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Three Easy Ways to Build a Wholesale Buyers List

Stephani Davis
3 min read

Real Estate Buyers List for WholesalersWholesaling houses is much easier when you have a list of active buyers lined up ready to purchase your deals. I personally spend just as much time looking for deals as I do looking for buyers. I am always on the hunt for new buyers, and as a result, I am usually able to unload my wholesale deals within hours of putting them under contract.

The following is a list of my three favorite methods for locating new buyers. If you implement one or more of these strategies and follow through on a consistent basis, you will have yourself a nice, healthy buyers list in no time.

Here we go…

Building Your Wholesale Real Estate Buyers List

1) Handwritten Bandit Signs

This is, by far, the most effective strategy I use to find buyers.  I use 12×18 blank, white, corrugated plastic signs, and then write on them with black or red permanent marker. A typical sign reads like this:

CHEAP HOUSE
MUST SELL!
39k
CASH ONLY
123-4567

When I have a property under contract, I place between 10-20 signs in and around the neighborhood of the property I am selling. This always gets my phone ringing, and I usually pick up at least one new buyer every time I put a batch of signs out. If I don’t have any properties of my own to market, I will call a few of the other wholesalers in my area and ask them if I can market one of their deals.

If you don’t feel like putting the signs out yourself, it isn’t hard to find people looking to make a few extra bucks who will put them out for you. I am currently paying a high school kid $1 per sign to put mine out for me.

If you’re going to be using signs, make sure to check your local ordinances, as some areas have restrictions on where signs can be placed.

2) Search for recent cash sales in the MLS

If you want to know who the active cash buyers are in a particular neighborhood, do a search on the MLS (or have someone do it for you) for recent cash sales.

When I do my searches, I usually only go back 2 weeks, and I’m looking for the lowest cash sales in the neighborhoods that I am working in.

Once I get a list of the houses that have recently sold for cash, I take a drive out to each of the properties.  Nine times out of ten there is either a rehab crew on site, or a “For Sale” or “For Rent” sign in the front yard.

If there are people working on the house, I will stop in and introduce myself, and leave a business card.   If there is a “For Rent” or “For Sale” sign in the yard, I will call the number and strike up a conversation with the investor to see if they are looking for more homes in the area, and if so, what type of deals are they looking for?

I try and do this at least once every month, and I usually end up adding one or two quality buyers each time I do it.

3) Call “For Rent” signs in your target neighborhoods

When I am driving around looking at properties, I always have a pad of paper and pen on the seat next to me so I can jot down the numbers on any “For Rent” signs that I see.

Most of the investors I sell to are landlords, and calling “For Rent” signs is one of the best ways I know of to find more landlord buyers.

One of the first buyers I ever added to my list was found by calling a sign he had in front of one of his rental properties.  That was over two years ago, and he has since bought 7 properties from me, and is still looking for more!

I have been using the previously mentioned strategies consistently for the last 2 years, and have thus built up a strong buyers list of active investors to sell my deals to.  If you begin implementing one or all of these strategies starting today, and remain consistent with your efforts, you will have a list of active buyers in a very short period of time.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.