Finding the best apartment deals can be a bit tough if you have no idea how to go about it.
You find yourself asking questions like:
It’s alright; everyone starts somewhere. And today, you’re going to learn a straight forward, direct approach to finding off-market deals in your area.
Let’s get started!
Sounds simple right?
That’s because it is…
No matter what your investing criteria, chances are you can find a list of matching properties on ListSource. From there you can skip trace to find the owner’s contact information.
Get in contact with the owners by sending them emails, using cold calls and sending text messages – using multiple contact channels increases your likelihood of getting them on the phone (which is where most real estate deals actually get done).
I interviewed James Kandasamy, owner of Achievement Investment Group, who told us “Both of my first two properties were bought directly from the seller. We use our own strategy to get in touch with the sellers and work directly with them. That’s the primary point on why we were able to get it at a good price/door.”
It’s hard to depend on brokers because they have a responsibility to make sure that they get the highest price for the sellers as well. The best deals will typically come directly from the owner.
There are a lot of sellers out there with problems that they do not want to bring to the market, which makes it easier to get the best price directly from them.
The key is to build a relationship with the seller. Any real estate deal of this type needs to based on trust; without it, you’ll be lucky to get past the front door, much less to the signing table.
How do you build trust with a seller? By being honest and true to your word over time. But beyond that, the way you communicate and carry yourself throughout the deal will have a big effect on whether the seller feels they can depend on you.
As an example, here’s the text James Kandasamy sent directly his sellers;
“Hi, I’m an apartment investor in this region (Central Texas) and I saw your property at XYZ, and I’m interested in buying it. You can sell it directly to me, without any broker’s commission. Would you like to talk further?”
Truth is you might have to send over 500 text messages to get a deal. The response you’ll get back will be about 1%.
But all the money is within that 1%. It’s a numbers game, like so much in our industry.
The key to building a stable deal pipeline is persistence in following up and staying in contact with the sellers. Most investors follow up once or twice and lose interest. See this as what it is: an opportunity. A truly dedicated and dogged investor can make headway, even in a crowded market.
James Kandasamy advises, “The money you make is a direct correlation to the value you provide. For me, it’s always you have to solve some problem to get extraordinary returns. If you are doing a deal which is stabilized you may get a good deal, but you’ll get a much better deal if there’s a problem in that deal and you’re able to solve it.”
Be a problem solver and you’ll be able to handle deals that other investors will be forced to walk away from.
Let us know in the comments about some of the biggest problems you’ve solved in your deals!
Image credit: Pixabay
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action.