In order to make a profit in real estate investing, you must have a continuous flow of good deals. What this means is that you must buy your houses low enough so you can make a profit.
So where do you find these houses at below the market prices?
It is mandatory to have a continuous flow of good deals in order to remain profitable in real estate investing. This means that regardless of your business model, you must buy your houses low.

So how can you buy houses at prices low enough to make a profit?

<b>1) Motivated sellers</b>
This is my favorite source of good deals. It is still the most favorite method of getting deals that never find their way into the open market, way below market value.

A motivated seller is a seller who really needs to sell their house. Usually, they could be behind on their mortgage, facing foreclosure, divorced, burned by bad tenants, have inherited property, and so on. They can do anything to get rid of these properties which have become a big bother in their lives.

So how do you find motivated sellers?

Simply targeting home owners facing some legal trouble is enough. In my market, I am able to get a listing of all county court filings every day. If they own real estate, they get into my mailing list.

These people are ready to do business once they call.

<b>2) Wholesalers</b>
If you do not have time to market to motivated sellers, then you can buy houses at wholesale prices from other real estate investors.

I usually have a lot of good deals, most of which I cannot pursue. I just wholesale them to other real estate investors who then put them back in the market.

When you buy wholesale deals, you take over the original contract, or you get the property in simultaneous closing. Check our other articles for details of these transactions.

<b>3) Local REI meetings</b>
It is most likely there is a local meeting of real estate investors near where you live. These are people who buy and sell real estate actively in your local market.

This means you can find great deals from these groups.

<b>4) REOs and the MLS</b>
These are not the most profitable deals you can find unfortunately. The asking price is usually too high for most real estate investors even though thousands of properties are sitting out there with no buyers.

Do not forget this is the most over-shopped source of real estate deals and the price breaks may not be that high.

These are the deals I recommend the least for investment purposes.

<b>5) Courthouse auctions</b>
In order to get good deals from court house auctions, you need to do a lot of home work. Unless you are well polished in this kind of research, I would not recommend this route.

<b>6) Craigslist and other online sources</b>
Again, good investment deals are rare here because the resource is too over-shopped and most Realtors and FSBO owners advertise here. It is not easy to get a good deal from Craigslist.

By: Simon Macharia

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Submitted On Jan 10, 2012. Viewed 21 times.