I just conducted an interview with a very successful investor who wholesales houses in Columbus, Ohio. His name is Darren Dicke and during the interview he shared with me an amazingly brilliant yet simple strategy about how he finds and sells wholesale deals and I wanted to share it with you so you can start using the idea immediately. He calls this little tip “Driving for Dollars”. Here’s how it works…
Darren simply gets in his car and drives around Columbus looking for homes with “For Rent” signs in the front yard. When he see one, he pulls over, gets out his cell phone and calls the number on the sign, and asks the owner (the landlord) these 4 important questions:
1. “I’m calling about the house you have for rent (say address). I was curious if you would you be interested in selling it to me?” (If the answer is “no”, he then asks…) 2. “Well do you have any other houses you would consider selling to me?” (If “no”, he then asks…) 3. “Do you know anyone else who owns a house in this area that may be interested in selling?” (If this is also “no”, he asks…) 4. “Are you interested in building your personal portfolio beyond what you currently own? I actually buy houses in and around here and would be happy to let you know when I have a house that is available for sale.”
Amazingly, just about half of all the deals that Darren does is a result of him asking those questions to landlords. The first 3 questions get him the necessary seller leads, and the fourth question adds qualified names to his buyers list (landlord buyers). If any of the first 3 are answered with a “yes”, then he treats it like a typical seller lead. While he was telling me this strategy, I suddenly thought that you could also apply this technique to houses you see advertised for rent on Craigslist.com, in your local newspaper, and in the Thrifty Nickel and Greensheet papers.
So that’s all there is to it! Just contact landlords with “for rent” signs and ask them these 4 questions. You will eventually find some motivated sellers (burned-out landlords) and great qualified landlord buyers (for all your deals) that could turn into a nice stream of income for you.
Michael Kimble’s daily blog at Wholesale Real Estate blog has more daily tactics and news, as well as real estate investing videos. He also has 4 free marketing systems that you can download, at : Wholesale Real Estate tips.