How to source property?

Question

Hi all, newbies investing in real estate looking to get into a large apartment complex, but for now looking to buy single or small until complex.

I have been searching on LoopNet and Zillow along with various sites for deals.  The deals on the site aren't worth the time and investment with inadequate cash flow. I'm sure there are some gem opportunities on these sites, but I have seen to have no luck.

I notice some folks here are using direct mail to find sellers. How do I go about doing this? Do I hire someone from up work or a similar site and ask them to create a template?

Does anyone have a template they can share as an example?

Between my partner and me we have 200k cash.

Any ideas to get started?

I want to take action and not read another real estate book or watch a video.

Thanks

Ben

Ben Patel · Answer

Thank you,

I'm looking for anything in PA / FL / TN area of car wash / multi unit / small shopping center. My group has experience in all three aspect of the business.

I'm on some of the brokers mailing list along with monthly follow up calls to remind them of what I'm looking for , but they tend to send whatever they have in there current database rather than sourcing for property off market.

Obviously, I can't be the only one looking at these listing provided by them. Some of the deals simply suck or overpriced.

Is there a web site to search owner information of the property to direct mail?

Michinori Kaneko · Answer

first, what area are you looking to invest? for instance, i know you will NEVER cashflow in area that I live in (NY). Also, there is always a right price for your numbers to work.  You don't always have to buy the property at the listed price.  Keep that in mind!

Rodolfo Canon · Answer

As with everything in real estate, the answer is almost always location-specific. We have tried direct mail in our market and have had very poor results. We even tried mailing with a Design of Experiments (DOE), 32-run, Plackett-Burman Screening Design with a process improvement statistician and that was not fruitful.

We find that there are two ways to find properties:

1. Networking. This is how we find most of the deals for ourselves and our investor clients.

2. Grunt work. Identify an area in which you are interested. Identify potential properties. Find the owner's contact information and call them. This is a 1 in a 100 chance at best, in our experience, but it is a part of our business development strategy.

Our advice is to become a network hub. Get the word out that you are looking. Provide your contacts with something of value (information) so that they will reciprocate. This will go slowly at first. But as you build your network (strong links), you will be introduced to their network (weak links) and those will be your source of leads.