4 Simple Tips for Finding Incredible Real Estate Deals in 2018

1. Consider buying a bank-foreclosed property.

When someone fails to pay a mortgage payment for an extended period of time, the lender will ultimately repossess the home and remove the occupants. Once the home is empty, the lender generally lists the house for sale on the market, using a local real estate to list it.

While the foreclosure, in itself, is, of course, sad (no one rejoices when someone loses a home), once the deed has been done, these properties can be some of the best deals you’ll find in real estate. Banks want to be in the business of lending money, not managing the property, so they are often quick to offer large discounts just to get the deal off their books. Translation: You can get a great deal on foreclosed properties if you know how to buy foreclosures right.

Because the foreclosure process can take several years, these properties are often in need of some serious repair or updating. So, further discounts may be given to compensate -- for buyers willing to brave a rehab.

Talk to a local real estate agent about the foreclosures in your area, and start checking some out. You might be surprised at the deals you can get.

2. Be the first . . . or the last.

In real estate, often the old adage holds true: The early bird gets the worm.

Oftentimes, it’s not the highest offer for a property that gets accepted, it’s simply the first. Therefore, if you are looking for a great deal, be quick about it! Get a pre-approval from a bank so you can jump at any property right away, and have your real estate agent set you up with automatic email alerts notifying you of any new property that hits the market.

Then, don’t delay -- check it out quickly, and make an offer the same day if possible.

Conversely, another way to find great deals is to look for properties that have been on the market for a long time. Those owners are often far more willing to sell for a discount because they are tired of holding on to that property. Many times, they will have been making two mortgage payments for months (or years) and will entertain almost any offer.

3. Approach absentee owners privately.

In a hot real estate market, like the one most of the United States is experiencing today, great deals can be hard to find because of a large number of people looking for a home. In some areas, a single house for sale might get a dozen or more offers in the first several days.

Therefore, one of the best tactics real estate investors uses today is to look outside your multiple listing services and instead contact owners directly, asking them to consider selling. At any given time, a good percentage of the population will entertain that option, so why not reach out before they list the home with a real estate agent?

One of the best kinds of people to target is absentee owners, which simply means someone who owns a property but doesn’t live there. They might be landlords (who hate their tenants) or owners who inherited their houses and are simply unsure what to do with them. You can find these deals in a number of ways, such as:

• driving around, looking for houses that look vacant, and using online public records to track down the owner
• buying a public record list using an aggregate-list site like ListSource.com
• calling mom-and-pop landlords who are listing properties “for rent” on Craigslist. Let them know you aren’t interested in renting, but you would like to talk to them about buying.

4. Look at a lot of deals.

Finally, understand that finding good deals is largely a “numbers game.” You often have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince!

For me, I look at deals in terms of a funnel. At its top, numerous leads come in, but at the bottom, only a few come out. Therefore, if I want more deals at the bottom, I need to improve each aspect of my funnel, including the quality and number of leads at the top. For example, my funnel might look like the following:

• Raw leads from my real estate agent -- 200
• The location is somewhere I would buy -- 100
• A quick analysis shows promise -- 20
• A deeper analysis still shows promise - 10
• Deals I've made an offer on -- 8
• Offers I've made that have been accepted - 1

Notice that, in the above funnel, my agent sent me 200 possible properties, but at the end, I ended up making offers on only eight and only one offer was accepted. If I wanted to buy two properties, I know I'd need to look back on my funnel and find a way to increase my numbers. Because, again, it’s just a numbers game.

Whether you are looking to buy an investment property, purchase a home for yourself or buy real estate for another reason, remember: You make your money when you buy. If you want to have immediate equity in your property, which can help you build wealth in the future, or save you in case of an economic turndown, you must find great real estate deals.