How To Build A Buyers List For Wholesale Real Estate

If you wholesale real estate deals, you need to sell your houses fast to make money. You’ll sell these properties to other real estate investors at a wholesale price. Having these investors in your buyers list means you’ll simply email your properties to them to get a buyer.

The real estate investor buyers will then fix these properties, and sell them at market prices, or rent them depending on their exit strategy.

So, how do you find real estate investors with cash looking to buy wholesale deals?

This is where a buyers list comes in.

What is a buyers list?

“A real estate buyers list is a list of real estate investors that buy wholesale properties in your area, preferably with cash. A cash buyer is someone who has the cash to buy the property outright, without having to take a mortgage.”

Cash buyers can purchase any type of property, even if it needs repair. If necessary, they can also close quickly. This can happen if the property is going through foreclosure.

Typically, cash buyers buy wholesale properties to rehab them. They buy cash, or they have access to private funding to buy properties without taking a conventional mortgage.

As a wholesale real estate investor, when you have a list of cash buyers who buy wholesale deals in your area, you have a golden asset.

I can’t recall the last time I had to advertise a wholesale property. I just send an email with my wholesale deal, and I typically have a buyer within hours of my email.

And over the years, I have a few preferred buyers who beg me to always send them my deals before I send them to anyone else.

So how do you build a buyers list?

There are several ways to do this.

1) Get a good wholesale real estate investor website

In order to have a buyers list, you need a website for real estate investing where they can sign up. The website acts as a platform on which you’ll sign up real estate investors.

This is also the website where you’ll showcase your properties and send out your deals.

Potential cash buyers simply sign up on your website to be notified when you have new deals. Preferably, ask them to join your buyers list to view property details.

A good website should allow you to activate a “squeeze form” so they provide their email before they can view full property details. Interactive real estate investing website have this feature:

If you don’t have any properties for sale, you can advertise a squeeze page, or landing page that convinces them to join your buyers list to access your properties.

Something like this:

Which comes first, the buyers list or the property?

I hear real estate investors say they want to build their buyers list before they can buy their first property. Don’t do this!

Building your list should be a continuous process that goes hand in hand with selling properties.

I built my first buyers list of about 200 real estate investors by running newspaper ads. I sent them to a property listings page, but they had to sign up to see full details. I had properties to sell before I had a buyers list, and I still sold them pretty fast.

2) Networking

• a) REIA meetings – Attend REIA meeting in your area and network with other investors. It’s the fastest ways to build a buyers list. Every time I attend, I get home with a bunch of business cards of people who want to join my list.
• b) Networking groups - Facebook groups are quite popular these days. Search for real estate groups in your area. Also check similar groups on Meetup.com.
• c) Foreclosure auctions – most people attending foreclosure auctions are real estate investors with cash looking for good deals. Talk to them and you’ll have some valuable cash buyers!
• d) Title companies / closing attorneys –investor friendly title companies deal with investors all day. They can give you valuable contacts for cash buyers.
• e) Money lenders – like title companies, hard money, private money and transactional money lenders deal exclusively with cash buyers. They can be a valuable asset for getting cash buyers.

3) Bandit signs

I’m sure you see these signs everywhere - “Cheap houses at wholesale prices. Must sell!” etc. If your city allows it, posting these strategically can get you a bunch of cash buyers.

Include a phone number. My phone number goes to a voice mail with a web address where they can sign up to my buyers list.

4) Craigslist

Craigslist is quite popular with selling properties. Place some ads in the “For sale by owner” category with a web address where they can sign up.

Include a phone number that goes to a voice mail, that sends them to your website to sign up.

These are the few effective ways to build a buyers list and sell your wholesale properties fast. Good luck!

About The Author

Simon Macharia invests in real estate in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. They also offer interactive real estate investing websites that help investors close more deals using less time, money and effort.