Out of the box advice wanted

[Elizabeth Grunnah]

Hi friends, I've worked for an investor in DFW for three years now and we have had some success here flipping houses. But in the past year, as I'm sure most of you know, it's been nearly impossible to find inventory. Since we're a small company and need more profit than the bigger ones to keep going, our offers are not as high as other flippers can offer, especially wholesalers and the like. I get 50 wholesale emails a day and 49 of them will be trash. I scour the MLS every day; everyone is holding out for list price. Our main way of obtaining inventory is through direct mail, which also isn't working as well as it used to anymore since the owners of these homes know they can call five other companies and get five more offers. Our selling point is that we can close with cash in 3 days to a week, no option period, no inspections beyond taking a cursory look at the house once, so quick and easy. My investor doesn't do rental houses at the moment, just flipping, although if times continue like this we may have to look at that option.

So my question is, am I missing some out of the box way to obtain more inventory? The investor I work for lives and works in Austin (which continues to be a ridiculously hot market, so unlike here) so he doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the Dallas market as much as I do and can't really advise me in a different direction. I'm feeling pretty frustrated and would love to hear what y'all think I can be doing differently. Thank you!