Where to Find Motivated Sellers for Your Wholesaling Deals

[Jim Pellerin]

Where to Find Motivated Sellers

Here's a list of where I think the best place to find motivated sellers is, based on my 25 years of REI and marketing experience:

1. Google Adwords - Expensive but you can start small and scale up. I think this is the best way to scale because you are targeting people already looking to sell and you can literally start your campaign in a couple of hours. Some tech skills are required or you can outsource it. Intent Marketing

2. Acquisition Wholesalers - co-wholesaling. need to split the assignment fee or add your w/s fee onto the price but you can do a lot of deals with less work. Outsourced

3. Realtors - Contact investor-friendly realtors and ask them to look for distressed properties for you. Promise them double commissions for their own listing. Outsourced

4. Birddoggers - People who are driving the neighborhood anyway (mailmen, etc). Or people who want to go out and find properties for you and get a referral fee. They just let you know if they see a distressed property. You still have to cold-call the owner. Disruptive Marketing

5. Direct Mail - Huge cash expenditure so can only scale after you make a few deals. Budget 10,000 mailouts for 2 deals. Disruptive Marketing

6. Property Sites - MLS, Zillow, Craigslist, FB marketplace - a lot of work for a few deals. Use by lots of wholesalers and retail buyers so a lot of competition. But a good place to start if you don't have a budget but you are willing to put in the time. Intent Marketing

7. Lead Provider Services - Expensive. Charge by the lead ($150 - $450). Or by month ($1K). May be effective or not. Gamble. Still have to cold-call the owner. Disruptive Marketing 

8. Lead Provider Sites - Propstream, Batchleads, Listsource, etc - not very good results. everyone who has the software goes after the same people. Still have to cold call. Disruptive Marketing.

I know there are others out there but I don't really have an opinion on them (like driving for deals, FB ads, bandit signs, etc). 

On average, you should pay about $2,500 in marketing for 1 deal if you are really wanting to scale. You should allocate a percentage (15% to 25%) of your total revenue towards your marketing campaigns.

You can go free and work hard but you won't be able to scale. But a good place to start.