How are you guys finding FSBOs these days?

[Doug P.]

I haven't actively invested since before COVID. FSBOs have always been my preferred target market and back then there were still a couple of heavily used FSBO sites in my area which seem to have gone under since. Although I'm sure there are still FSBOs to be found on classified sites I don't feel like sifting through 1,000 agent ads to find 1 FSBO.

As far as I can tell it looks like most of the sellers who would have been pure FSBOs back in the day are now using flat fee MLS listings but the way our public MLS sites are set up here in Ontario there's nothing in the listing like: "Contact Seller Directly" to indicate which are FSBOs and which aren't.

Tell me if I'm crazy but the best idea I've come up with to find what I think are likely to be FSBOs is to sort listings by high days on market and look for ones listed with an out-of-town broker. Not exactly fool-proof I know, but it's the best I've got so far.

Let me know what's working for you!