Best Deals are Off MARKET in Miami

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Best Deals are Off MARKET in Miami

Ramon Gonzalez
Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes

The best deals are off Market.  If you are looking for deals in Miami.  You need to go off market.

If that is cold calling or calling FSBO's or direct mail or door knocking. This is a sellers market and you need to be deal prospecting and sourcing deals all the time.

99% of what an agent or broker is going to bring you is going to be MARKET because the sellers know that they can get market.

We are always looking to do deals and source deals.

DEAL FLOW= THE LIFE OF YOUR BUSINESS

YOU ARE REALLY IN THE MARKETING BUSINESS!

You are a Real Estate Entrepreneur, who solves problems;  You are not in the real estate business;  You are NOT an investor.  You are an Entrepreneur seeking problems that you can turn into opportunities that are off market by being resourceful.

I am tired of the stories out there...I can't find a deal?  Then I ask what are you doing for prospecting?  Then they say well nothing. I respond "Good luck with that!"

So go out there look for a deal, dont try to push another wholesalers deal, get your own and get paid.  Get uncomfortable and if you dont have money to market- go door knock, go cold call, go drive for dollars but get off your ARSE and do something.

This is my turkey day rant! Hope you get some value from it.  Wishing you all he best thanksgiving possible with lots of off market deals!!

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Nat C.
Investor · Miami, FL · Member since 2013 · 807 posts · 475 votes
10y
Ramon, I'm just wondering how much personal success you have had with the method you are advising of? I personally did a 6 month stint doing exactly what you've described. I put in 8 hours per day driving for dollars, door knocking and making countless calls. Firstly it was difficult finding properties with equity. Sometimes I went on a manhunt trying to track owners down. I became very skilled at finding people in the strangest places. To be honest I greatly enjoyed the work however I never successfully landed a deal this way. Wayne Brooks told me that a lot of owners who are under water are in denial. They think there will be an Obama plan or something else to save them. I did manage to have a couple of deals lined up but they always fell through when the owners decided they could get a better deal somewhere else. It ended up costing a lot of money in legal fees, inspections and surveys, not to mention thousands of hours of work. When I gave up and went back to the MLS, I landed my best deals. I found success by not working with a buyers agent, being lightning fast and offering all cash.
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  • Joshua Pavao
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 100 posts · 34 votes
    10y

    Driving for dollars seems to be such an easy  thing to do here in South Florida specifically. Distressed properties are everywhere and with some research and contacting those owners, a small percentage of them are bound to be eager to sell.

    A good amount of them that I've looked up are owned by banks now, probably just forgotten about and getting worse and worse in condition with every storm.

    1Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    I agree

    0Reply
  • Nat C.
    Investor · Miami, FL · Member since 2013 · 807 posts · 475 votes
    10y
    Ramon, I'm just wondering how much personal success you have had with the method you are advising of? I personally did a 6 month stint doing exactly what you've described. I put in 8 hours per day driving for dollars, door knocking and making countless calls. Firstly it was difficult finding properties with equity. Sometimes I went on a manhunt trying to track owners down. I became very skilled at finding people in the strangest places. To be honest I greatly enjoyed the work however I never successfully landed a deal this way. Wayne Brooks told me that a lot of owners who are under water are in denial. They think there will be an Obama plan or something else to save them. I did manage to have a couple of deals lined up but they always fell through when the owners decided they could get a better deal somewhere else. It ended up costing a lot of money in legal fees, inspections and surveys, not to mention thousands of hours of work. When I gave up and went back to the MLS, I landed my best deals. I found success by not working with a buyers agent, being lightning fast and offering all cash.
    2Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    We have used the methods I described. We had some success with lots and lots of effort. The methods you are referring to drive for dollars and cold call and track owners down. The MLS works for some people and I know a few guys that are "connected with some realtors" and they get deals from them.

    We use mostly direct mail and cold calls to get deals.  But when we started we did door knocking and skip trace and other "low cost/ high man or woman" hours strategies because of our limited capital.

    Now we just simply mail 1,000-2000 letters a week and follow up to get deals with cold calls and skip trace.

    We have just noticed that the hotter the market gets the more digging we need to do as their is more competition from realtors and other wholesalers. The last thing I want to do is rely on a single realtor to be my source of deals.

    1Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    @nat Chan- What areas in Miami do you have Multi's? And where are you looking to buy more?

    0Reply
  • Account Closed
    Investor · TX · Member since 2015 · 119 posts · 40 votes
    10y

    @Ramon Gonzalez What is skip trace ?

    0Reply
  • Nat C.
    Investor · Miami, FL · Member since 2013 · 807 posts · 475 votes
    10y
    Originally posted by @Ramon Gonzalez:

    @nat Chan- What areas in Miami do you have Multi's? And where are you looking to buy more?

     Coral gables, Little Haiti, Overtown, Design District, North Miami. I am looking to retire, not buy more! 

    0Reply
  • Joseph Weisenbloom
    Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2013 · 443 posts · 174 votes
    10y

    This works for people that don't already have a full time job and want to be an active investor. If you want to be a passive investor and simply convert your saved cash into an investment than you need a different approach. I dont know the Miami market but i would assume there are profitable submarkets within an hours drive of Miami. Look in those areas.

    0Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    I may just need to start buying in texas

    0Reply
  • Robert G.
    Residential Real Estate Agent · Miami, FL · Member since 2013 · 195 posts · 138 votes
    10y
    Originally posted by @Ramon Gonzalez:

    We use mostly direct mail and cold calls to get deals.  But when we started we did door knocking and skip trace and other "low cost/ high man or woman" hours strategies because of our limited capital.

    Now we just simply mail 1,000-2000 letters a week and follow up to get deals with cold calls and skip trace.

    That works great if you are a WHOLESALER and can make use of such deal flow.  And that works great if you are a big time investor and can handle multiple deals simultaneously.  But the majority of investors are looking for 1 flip opportunity.  Or 1 investment property to buy and hold.  These people, looking for 1, maybe 2, deals a year simply can't handle the expense or the effort involved in what you are suggesting.

    Which should be, theoretically, why wholesalers exist.  You handle that aspect, the expense and effort of finding and locking down these off market deals, and then you turn around and sell it, with your margin included, to that very investor I described above.

    We just need more wholesalers, selling properties at a fair price for both sides.  Miami is so hot, and has so many foreign investors that don't seem to care about values and cap rates, that wholesalers can move properties for higher prices, closer to market value.  Which cuts out the investor with limited resources and creates this environment, where good deals are so hard to find.

    0Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    it's not the wholesalers it's the market. Most wholesalers only make a couple thousand. By the way we only wholesale 20% of our deals or less.

    We buy and hold as well and have found that the best deals are off mkt.

    0Reply
  • Robert G.
    Residential Real Estate Agent · Miami, FL · Member since 2013 · 195 posts · 138 votes
    10y
    Originally posted by @Ramon Gonzalez:

     By the way we only wholesale 20% of our deals or less.

    We buy and hold as well and have found that the best deals are off mkt.

    Then you aren't a wholesaler that dabbles in real estate investing.

    You are actually a Real Estate Investor that happens to wholesale a minority of the deals you come across.

    0Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    I dont dable at anything.

    I am committed to mastery in the area of Real Estate.

    If you are looking for 1-2 hold deals a year in a VERY HOT market you will overpay and when the market turns, interest rates rise and rents fall, it will be very difficult to service the debt.

    Unless you are silly enough to buy all cash.

    1Reply
  • Frank R Martinez
    Real Estate Investor · Miami , FL · Member since 2012 · 18 posts · 4 votes
    10y

    Ramon you have a great future ahead!

    Happy Holidays,

    Frank.

    1Reply
  • Rao V.
    Seattle, WA · Member since 2014 · 77 posts · 5 votes
    10y

    @Ramon Gonzalez what do you mean by DEAL FLOW...Are you referring toa software. Are there any software that can help? e.g Dealeflow etc?

    0Reply
  • Trevor Ewen
    Rental Property Investor · Weehawken, NJ · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 704 votes
    10y

    @Ramon Gonzalez

    Looks like the best Miami deals are about to be  on the MLS.

    0Reply
  • Ramon Gonzalez
    OP
    Miami, FL · Member since 2015 · 48 posts · 16 votes
    10y

    we go direct to seller and are doing well here by marketing direct to seller

    0Reply
  • Bhekizwe M.
    Bulawayo, Zimbabwe · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 253 votes
    10y

    motivating and true @Ramon Gonzalez. the best deals are off market even though some ugly houses may come from the MLS

    0Reply
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