THE INITIAL PHASE OF PROPERTY SEARCH

I often hear the difficulties people have finding properties in which to invest. In this blog, I'll walk you through my process. There are a lot of moving parts, but they are super simple; this just means that I'll do my best to keep the posts simple, but it will take quite a few posts to paint a good picture for you to really get our process and approach. I hope it helps, and encourage your feedback!

Duane and I primarily invest in homes we perceive as being perfect for middle income America. When we started investing in real estate, the price range for properties we were purchasing (BR / before repairs) for a single family residence in Skagit County, Washington (in northwest Washington - 60 miles north of Seattle and about 45 minutes from the Canadian border) was around $75,000 to $90,000. In the early 2000's, we were starting to pay over $100,000, which we thought was crazy!

We now live in south central Montana, and we are focusing on single family homes and small multi-plexes (duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes).

On my new blog, I share how I use the MLS to find properties, why I use the MLS, and the golden nugget to finding even more properties while doing the research in the meantime.

Click here to go to the blog

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If you are alarmed by the fact that I start my search with the local MLS, let me explain my thought process:

It is true that listed properties are usually priced too high for fixer/flipper investors (F/F). However, we have a mathematical formula that we stick to when making offers. We expect to "flip a lot of rocks" before finding deals that will work, and the most obvious place to start is with properties that are listed.

Here are a few advantages to starting with the MLS:

1. Market Knowledge

It gives us a finger on the pulse of the current, active market. We get a feel of the pricing and also how quickly homes sell and which properties sell the quickest. After processing listings for a while, we get a solid feel of which properties to jump on quickly and which we should patiently wait on. Future blog posts will further detail this advantage.

2. Project Based Mentality

By searching listings, we are pulling properties based on the PROJECT, not the price. Going through the process is the best real estate investment education you can ever receive - I equate it to setting up a practice stock portfolio that you can learn to trade from before opening a stock trading account and trading with your actual money -- before you know you can even do it profitably. Here, we pull PROJECTS we like, analyze the numbers, make offers, and move on quickly when it doesn't come together.

3. Remove Emotion

Using the PROJECT based mentality also helps you develop the ability to detach emotionally from projects. This is such an important aspect to investing, and anything you can do to keep your emotions out of it will help tremendously.

4. On The Road To More

That stack of property that we generate when searching for properties gets us out into the areas in which we want to invest. By driving around to look at the listed properties, we find FSBO's, vacant properties, rentals, and other potential projects we would not have otherwise seen had we not gone out and driven around.

This is really where the gold lives.

More premium content from this post includes > "From Big Stack of Properties to Little Stack"