How to Hunt For Real Estate Deals

A newsletter subscriber who is an aspiring real estate investor sent me this question earlier this week:

Hey Chris, thank you for following up. these houses are intriguing and they even fall below my budget!

I’m actually just having a hard time spotting a good deal 🤔

I’m new to this stuff so I’d love any tips on how real estate investors would spot a good deal or even see the competition and comparables. – T

 

This is a great topic and thanks for reaching out!

If your goal is investing, recognizing a good real estate deal is a very valuable skill. It’s something that is honed through study and experience, but here are the four main things I would look at first if I were a new investor.

1) Neighbourhood – Location Location Location! This is probably the most important determinant of value. If you want to know what a property will sell for after renovation, the best bet is to look at the recent sales of similar sized homes on the same street. This is something I do for my clients every day.

2) Time on Market – if a property has been on the market for 30+ days, it’s much more likely to sell for significantly below asking than a property that was just listed. Some properties get re-listed, which resets the Days on Market counter. A Real Estate agent will be able to tell you how long a property has truly been on market for.

3) Easy to Fix problems –  Cosmetic problems or anything that shows a lack of effort on the part of the seller or their agent is a sign that they might be leaving easy to fix problems unsolved which increases the amount of easy value you can add to the property. Watch out for hard to fix problems like foundation issues or water damage.

4) Distress – Sellers who *need* to sell are more likely to take a lower price than people who don’t. That is why estate sales, POA sales or foreclosure sales tend to sell for below asking price – because in many cases the sellers *need* to sell within a certain time period and are losing money the longer they stay on market.

If you are looking for help with a real estate purchase, if you would like to see comparable sales for a property you are looking at, or if you want to know the “down low” about a property such as how long it has *really* been on the market, just reply to this email or call me at 613-614-3376 and I will be happy to help you out.

And if you are interested in getting access to off market and hard to find real estate deals that can save you money, click this link here to sign up to get access to my database of off market and distressed real estate deals.