How Are You Sourcing Off-Market Deals in 2025?

Question

I’ve been diving into a couple of recent articles on BiggerPockets about the importance of building your own seller lists and staying ahead of the competition by finding deals before they hit the MLS.

Both pieces made one thing clear: relying solely on the MLS or Zillow alerts doesn't cut it. The most successful investors are actively creating their own lead flow through targeted seller lists, tools like REsimpli, driving for dollars, and leveraging agents who understand their buy box and bring off-market opportunities directly to them.

What have you found most effective in consistently finding off-market deals?

• Are you building your own seller lists?
• Are you working with investor-friendly agents who help source deals directly?
• What tools or systems are helping you move faster and stay organized?

Are you building your own seller lists?

Are you working with investor-friendly agents who help source deals directly?

What tools or systems are helping you move faster and stay organized?

I’d love to hear what strategies are primarily being used in today’s market and how others are staying competitive without burning out.

Cornelius Garland · Answer

@Isaiah Hall I agree with you - waiting for the deals to come to you is not a viable business model. This is the reason why I'm a big proponent of off-market push marketing / direct outreach: I can consistently predict how many leads I generate based on how much marketing I do.You're going to want to get a large prospect list that has motivation on it to start. You can pull a list in PropStream using the criteria delineated below.SFR, Duplex, Triplex, QuadsOwned for 10+ YearsNo LLC OwnersPurchased for $100k or lessTotal Outstanding Loans less than $100kHalf Acre or Less Lot SizeAbsentee AND Owner OccupantsTax Delinquent - Yes (Finite Dataset, though)In markets where there's over 1 million in population, you'll easily get 30,000 - 60,000+ homeowners who fit this criteria, minus the tax delinquent filter. With the tax delinquent filter on, there will likely be around 8k - 10k homeowners.This is a very balanced list that has enough volume to target unique homeowners daily, and it's not just a broad list of people that purchased homes this year.You want to target unique prospects every day. You shouldn't reuse your lists as this is what contributes to decreased lead flow. You want a new list of homeowners to target every month. I usually pull my lists on the first Monday of every month.The criteria I provided will get you a deal out of every 100 or so leads with cold calling and texting. I am a big proponent of texting right now because most people do not know how to get approved to send out texts since the regulations went into effect in October 2023. This gives us a significant competitive advantage because texting reaches a completely different demographic that will not pick up for a cold call.Cold calling generates about 1 - 2 leads per day per cold caller. You would need 5 full-time callers in order to generate one deal in a month. Most investors largely underestimate the amount of volume of cold prospecting that's needed to "just close one deal a month". I put that part in quotations because new investors who are trying to get their first deal play it small in hopes to keep their costs low. It will take about $3,000 to get your first deal. This is how much it cost for me to land my first deal 10 years ago. Today, my cost per deal is averaging $2,500. I include my data costs, marketing team costs, and software costs in this price. Not too bad considering my average assignment is $20,000!I hope this helps. Feel free to ask any other questions you have, Isaiah.

Oleg Donets · Answer

Hi @Isaiah Hall, I'd highly recommend to get your own website and invest in SEO. I've been generating motivated seller leads from search engines since 2015. This is one of the most effective ways to source off-market deals. Of course you can do also other forms of inbound advertising like Google ads (which is also an amazing method) and Facebook ads. But having your own website, developing your own brand is a long term strategy that keeps bringing motivated sellers to directly to YOU rather that YOU chasing them. I've written an extensive article on how to do SEO for your own website. If you are interested, I can share it with you.

James McGovern · Answer

@Isaiah Hall I go and bid every Saturday morning and winning about ten percent

James McGovern · Answer

I rely on foreclosure auctions and prefer to not burn time building lists

Isaiah Hall · Answer

@James McGovern how many properties are you getting through the foreclosure auctions and flipping yearly?

How Are You Sourcing Off-Market Deals in 2025?

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