Advice for targeting off-market houses

[Keith N.]

Hi all,

I've been looking to find a Duplex in my area that I could owner occupy and rent out the other half, as this would be a great way to begin my real estate investing career. However, cashflowing residential multi-units listed on the MLS are super tough to find in my area unless they're in the hood.

I had the idea of running low cost/free (besides my own time that I don't mind putting in) marketing campaigns to try and target owners of Duplex/Triplex/4plex's.  

Ideas of the top of my head include:

- Email campaigns targeting "for rent" properties on Craigslist

- Bandit signs in areas which I know have lots of multi-units

- Cheap direct mail like post cards to owners addresses

All of these ideas would be cheap or free, and I feel would be relatively easy to implement.  Does anyone have experience or advice for someone like me trying to find better deals via finding sellers of off-market units?

[Ryan Dossey]

@Keith N. Of course. That's what I'm here for. We sent around 400 leads out just to multi family properties and we got a HUGE response of motivated sellers. Keep in mind the people who own 2-4 unit building often have a hard time liquidating them as traditional home buyers are not interested.  

Your time is valuable don't spend hours digging through county records. Go buy a list for 75.00 from 

List Source

If you don't want to type, stamp, stuff your letters check out : Jerry Puckett

(Not a staff member just a satisfied customer) I drop 3500 pieces of mail a month with him. 

A finder's fee is basically "Hey I'll give you $500 cash if you know anyone selling a property and I close on it". 

You want to take advantage of their spheres of influence as well as. They may not want to sell but their buddy with a perfect duplex may! Obviously you have to have the cash to offer this. You could even do like "steak dinner on me" and give them a 100 gift card to a nice steak house. Just some creative things to think about. If you need help pulling a list from list source let me know. It's kind of a pain and you want to make sure you have certain criteria checked.