Wholesale Real Estate Investing: 3 Unconventional Tips to Find Deals

Discover 3 wholesale real estate investing tips to find deal...that most wholesalers are afraid of

As we've said before, if you want to get into flipping houses, real estate wholesaling is a great way to start for little to no money. And if you are really serious about wanting to learn how to do wholesale real estate investing , there are many ways to go about doing it.

Some ways are more conventional, whereas others are very unconventional. Just like house flipping, there are lots of paths to success. Here we touch on the more "unconventional" ways to find wholesale deals.

Real Estate Wholesaling Terminology Defined

When you're shopping for properties to wholesale, you will see the words "sold as is" in most of the listings you see. When you see that term mentioned, it means exactly that.

The bank or lender is oftentimes in another state, and has not done any repair work to fix the property up.

In most cases, disgruntled homeowners who can’t pay their mortgage often let the property go as far as repairs and upkeep are concerned, sometimes intentionally damaging the home.

These are just the kind of properties that a real estate wholesaler is looking for.

Creative Wholesale Real Estate Investing

1. “Farming the Area”

Although there are many ways to find real estate wholesaling deals, one of the best ways to find a wholesale real estate investing deals in particular is to do what’s called “farming an area.” Simply pick a target market and target rundown homes in any specific neighborhood.

Simply target rundown homes in a specific neighborhood and drive by that neighborhood with a note-book and pen. Once you see a property that has “issues”, simply write down the address of the property.

Once you write those property addresses you head back to the office and research the properties. Gather all the information you can on those properties, then either e-mail, call or knock on the door to try to help revitalize their property. Most times these properties may be vacant, and usually a rundown vacant property could lead me to a motivated seller.

2. Door Knocking

Another fantastic marketing technique in your wholesale real estate investing business is door knocking. Door knocking is the most time-consuming of all the techniques out there, but it’s also the most effective because so few wholesalers do it. When you’re first learning how to wholesale distressed properties, you have to do things a bit differently than everyone else to stand out.

Door knocking is an extremely effective technique because you end up making personal contact with the seller. An alternative is that you could have someone do this for you. You could give this person a 20% cut in every real estate wholesaling deal.

When you are door knocking I always suggest leaving behind what is commonly referred to as “an evidence manual”. An evidence manual is a small book or binder that you’ve created from your former client testimonials. It is always best to get testimonials from your clients, the reason being is it helps validate you and your business. If you are just learning the wholesale real estate investing business, this will be something you’ll have to work on creating. It’s very effective to show sellers your credibility

The evidence manual also must have your business name, your name, your phone number and e-mail. This is so when you leave they have something tangible in their hand and a way to contact you back.

If you’re well and you’re trying this door knocking technique, it might be a good idea to bring a companion with you.. Sometimes this actually works in your favor as a male and female combination doubles your chances of making a connection with the seller.

Door knocking as a way to source new REO properties, however, effective is in extremely time-consuming strategy. If you are planning on becoming a door knocker, make sure you track your progress with a map or an Excel spreadsheet of the streets and addresses you’ve visited. This way you’ll make the best use of your time.

3. Cold Calling

The last technique you should use is cold calling. A lot of real estate wholesaling rookies is afraid to simply get on the phone and call people. If you can the property owners name, get their phone number and call them, what is the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is that they just hang up on you.

Don’t get me wrong – a lot of times people will hang up on you. If that happens, just call them right back and say “we must've gotten disconnected”. That shows determination on your part and believe it or not you will get more deals because you are persistent. Don’t be annoying, no one wants to be annoyed – so use your best judgment.

Cold calling is nothing more than the law of averages. The more people you call – the more deals you are bound to get. If you’re afraid of rejection, then this technique might take some getting used to. However hard it might be, be afraid of rejection – and don't be afraid of getting yelled at.

Remember that you’ll never see these people again in your life unless you get them to set up an appointment. Think about this every time you make a phone call.

The point is this: when you call someone about a distressed property and offer them a solution to help them, both parties when. For every wholesale real estate investing deal you do helps someone in the end. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that you make some money in the process as well.

When you’re cold calling for potential wholesale real estate investing deals, ideally you should have a script of what you want to say. And your message should be consistent on every call. For every call you do, it will give you more and more confidence in speaking to these clients who are really in need of your service.

Now there are some cases when people meet threatened by your phone call, no question about that. If they are in pre-foreclosure, most people believe that someone will bail them out in the nick of time – such as a family member or a friend, scratch that.

However, in most cases people have no idea that they do in fact have options aside from foreclosure. It’s really your job to educate them on your options, what they can do and what the procedure is. Most people who are in financial distress, have no idea what’s about to happen.

You as the wholesale real estate investing professional can really bail them out of a tough spot. Think of your job as someone who is calling them as the White Knight, who can help them as well as inform them on their options, as well as with the overall procedure is.

Cold calling vacant home owners is a very effective technique to find wholesaling deals. All you need to do is simply finding out who owns the property and then go to the town hall Registry of Deeds website and find out who owns the property. Usually, the phone number can be found right there. Once you get the phone number, call them and ask if they are interested in selling their house. What do you have to lose by asking?

But what you have to gain is tens of thousands of dollars.

Wholesale Real Estate Investing Conclusion

Although wholesaling real estate does take some work, the payoff is lucrative – but only if you can do the things that need to be done in order to get the deals in the first place. Most real estate wholesalers don’t ever get to this point. They are infatuated with the idea of wholesaling but never actually do anything to make it happen.

By using some of these wholesale real estate investing tips on finding properties, you’ll set yourself apart from the rest of the real estate wholesaling community and find the deals that other wholesalers miss. And if you can do that, your wholesale real estate investing career will most certainly take off.