What Are Your Three Favorite Methods To Find Deals?

Question

Hi All, I am going to start looking for my first fix and flip deal within the next month. I have purchased and manage three rental properties, but have never done a fix and flip before. It seems like the most crucial element to have success with it is to first find a great deal.

So my question is, for those of you who have done and are actively doing fix and flip projects, what are your top three favorite methods to find great deals? Where would you recommend a newbie flipper spend the most time trying to find a deal?

Thanks in advance for any advice :)

Tim Porsche · Answer

Account Closed Interesting! I had not heard of that study before. Do you happen to know if that was 12 hours of cold calling random home owners, or cold calling a more narrowed down list of possible leads...owners of distressed properties, absent owners, etc.

Account Closed · Answer

From The Baylor University’s Keller Center for Research Study

"Agents were asked to call a generic, random list of numbers from a region not previously marketed to that either they provided or that was supplied to them by their KWRI regional office. Calls were to be placed for an hour at a time, and were to be completed at a different hour on each day of the study (e.g.,an agent would call for one hour beginning at 10:00 AM one day, then for one hour beginning at 11:00 am the next, at 12:00 PM the next day, and so forth).

Of the 160 agents recruited, 50 completed the full seven hours of telephoning required. What We Learned–By The Numbers Over the course of a two-week period in November 2011, 50 participating agents made 6,264 phone-based cold calls, collectively. Of the 6,264 cold calls placed, 28% were answered, 55% were not answered, and 17% were non-working numbers.

While 6,264 calls were placed over the seven-day period, 72% were very quick calls due to non-answers and non-working phone numbers. Accounting for non-answers and non-working numbers becomes the tedious part of working true cold calling lists. However, the 28% of calls that were completed (1,774) were productive calls. Out of the 1,774 calls that were answered, agents were able to set a total of 19 appointments with prospective clients, and 11 referrals were received. Agents were asked to call back at a later time by 132 prospective clients, and 1,612of the callees were not interested in the offering or refused additional information.

The study reveals that for every 330 calls made, approximately one appointment was set (a 330:1 call-to-appointment ratio).

One out of every 59 calls answered (30 out of 1774) resulted in either an appointment or referral.

The data also reveal that there was clearly a significant difference in the time of day that calls were most productive.

Mornings to early afternoon (10am - 2pm) were the most effective times of day to place the calls.

During this time period, 31% of the calls were placed and resulted in 53% of all appointments/referrals generated. The least effective time for making calls was during the evening hours (after 5pm). During the study, this time period accounted for 42% of all calls made but resulted in only 21% of all appointments/referrals."

(That surprised me. I was taught that evenings and weekends were best. Seems things have changed.)

From the CallHippo Study:  Tuesday, 30 May 2017 -

The Best Day And Time To Make A Business Call

CallHippo did a research on what is the right time to make a call to your prospect,where  we took the data of our 1000+ clients that engage with their prospects  over calls on a daily basis. The research contains data of 24 weeks,  13,750 call attempts, and 1,350 successful conversations. The focus of the  research was to find the appropriate time to call your prospects so  that maximum qualification ratio can be achieved with minimum efforts.

Persistent Calling:

Most of the sales reps give up on the lead way too soon, and we have observed that over 30% of the leads are never followed back after the initial connection failure. We have found that at least 6 attempts should be made by sales reps to have a successful conversation with the prospects. By making few more attempts, sales reps can increase the conversation rate growth up to 70%. By  making around 5 more attempts, chances of having a conversation with  your prospects can directly increase, and so do the chances of sales.

Account Closed · Answer

The real estate firm Keller Williams did a study and found that 12 hours of calling will find you a deal. That is, if you actually cold call for 12 hours, on average, you should find a suitable property. If it takes a little longer, so what, you've got your deal.