Motivated salespeople: who are they and how to find them?

Motivated sellers are the most important ingredient it takes to become a successful real estate investor. You can take all the real estate investing courses available today and become a creative real estate investing master, but you’ll be a hungry expert if you don’t have people to apply your knowledge as well. I regularly advise students to spend their first year in real estate learning how to locate motivated sellers. Then, once they know how to find this valuable product, they must learn techniques for buying and selling real estate. Imagine buying all the equipment you need to drill an oil well but never learning how to determine where to drill? It can be an expensive and frustrating experience. So let me give you some advice on who is likely to be a motivated seller and how to locate them. Here are my top three.

Probably the number one reason a person needs to sell their home quickly at a discounted price is because of a divorce. Mortgage payments that were easily manageable with two income suddenly become a real burden when one of the income disappears. With divorce rates approaching the 50% level, this creates many motivated salespeople on a regular basis. Some people may view the purchase of a property in a divorce situation as a predation of the weak and needy. I see it as the complete opposite. Divorce is also the number one reason for foreclosure. These people desperately need to sell their home, and if you are not available to help them sell their home, they end up losing their home and credit in foreclosure. You are providing them with valuable service and a good income for your family by working with salespeople motivated due to divorce proceedings. Networking with good divorce attorneys can generate quality leads for you on a regular basis.

Another situation that creates motivated salespeople is job loss or transfer. A person may have no problem making a mortgage payment on their current income, and then all of a sudden they are laid off, downsized, or relocated and are now earning substantially less income than they are used to. This creates a tremendous burden on the homeowner and often leads to a motivated seller scenario. They have to sell their house before the transfer or, if they stay, they cannot pay their mortgage at their new income level, so they must sell quickly or risk foreclosure. This is a very common problem that you can benefit from if you pay attention to local working conditions in your city or town and keep up with layoff notices and job advertisements in the local newspaper and on local television. If you’re watching the news tonight and hearing that the local potato chip plant is closing in your town, it’s time for you to take action. I have personally gone to a place of business like this and put flyers on car windshields that describe my skills to help them if they need to sell their house quickly. If this seems too aggressive, you should find another way to contact the plant workers. An ad in the local newspaper or a penny saver that says “Attention New Nalley Workers” will catch your eye. Also try posting on your local unemployment office website or bulletin board. A good part of the laid off workers will use these services. Remember they need your help! You have a service that will benefit them. Don’t be afraid to tell people you can help them with their property.

Here is a piece of advice that I will give you that is so powerful, if you develop it and work on it, it will bring you an infinite amount of quality leads. There is a person you see regularly in your area who knows all the people who are behind on their bills, they know who is in foreclosure and who is moving before anyone else. This person has a wealth of information that few people know. Who is this person who can fill your pockets with cash? Your postman! Think about this. Your mailman delivers all important letters and documents to every house in a neighborhood. If a person is behind on their utility bills, the postman delivers the disconnect notice. If they are behind on their mortgage, the postman delivers all of the lender’s warning letters, including the Notice of Default. If they are thinking of moving, they will ask the postman for a change of address card. If the home has been abandoned, the postman will find out and suspend mail delivery to this property. As you can see, your postman is better connected than anyone else when it comes to motivated prospective salespeople. Make friends with them; ask them if they know of possible offers. Do not ask about any personal information about the seller because it would be unethical. But you could ask if they know of anyone on your route who might be in a position to need to sell their home quickly. Treat them well and they can provide you with a world of valuable information. I was a postman for 10 years and I can tell you with certainty that I knew who all the motivated salespeople in my area were long before anyone else. It’s the kind of information that can make you rich.

Motivated salespeople are wherever you go. Learning where to look for them will take your real estate investing to the next level.