Kansas City MO: Alternative/wholesale sources for properties?

[Tom Keller]

Hello all, new investor here interested in the KCMO area. What suggestions do you have for sources of wholesale or alternative (non-MLS) properties? Looking to pick up several properties for buy & hold over the next year. Thanks.

[Kim Tucker]

I need to understand your question. 

If you are looking for sources of non-mls properties to buy from wholesalers, then you need to get out and find the wholesalers.  Some options there are to 

One: follow properties posted on various sites and follow the posting back to the listing company and ask how to register on their list. The more experienced groups will list a property and direct you back to their website with some sort of form to sign up on their list. Sites like the properties here on BP, or local REIA group websites that list properties or the real estate investor group sites for the cities in question on Facebook.

Two:  Google the terms sell my house fast in whatever city you are buying.  Find every we buy houses website that are on the first 3 or 4 pages of Google, and sign up on the pages that have investor buyer sign up forms and on those that don't send an email or contact message to the site owner to find out how to get on their list.

Three: Go to the local REIA group meeting and other meetup events. Take a notepad and business cards. Get contacts and websites from everyone who says they offer houses for sale, Realtors, Wholesalers, Newbie Investors, then go home and follow up with these folks and get on their list.

Now if you just want to find sources of houses that are not on MLS, then you need to go to work and market for houses for sale. To do that

1.  Have a website about buying houses that has a lot of different blog posts over time using keywords that sellers use.  I have an Investor Carrot Website and most of the folks in KC do to - MAREI has a discount link on their site if you want to get a few carrot websites and save money.  Feed Blog posts over time, add photos and videos to those blog posts and then as they post, post comments and links back to them on all your social media and then have all your social media friends like the posts (THIS IS HOW BP GOT TO BE WHERE IT IS TODAY - BLOG POSTS WITH KEYWORDS that get splattered, liked and shared all over social media and that go out in a newsletter several times a week - all those clicks back to BP and here we are - it works for sellers too.  (Hire someone to do this for you if you don't have time.)

2.  Advertise online that you buy houses - Google Ads, Facebook Ad, Retargeting Ads - Craigslist ads

3.  Buy lists of owners of properties of the type you might be looking for - multi-family 2 to 4 units, or who would be motivated single family owners:  send direct mail - lots of it.

I do a lot of #1 and #3. . . if you have a brand new marketing machine, you need to spend more money on #2, if your machine is 15 years old like mine and your website already ranks, and you want to target your leads to specific properties and areas rather than a blanket ad across the metro, then I spend more money on direct mail and retargeting.  I get way less leads in areas I don't want tying up the phone lines and costing me money when I will not do anything with them anyway.

Hope that helps. You can follow my profile back to my website and sign up as a buyer on my investor site and back to our local REIA group to see what properties our members have for sale.

I buy and wholesale across the KC Metro - I don't buy or wholesale in the urban core and focus on areas where houses are at least $80k to $100k and up retail.