What % of your deals are coming from the MLS vs off-market?

Question

Curious who is finding Deals on the MLS? What are your strategies to search, analyze and act on Deals?

Caleb Brown · Answer

I find a good bit that are worth throwing an offer on. Some stick, others don't. It's a numbers game

Joseph Cacciapaglia · Answer

Almost all of my deals come from the MLS. At any given time, there are 10K properties listed for sale in my market. I find it's easier to comb through listings, make a lot of offers, and negotiate a great deal, than it is for me to set up my own marketing and try to go direct to seller. That's mostly due to my skill set and preferences though. I know you can get great deals either way.

Stacy Vana · Answer

Mendy's point earlier about market cycles is such an underrated piece of this — off-market deal flow isn't constant, it shifts with how competitive the seller's market is at any given moment, which means the "best" strategy probably shouldn't be static either. And this numbers-game framing is the practical reality underneath that — you can't control which specific deals stick, but you can control how many real offers you're actually putting out there. Feels like most people either obsess over finding the "perfect" deal or throw volume at it with no real analysis — the ones doing well seem to do both at once.

Adam Tafel · Answer

Less and less the longer I am in the business, but I'm still finding 40-50 deals per year on the MLS for clients. As I look at my portfolio, my favorite holdings were MLS purchased, but I'm focused on distressed properties these days. Don't knock the MLS!

Diana Khan · Answer

I think good deals @Saul Kloper can come from either side. For me, the bigger question is what happens once the numbers catch your attention. Before moving quickly, I’d still want to look closely at the contract terms, title, property condition, occupancy, and whether the exit plan really works. A low price is a good start, but the deal still has to hold up once you dig into the details.

Garth Huxtable · Answer

I’m just starting, so I don’t have enough experience yet to say how the numbers stack up between MLS and off-market deals. But this question got me thinking about something I’ve been trying to wrap my head around.For someone just starting, using the MLS  seems like the easier way to go since there’s a ton of info available to help analyze properties. Still, I’ve heard that off-market deals can be a solid option to steer clear of all the competition.

Dan H. · Answer

It has been many years since my last mls purchase.   In my market, competition on mls was extreme.   Currently on non-commercial MF there is virtually no sales, but the prices for the most part do not yet reflect this.  They just sit in the market at too high a price point to make sense as an investment property.   Those few that are selling are starting to get close to working as investments, but not that close to my buy expectations (I expect full recovery on investment in no more than 4 years).   If the small MF market keeps moving in the direction it has been moving, it may get to where a select few mls purchases can meet my buy expectations.

Good luck

Saul Kloper · Answer

I have found you can find deals in every market; you have to stay consistent and be ready to move quickly. I have only purchased on the MLS and where I have had luck is catching properties right when they come on the market and moving quickly on them. A lot also depends on if you are looking for fix/flip or buy/hold, I have found buy/hold are a little easier to find because you do not need as big of a spread. I also notice many investors look for bank owned properties, but Estate sales offer a lot of opportunity. Interesting Jules  — do you look at MLS opportunities as well, or do most of your potential deals come through relationships and contacts? Crystal for your scraping and AI tool is that for the MLS an CrexI properties and is this a manual process or have you automated this. The process sounds interesting.

Jules Aton · Answer

I have purchased 2 off market listings based on my contacts over 30 years of small scale investing. One was from a RE agent and one from a local banker, back when inner city neighborhood banks were a thing. Since I am small time I was never on the top of the inner circle list.

Crystal Smith · Answer

The majority of the deals that we find are listed.  They could be on the MLS, CREXI, FSBO.....  Regarding off market-We do a monthly mailing to off market opportunities with a high likelihood of selling for various reasons. The success rate is less than 5% on the snail mail but we keep it up. We scrape all opportunities into an AI tool that narrows down the insignifcant many to the significant few with the rules we have supplied it based on our business plan, then we make offers on the significant few and continue to monitor those few for price reductions or closings if they do not accept our offer.  Nothing real special

What % of your deals are coming from the MLS vs off-market?

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