I buy almost all of my houses off of the MLS.<\/p>\n
I have tried direct marketing, wholesalers and other methods to get great deals, but the MLS seems to work the best for me. \u00a0So why am I finding so much success with the MLS when others are struggling?<\/p>\n
Here are the\u00a0the top five reasons I can get a great deal over someone else trying to buy in my area.<\/p>\n
I already wrote an article about the benefits of being an agent and investor here<\/a>.\u00a0 The truth is I see the MLS multiple times a day, I can look at a house without calling an agent and make an offer with the help of my assistant less than two hours after a home is listed.\u00a0 To be honest, this\u00a0puts the rest of you who are not agents at a huge disadvantage when buying off the MLS.\u00a0 I know acting quickly has gotten me many deals that I would\u00a0not have gotten had I waited a day or two.<\/p>\n My last three deals I bought off the MLS were listed on a Friday.<\/p>\n I noticed this trend on the last deal, because I kept accepting counters over the weekend.\u00a0 I try not to work on the weekends, but I\u00a0am happy to\u00a0do some work if it means I am buying a new rental property\u00a0or fix and flip.\u00a0 It could just be a coincidence, but the houses I\u00a0bought were listed on a Friday\u00a0and I was receiving counters before anyone else made an offer.\u00a0 My thoughts are that most people start to zone out Friday afternoons and don’t feel like driving to a house,\u00a0writing an offer and sending it to the listing agent (It could be that many real estate agents do not want to do this on a Friday either).\u00a0\u00a0People think I can look at that house on Monday, it will still be available.<\/p>\n My last deal was listed Friday afternoon of last week.\u00a0 It was in a town 30 miles from me and I really didn’t want to drive out there, but the home was listed for $60,000 less than similar houses \u00a0in the area.\u00a0 I saw the home, had my assistant make an immediate offer\u00a020% below list\u00a0and we sent it to the seller.\u00a0 I made a low offer because this was a really bad house.\u00a0 It looked like someone had thought about flipping it, got to the demolition stage and gave up.\u00a0 On Saturday I received a counter at $75,000 and I accepted it.\u00a0 The listing agent said they had five showings set up over the weekend and were expecting more offers, but none had come in yet.\u00a0 Had I waited to make an offer\u00a0until Monday or even the weekend, I would have lost the house or been faced with multiple offers.\u00a0 Two of my other recent purchases went down the same way\u00a0with\u00a0the seller getting\u00a0me a counter on the weekend before any other offers came in.\u00a0 FYI, these are fair market listings, not REOs where most banks require a property to be on the market a certain amount of time before they look at offers.<\/p>\n Removing the inspection contingency is a risky move if you don’t know what you are doing.<\/p>\n I started\u00a0doing this recently because\u00a0I rarely, if ever, do inspections on my purchases.\u00a0 I want great deals when I buy a home and if something comes up in an inspection that would cause me not to buy it, I probably am not getting a good enough deal.\u00a0 Major issues like foundation and roof I can usually spot myself.\u00a0 That is why it is extremely important to know what you are doing when you remove an inspection contingency.\u00a0 Here is an article I wrote on if an inspection is necessary<\/a>.<\/p>\n Removing an inspection contingency is huge in our market right now.\u00a0 On every house I sell I get hammered with inspection requests.\u00a0 It seems like the in thing to do is to ask for every single thing an inspector finds and then some.\u00a0 Many of the houses I buy need a lot of work; I think the biggest\u00a0fear many sellers have is getting an accepted contract and then having the buyer ask for $10,000 off the price after their inspection.<\/p>\n Two of my recent fix and flip purchases were under contract before I got a chance to make an offer on them.\u00a0 I know, I just said how important it is to act fast, but I have a valid excuse.\u00a0 I was in Mexico on vacation for one and they other was in a town I normally don’t buy in.<\/p>\n When those properties came back on the market I made offers immediately and got them under contract before any more offers could come in.\u00a0 By quickly, I mean that same afternoon after the homes came back on the market.\u00a0 The listing agents were actually apprehensive because they did not believe I could have seen the house and made an offer that quickly.<\/p>\n I see investors mention on the forum they are focusing on buying\u00a0REOs or short sales.\u00a0\u00a0REO and short sale activity is way down for most areas of the country and it seems silly to limit yourself to any type of sale.<\/p>\n Some of my best deals have been fair market listings.\u00a0 Fair market meaning they were not distressed due to a short sale situation and they were not bank owned.\u00a0 In the\u00a0last year I\u00a0have bought fair market listings more often than I have bought short sales or REOs.<\/p>\n With our prices rising, I am seeing houses under priced by real estate agents.\u00a0 These are the properties that you can get an offer in on quickly and get\u00a0under\u00a0contract before anyone\u00a0else has a chance.\u00a0\u00a0I do not ignore REOs or short sales, but I don’t focus on them either.<\/p>\n I focus on price!<\/p>\n Act quickly, don’t limit yourself to REO and don’t take three day weekends and you just may get more deals.<\/p>\n Do you have any other tips for using the MLS to get deals? Offer your suggestions below in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I buy almost all of my houses off of the MLS. I have tried direct marketing, wholesalers and other methods to get great deals, but the MLS seems to work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1212,"featured_media":56541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4252],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deal-analysis"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2.\u00a0 Buy Houses on a Friday…. What?<\/h2>\n
3.\u00a0 Remove Your Inspection Contingency<\/h2>\n
4.\u00a0 Watch the MLS Like a Hawk for “Back on the Market” Listings<\/h2>\n
5.\u00a0 Don’t Limit Yourself to Certain Types of Listings<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n