that have all been rejected...I was $1500 lower than the successful bidder on one of them..

I just had a homepath offer that I submitted last week where they asked for our highest and best offer against other competing multiple offers (I ended up making the highest offer)....they ended up countering me back and forth a couple of times for about a week and I finally thought I was going to get my first deal, but then they said they received other offers over the weekend that were better than mine...

I feel like I have wasted half of 2012...with ambitions to make 2 to 3 deals this year, it seems I will be lucky if I get one!

I want to get into real estate full time, but I can't put food on the table rehabbing one house a year!

Does anybody have any luck with MLS listings or am I just wasting my time? It seems everybody and their grandma is bidding on foreclosures

[James Vermillion]

People are experiencing this exact thing in many markets all around the country, as competition is especially high on foreclosures and short sales. I have not given up on the MLS entirely, but my market is probably a little different than yours. I have had success focusing on properties that have been listed for a long time, properties that have issues some investors do not want to mess with (foundation issues and mold) and short sales. If you have the cash reserves working a few short sales now could set you up with a few deals down the road from now, which would be a good thing, but the fact that you do not know exactly what is going on makes that difficult.

You have a couple other options:
1) You can start looking for off MLS properties. I have not had to do this, but it is something I would definitely consider. You can read a lot on BP about marketing for such properties.

2) Start developing relationships with the primary foreclosure brokers and bank asset managers. You may be able to get first crack at a couple properties if you are able to prove you can close quickly and efficiently. I know Will Bernard is one of the best at making this work.

Also, keep looking. I can think of several times where I started to get a little discouraged by not being able to get any properties under contract and all of the sudden things started happening. The number one thing is to not get desperate and make a mistake you otherwise would not have made.