Wholesaling From MLS

[Dave Humphrey]

I have heard some people mention this. Do you actually go through the Realtor or do you contact the seller directly and work out terms that way. thanks.

Dave Humphrey

[Ryan Webber]

Well, Mr_Investor, there are some advantages to those 2 or 3 a year. They cost $0 in marketing. They do require time, but if you have the time the MLS can be very profitable.

And now I have to go over the whole "golden" way fallacy, again. Most new investors are looking for the "golden" way to find deals. Well there is NOT one. Now there are a handful of "silver" ways, though, and the secret to doing lots of deals is to figure out the silver and even the copper ways to find deals in YOUR market and to do them consistently and persistently.

I utilize probably over 20 different strategies in finding deals. Most of them bring me 1 to 2 deals a year. Some of them bring me 3 or 4 deals a year, and a couple of them may bring me 4 or 5 deals a year. Sometimes one that brought 1 deal last year will get me 5 or 6 this year.

Thinking back over this year, the MLS happens to be one of those for me this year that has actually gotten me 5 or 6 deals, though for the last 4 years it's only brought 2 or 3 a year.

Point being, if you are looking at being a successful wholesaler you need to be doing more than one or two things to find deals. You need to find 2 or 3 marketing strategies to focus on and start doing them, consistently and persistently.

As you become strong in those 2 or 3 strategies, develop 2 or 3 more strategies to focus on consistently and persistently WHILE you continue to do the first 2 or 3. Then add 2 or 3 more and so on and so on until you have a marketing/deal finding campaign that includes 15-20 strategies.

Most of those strategies will get you 1 or 2 deals a year. A handful of them will get you 3 or 4 deals a year, and 1 or 2 of the strategies will get you 5 or 6 deals a year.

Now its important to analyze each strategy's productivity and cost effectiveness after you have worked it for a sufficient amount of time consistently and persistently. Putting bandit signs out one time and not getting any calls doesn't mean they don't work. It doesn't mean they DO work either.

The MLS is one of the strategies that I consistently and persistently utilize to find deals. Expired listings are only one facet of the MLS. REO's and estates are two other components of the MLS that I've had some fairly good success with.

To discard a technique that takes a couple hours a week because it only gets you 2 or 3 deals a year does not make good business sense. That's EASILY $15,000 a year for about 150 man hours. That means you are throwing away a $100 an hour strategy. I'll take $100 for an hour's worth of work any hour of the day, and that's exactly why I consistently and persistently work the MLS. :D