Driving Around.

As a Method of Finding

Investment Property.

Driving around a marketplace for real estate? You bet it is. I have found at least 60% of my houses this way. Because no one way of finding a investment property is perfect, the driving around method has a way of filling in all the missing pieces associated with all the marketing plans. Maybe something would be missed by a real estate agent or you missed the local paper one weekend. Or just maybe someone just puts a sign on there house for sale and does not advertise. I used to do this all the time when I was preparing a house for renting. I would put a for sale by owner sign in the front yard while I was working on the property. Usually at a price that would net me about the same amount I would get if I sold the property on the market. The advantage for the buyer would be that I could easily reduce the price by the real estate commission.

(A quick note here. I did not sell many houses this way. What I did get was many people coming to my door asking to rent the property. This was great because it was a form of free marketing for the rental and I still had the options to sell. I had more people to choose from which ultimately gave me a better tenant.)

The driving around method is great for finding auctions, run down houses, Sheriff Sales, Hud Homes, or houses that are being remodeled.

Sometimes just stopping and talking to the people at the house is a great way to find out about a particular property. You can also make a lot of connections talking to contractors that are remodeling a house.