Call as many RE agents as possible, tell them you’re an investor and that you are interested in any of their listings that they feel or know as “highly motivated.” Moving on to tell them that you focus your efforts primarily on sellers who are trying to sell or wanting to sell their property due to financial trouble or divorce.
If they ask what’s in it for them, how exactly should I explain it?
-Chris (NY)
Tough to get any agents to disclose any private information of their sellers in financial disarray. The agents a re bound by a code of ethics and will lie for their homeowner (this is called fiduciarry duty). They protect the interests of their clients by all methods.
Now with that being said…you will find agents who care nothing about the sellers and only about their commission sale.
I would put my effort into a direct mail campaign to people in a targeted list my a list broker. Targeted mail suggestion would be: Out of town owners, bad credit home owners. There are many more but that is a decision of ryou to make.
OK, I understand that position, however, if the agent has a fudiciary resposibility to their said seller in disarray then would it not benefit the REA and the HO for the REA to tell the seller that he/she might have someone who can get them out of their said “pinch?”
Lets be honest here: If an REA has a client who’s had a listing for 3+ months w/o any tangible offers, then wouldn’t it be fiduciarily irresponsible for the REA to NOT tell their client that a private investor can possibly help them so that they don’t have to get forclosed on?
I think that is a great point. As long as the homeowner is ok with releasing that information. A large portion of the homeowners that are in financial difficulties are embarressed and might be very upset that their personal info. is let out.
I think you are right in the fact that they would be helping the homeowner. Test it out. I hope you get a lot of deals!!!
Yeah…I hope I can just get my first deal under my belt. But I was basically curious if what I suggested has worked for any of the other SS investors… Maybe someone who’s used the REA route will chime in so I can start making “dials” :biggrin
You can get plenty of leads just by mailing a homemade flyer to people in your area that are in default. Most of them are not even listed with a REA because they owe more than the property is worth.
The key to the flyer is to state in it several times that you buy property “EVEN WHEN YOU OWE MORE THAN IT IS WORTH” --do not mention short sales as it will only confuse the average homeowner.
Just a bit of advice to get your ball rolling with some deals!!