I’m reading through “The Book On Rental Property Investing” by Brandon Turner and just came across a point where he said when he was 25 he bought a 24 unit apartment complex for $15k down with $550k seller financed.

My first reaction was “I’ve got more than $15k, I can for sure do that!” My second thought was “Ok, how?”

I understand the intricacies of seller financing, rather my question is if anyone has good marketing tactics for advertising to multifamily apartments? I want to get in front of them.

- How do you source a list?

- Is there something particular you look? (Much like how when looking for smaller buildings you might look at foreclosures, probates, tired landlord, other forms of distress, etc.)

- Do you do mailing campaigns or is there a better way to get in front of these owners?

- Any other tips for finding great deals are welcome.

Yes...to everything you listed.  Plus, check out a website called ListSource.  You can put in the geographic area you're looking in and your property criteria, and it will provided a list of properties.  You pay a one-time fee based on the list, rather than having to subscribe to a monthly fee.  You will typically need to hire someone to skip trace the list for you in order to accurately find contact information for the owners.  You can find real estate experienced skip tracers on sites like Upworks and Fivvre.

Also, connect with some commercial Brokers in the markets you're looking in. Not necessarily the bigger firms like CBRE. But rather, find a smaller firms that focuses in that market and build a relationship with a Broker. Let him/her know what you're looking for and that you have REI experience and money ready to buy.

One last note...multifamily properties with less than 50 units are really hot these days...so be patient.  You'll find an ample number of potential properties to review.  But finding the right one in which the numbers work out and the Owner will accept owner-financing, etc, takes a lot of research and patience.  So reach out to a lot of owners, and expect a lot of "no thanks". But be persistent, patient, and just stay in the game, and stay encouraged.  

Hey Tucker, Im with Chris on this one. Listsource is a great place to start gathering leads to market to. I show you how to get access to their leads for 3.5cents each if you're interested. Otherwise like Chris mentioned, you can go there now and start building a list for your area and demographics, and purchase it direct. Those other distress type lists are excellent to add to your marketing campaigns. 

Targeted and personalized direct mail campaigns with supplemental follow ups are a great way to source deals while keeping a good ROI. It takes some momentum to get going but I help guys set up campaigns all the time that are netting them large deals, I can tell because they keep coming back.

Check out this link to a lead management system, and more links at the bottom are about mailings  http://biggerpockets.com/leadmanagement

Also remember that he bought that property when no one wanted properties. Rents were down, cap rates were quite a bit higher. There were lots of foreclosures around. Probably there was no bank financing at the time. The seller knew he could ONLY sell with owner financing. Timing is very important when you hear someone's story. Another thing to think about is how much was he marketing at the time to find that deal. Was he spending $500 per month or $5,000?? 

In 2017 I did about 20 deals. A few were wholesales but most were rehabs. I had just started my blog, I had 3 Facebook pages that told everyone that I was buying houses. I went to 3 large REIAs and networked HARD. I had and still have a smaller group that meets every month that I host. I gave lots of advice to people here on BP EVERYDAY. I was sending out about 1000 postcards every month.

I still do all of the above except the 3 REIAs. Now I send out a few hundred postcards more targeted. But still on track to do 5 or 6 rehabs and a couple of wholesale deals. Now that we are cresting the top of the market, I am slowing down a little more.