How to find off-market sales data

Question

Hey y'all,

I'm a realtor-investor looking to start a business that flips distressed properties into affordable housing (affordable meaning 450k rather than 550k). One of the biggest stumbling blocks my team is running into is forecasting acquisition costs.

My assumption has been "every home and every seller is different. You can't know potential acquisition costs until you talk to sellers."

What would be WAY more efficient that doing all of the marketing to bring in seller leads in and have those conversations, is if there were some way to track off market sales prices just like we can for on-market sales in the MLS.

Assuming I don't have personal experience negotiating sales prices on flip deals, how would you recommend I go about understanding a reasonable sales price to offer a seller?

If we can't get our acquisition costs down low enough, we'll definitely need to re-work our model.

Thanks in advance!

Evan Polaski · Answer

@Brandon Rush, this may be unique to my area, but even transactions that are happening "off market" still become a publicly recorded sale with sale price.  The MLS is actually not a good source of comps, technically, because properties on the MLS have not sold.  Case and point: my last flip was listed on MLS for $100k, we bought for $85k.  When we sold, we listed on MLS for $235k and sold for $270k.  So the MLS is not an accurate source of true transaction amounts.

Additionally, our current rehab was purchased off market directly from seller for $195k.  This sale was still recorded, as the MLS transactions were and made public on the county auditor's website.

The point being, you need to be looking at the actual transaction data for comps, not what you are seeing in the MLS.  The MLS is easy, and hopefully accurate since realtors are looking at actual transactions to set the listing price, but a listing price does not mean the same thing as a sale price.

Rob Gillespie · Answer

@Brandon Rush

Welcome to BP. Great place to ask the questions!

To begin with, you are in one of the hottest seller markets we have seen in over a decade. So not saying you cant find deals, but you will need to look a little deeper .

It is not just about the "lowball offer". You are solving an problem as a real estate investor. Every seller has a REASON they are selling their home. They may not have the time, patients or ability to put their home on the open market.

Some folks are just plain embarrassed to have their home on the market because they do not want to show the world how they live. They may have liens or debt that they do not want to share with a real estate agent. They may have an IMMEDIATE need for cash.

I would begin by looking for "situations". Those are typically problems. Many problems can be solved with money. This does not necessarily mean they need full assking for the property, they just need money.

Find out what they NEED. Not what the value of the asset is.

Death

Divorce

Incarceration

Bad tenants

back taxes

behind on mortgage.

You get the point. Find the reason. market DIRECTLY targeting that reason. Call, Text, Email, Direct Mail, facebook target them with ads, message them on facebook, show up at their doorstep, whatever it takes to get their attention.

I personally get my data for this using Realeflow. I will not put the link on here because I do not want the post to get flagged. I have used many other list sourcing sites and public records to get data as well.

In my opinion the MLS is like shopping on black friday. You need to wait in line and push over little old ladies on walkers to get to the 1 TV that is only 50 bucks. I would prefer to to be the only bidder in my sellers living room.

Good deals are usually MADE, not FOUND!

Hope that helps.

Good luck!!!

Brandon Rush · Answer

@Evan Polaski Do you mind sharing a bit more what you mean by the MLS won't share sale price? In the MA MLS, once the property sells, we'll see the listing price and the sales price. Either way, I think using public records is a better avenue since so many deals are never posted on the MLS anyway. Are there resources you'd use to see trends in sales off-market? Or do you mostly check each properties public record individually?

Brandon Rush · Answer

@Rob Gillespie - that's SO helpful! I hadn't thought about marketing directly to a pain point in this situation, but that's always the best way to sell. Thank you!