If you plan to wholesale real estate, I hope you know by now that you absolutely MUST be building your buyer list. In fact, I’m so adamant about it that clients and investors I work with often ask me which comes first: the buyer list or a real deal.
I highly recommend that you start building your buyer list right away, even before you have your first offer. What ?! How do you build a buyer’s list before you even have a deal in the market?
Well, without going into all the details on how to create a buyer’s list, here are some ideas:
First of all, you can generically market that you are looking for investors who are interested in deals. Post some ads on some free classifieds sites looking for investors who want to be notified when you find a great deal. Ask them if you can add them to your buyer list. Most serious investors will want you to call them if you have a great offer.
Second, you can contact investors who have investment properties and ask if they are looking for more deals. If they say yes, ask them if you can add them to your buyer list. How do you find these guys? Three very quick ways: people who advertise they want to buy houses, people with houses for rent (they are investors, aren’t they), and absentee homeowners mailing lists?
Third, you can borrow offers from other investors and offer to help them market their offers. As you contact investors using the first two methods, you can also ask them if they have any offers. They most likely have a deal or two. Ask them if you can do some marketing to help them sell it. If they agree, you now have an offer that you can use to meet people interested in offers, helping you build your own buyer list and help your new investor friend sell your offer.
Fourth, give away real estate courses and a distressed property list. I use this method with my wholesale clients. I allow you to give away a real estate course on CD that I have, to attract people interested in investing, in order to build your list of potential investor buyers.
So while some people believe that you need to have found a deal to start building a buyer list, I strongly disagree. You should build your buyer’s list from your first day as a real estate wholesaler and keep building and replenishing it every day that you are in business as a wholesaler. It is half the lifeblood of your business (the other half is finding deals) and it is vitally important to do it every day.