What is software is good for Deal finding

Dallas, Texas
Real Estate News & Current Events
3yFollow

What is software is good for Deal finding

Zachary Vanison
New to Real Estate · Dallas, TX · Member since 2022 · 43 posts · 12 votes

Hey bigger pockets   community I watched a lot of videos on what software to use to find deals and there’s so many different answers that contradicts itself I’m confuse guys😅 but I wanna ask you guys what’s good for finding deals? I appreciate you guys taking your time and giving  me your advice.

1Reply
27 views

Most Popular Reply

Michael K GallagherBusiness Member
Real Estate Agent · Columbus OH · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
3y

Hey @Zachary Vanison welcome to the forums.  It really depends on the type of property and asset class you are going after and how you plan to find these "deals".  

In my opion, if you are going to be walking around town or driving for dollars there is no better solution out there then deal machine.

If you want to stick to your desk and pull lists to call or mail then I'd say prop stream is probably great.

You can also have a local realtor or agent you work with put you on a search for properties that have been on the market over 60 days.

Another free option is that your local county auditor will likely have a way to export lists of public data on certain types of properties.  That could get you going also.

I've found the best success in a combination or cross reference of multiple sources.  For instance if I mail a person a postcard and it comes back not deliverable thats a deal I go and hunt down because most people just keep on sending out postcards and ditch the addresses that have some bad data or whatnot in them causing the mail to bounce.  That to me are the  ones worth chasing down, the hard ones.  

[email protected]614-362-2231
2Reply
See this reply in the discussion

6 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Michael K GallagherBusiness Member
    Real Estate Agent · Columbus OH · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    3y

    Hey @Zachary Vanison welcome to the forums.  It really depends on the type of property and asset class you are going after and how you plan to find these "deals".  

    In my opion, if you are going to be walking around town or driving for dollars there is no better solution out there then deal machine.

    If you want to stick to your desk and pull lists to call or mail then I'd say prop stream is probably great.

    You can also have a local realtor or agent you work with put you on a search for properties that have been on the market over 60 days.

    Another free option is that your local county auditor will likely have a way to export lists of public data on certain types of properties.  That could get you going also.

    I've found the best success in a combination or cross reference of multiple sources.  For instance if I mail a person a postcard and it comes back not deliverable thats a deal I go and hunt down because most people just keep on sending out postcards and ditch the addresses that have some bad data or whatnot in them causing the mail to bounce.  That to me are the  ones worth chasing down, the hard ones.  

    [email protected]614-362-2231
    2Reply
  • Nathan Murith
    Investor · San Rafael · Member since 2020 · 376 posts · 274 votes
    3y
    Quote from @Zachary Vanison:

    Hey bigger pockets   community I watched a lot of videos on what software to use to find deals and there’s so many different answers that contradicts itself I’m confuse guys😅 but I wanna ask you guys what’s good for finding deals? I appreciate you guys taking your time and giving  me your advice.


    +1 on what Michael said above, it really all depends on what you are trying to find, where, your investment strategy, etc.

    We find deals on the MLS. Some from our network. Some from Facebook and Craigslist. There are plenty of other solutions depending on what you are looking for, a lot are listed on this site: https://everyreitool.com/categ...

    happy to help more if you want to chat.

    1Reply
  • Douglas Mallett
    Member since 2016 · 45 posts · 38 votes
    3y

    Hello Zach!

    One option you have for deal-finding is to ‘roll your own’ datasets and make highly targeted lists for contacting sellers.

    This data is mostly free, and the paid data is not too expensive.

    Your local assessor’s office has most of the data you are looking for - it keeps the master records on all parcels in the county, and the commercial data brokers and realty platforms use these exact county records for their own data and reselling.

    The county parcel records typically have fields for property class (residential, commercial, timber, etc), property type (sfr, 2/3/4 plex, 5+MF, etc) , bedrooms, bathrooms, sq footage, lot footage, building condition, building grade, and more.

    Here is a screenshot of some of their fields…

    You can append this list with even more county data, adding any past tax delinquencies, building permit applications, etc, and then you can start to make your data selections. Now, instead of contacting 100k property owners randomly, you are targeting perhaps 15k owners that are exactly in your sweet spot.

    You can then start appending commercially obtained data such as contact phone numbers, emails, etc, and depending upon your method(s), you can then start reaching out however you wish - cold calls, mailers, door knocking, etc.

    You can even load these lists on your phone in Google maps and just drive around town, looking at where nearby properties are… drive up, click on the icon and read all about the house - yr built, sq footage, owner name, age, phones and email, etc. This is a very powerful method.

    An excellent GIS app is QGIS - it’s open source, free and very robust.

    Google Docs has some very basic database tools, and there are tons of open source solutions available. (https://opensource.com/alternatives/access)

    The nice thing is that you don't even need to be a geek to use a lot of this data nowadays - you can hire data slingers on upwork to extract and merge, and the send you a list that is your subset (ie all SFRs in Dallas county at least 25 years old, less than 3k sq feet, last non-zero dollar sale at least 15 years ago, assessed at 300k or less, etc)

    GIS data for Dallas: https://dallascad.org/GISDataP...

    There is much more, but this is a start… best of luck!

    A typical assessor record (truncated for brevity) with custom combined data fields 

    QGIS rocking an assessor's dataset for King County, color-coded by valuation.

    1Reply
  • Zachary Vanison
    OP
    New to Real Estate · Dallas, TX · Member since 2022 · 43 posts · 12 votes
    3y
    Quote from @Michael K Gallagher:

    Hey @Zachary Vanison welcome to the forums.  It really depends on the type of property and asset class you are going after and how you plan to find these "deals".  

    In my opion, if you are going to be walking around town or driving for dollars there is no better solution out there then deal machine.

    If you want to stick to your desk and pull lists to call or mail then I'd say prop stream is probably great.

    You can also have a local realtor or agent you work with put you on a search for properties that have been on the market over 60 days.

    Another free option is that your local county auditor will likely have a way to export lists of public data on certain types of properties.  That could get you going also.

    I've found the best success in a combination or cross reference of multiple sources.  For instance if I mail a person a postcard and it comes back not deliverable thats a deal I go and hunt down because most people just keep on sending out postcards and ditch the addresses that have some bad data or whatnot in them causing the mail to bounce.  That to me are the  ones worth chasing down, the hard ones.  


     Thank you sir I was looking for 10 units to 30 units in the DFW metro area does the information you gave me still applies

    0Reply
  • Eliott Elias
    Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2021 · 9k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    3y

    Pulling lists of distressed situations and calling those home owners are the best way. 

    1Reply
  • Zachary Vanison
    OP
    New to Real Estate · Dallas, TX · Member since 2022 · 43 posts · 12 votes
    3y

    Thank you 

    0Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free