How to get tons of great deals, and cherry pick the best ones

In this article

The current market conditions have resulted in incredible opportunities for investors.  In order to take advantage of the oversupply of opportunities, we investors must efficiently sift through the many available properties and separate the deals from the duds.  But first, you need deals coming into your pipeline that fit your criteria.  And not just a few, you need an abundance.  Finding great deals is the most important part of real estate investing. 

Here are some steps and ideas to get tons of profitable deals to cherry pick from:

1. Have agents do the work for you – Agents are starving and will work their tail off for peanuts these days.

2. Build an REO agents list – Use Craigslist, Foreclosure.com, web searches or even get agent info from Title companies.  Build an email list.

3. Give them your criteria and teach them your systems – Work with the agents to use your effective systems, it will save both of you a lot of time.

4. Use multiple agents to find deals – Agents usually specialize in certain areas and types of deals, multiple agents will bring more deals into your pipeline.

5. Find agents that can feed you properties before they are listed – Being able to snatch up deals with no competition is huge.  Prove that you can close on deals over and over and keep getting fed great deals.  Bail on a lot of deals without good cause and risk ruining the relationship, treat the bank/sellers with respect and do not waste their time.

6. Target a few areas or cities – Targeting multiple areas will increase the amount of deals you can cherry pick from, just do not overdue it or you may end up with some duds for deals a tough team building an effective team and spread to thin.

7. Court house steps, Auctions, Wholesale deals, Short Sales, etc – There are many other types of ways to find deals that are not listed.  Trustee sales on the court house steps, auctions, investors that wholesale deals, negotiating short sales even negotiating seller financing or lease options can bring in tremendous deals.

8. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing – There are so many foreclosures these days, but there are still distressed homeowners not in foreclosure.  People face financial hardships, divorce, probate, absentee owners, etc.  It is strongly recommended to have good targeted marketing campaigns to bring in more deals to your pipelines and the opportunity to negotiate straight with the seller.

Finding deals is often just a numbers game.  If you get 3 deals into your pipeline the odds are not in your favor.  If you get a lot of deals into your pipeline consistently and follow the steps above, you should have home run deals to cherry pick from for years to come.  Great deals are not going to just come to you, it is up to you to get to work!!

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