Hello all - I’m in the San Diego area and have recently hit a serious problem. Figured there had to be a forum out there with like-minded folks with more experience, so here I am…
About me: General Contractor, 30 years experience, partner is the money guy, we just started doing this a couple years ago when the construction market went south…
Problem is: starting about 6 months ago, every property is swarming with newbie flippers, all the ‘real’ guys like me are getting outbid at ridiculous prices by people who seemingly have no knowledge of what they’re in for… Not that I’m a veteran but this has never been this hard. For example, last property I submitted an offer on had 61 offers! And even though I bid a little higher than I wanted to because this place was in a great area, I apparently wasn’t even close :banghead. And I have cash $$$, too!
So, a) anyone else experiencing this? and b) I’ve been using only the MLS and have an agent looking for me, There has to be another way. I’ve tried everything I can think of, any ideas?
Thanks in advance for any help…
Haha, the few MLS listed junkers I tried to buy I had a similar prob, but most are priced ridiculously high anyway. I target for sale by owners, houses that are not listed. How do u find those? I write thousands of letters to absentee owners, I place lots of ads on Craigs List < “I buy houses CASH”. I recruit bird dogs and put out bandit signs, when I find a motivated distressed seller, I dont have any competition. Let the other “Lazy” investors deal with the bones, go for the meat baby.
In this very competitive business, best you can do is to get creative. Look where nobody is looking. The MLS is not the best place to look anymore.
Right now what your experiencing is lots of competition from different hedge funds that are coming into the market and over paying for properties along with all the new house flippers that have joined in on this market.
The MLS creates a lot of competition, so therefore you want to be in a situation where you can create less competition and that is going to be dealing with private sellers.
Pre-foreclosures and Foreclosures is a good way to pick up off market deals. Absentee owners who may own vacant homes, but live in a totally different state from where the vacant property is located. Find a way to get in contact with these owners and see if they are interested in selling their property.
In most cases these homeowners don’t have the necessary means to keep up with the property, so this will allow you to purchase the property at a discount with tons of equity. FSBO are good as well as properties you may see for rent.
Properties that are for rent are of course held by landlords that may had to rent their property out because they were unsuccessful trying to sell their property on the market. Craigslist is also a good place to search for FSBOs.
Hope this helps :smile