Skip to content
Home Blog Real Estate Marketing

3 Cheap Ways to Market for Motivated Real Estate Sellers

Stephani Davis
2 min read

If you’re just getting started in real estate investing or wholesaling, and are looking for a few cheap and effective ways to locate motivated sellers and land a deal, look no further! Following are three different marketing ideas that you can start implementing immediately that won’t break the bank.

Free Online Classifieds

Posting ads on free online classified sites such as Craigslist, Kijiji, and Backpage, is a great way to get the word out that you are looking for deals. You will want to post your ads in the “Real Estate Services” section of these sites, and say something along the lines of..

Cash for Houses!
Any Area, Any Condition.
Call or Email for More Details:
123.456.7890

You can always switch the wording up in your ads to see what pulls and what doesn’t.  Don’t be afraid to get creative- it doesn’t cost you anything to post your ads on these sites, so make sure to take full advantage of the free advertising opportunity!

Driving for Dollars

This will cost you a few bucks in gas money, but can be a very effective way to find distressed properties, while becoming more familiar with different neighborhoods in your area at the same time.

Bring a pen and a pad of paper with you, and jot down the addresses of any vacant, boarded up properties that you see.

If your county records are online, you can do a little research on the properties that you found once you get home. If any of the properties are owned by private individuals (as opposed to bank owned REOs), you can draft a letter to the owner expressing interest in purchasing the property.

Dialing for Dollars

If you’ve got more time on your hands than money in your pocket, grab the classifieds and start dialing for dollars!

Look for signs of motivation in the ads- if you see phrases such as “motivated seller” “must sell” “out of state owner” or “estate sale” you will want to give the seller a call to get more information about the property and find out more about their situation and level of motivation to sell.

If you’re just getting started, and the idea of cold calling sellers is a bit intimidating to you, you can take advantage of the free online classified sites that I mentioned above (Craigslist, Kajiji, and Backpage), and email for dollars instead!

While there are hundreds of ways to market for motivated sellers, the three methods that I have just described are simple, effective (if done on a consistent basis), and best of all- cheap! If you want to get the ball rolling in your real estate investing business, I recommend implementing one or all of these ideas as soon as you can.

Good luck, and happy hunting!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.