Finding Homes for Buyers (agents, Realtor, MLS, for sale)

[NinaN]

Inventory is so tight here I'm having a hard time finding homes for buyers. Do any of the agents here have a good method they use outside MLS to find homes? I check for FSBOs, advertise needs, went to neighborhood garage sales and asked the homeowners, even contacted some of the old "Make Me Sell" on Zillow. Any other suggestions? It's amazing how fast things have changed here.

[nikitakolata]

Unfortunately, I don't have a great solution for you. I am having the same issue for the buyers I am currently working with. With the combination of the price point and location they want anything decent that comes on the market sells very quickly. So, if anyone does have ideas I am also interested.

[BoBromhal]

another option would be to search expireds and withdrawns over the past 2 years to see if they gave up before the market improved but might want to sell now.

[NinaN]

Originally Posted by BoBromhal

another option would be to search expireds and withdrawns over the past 2 years to see if they gave up before the market improved but might want to sell now.

Forgot to mention I did that too.

[Silverfall]

Yes. I just did this for 4 of my buyers. I pulled home information directly from the title company database and sent out specific letters to home owners and asked if they were interested in selling. I have probably gotten 50 calls for all my clients about people willing to chat. I will probably sell two of the homes to my buyers.

[NinaN]

Most of our expired have since sold or foreclosed...and sold. :-}

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by Silverfall

Yes. I just did this for 4 of my buyers. I pulled home information directly from the title company database and sent out specific letters to home owners and asked if they were interested in selling. I have probably gotten 50 calls for all my clients about people willing to chat. I will probably sell two of the homes to my buyers.

I do this as well. I get mixed results, but I tend to target teardown homes for my builder clients and not homes for sale to end users.

[sll3454]

Send them to NC. I have a house for sale.

Have you ever gotten a positive response from a "Make Me Move" lead? I've wondered about that.

When I lived in CA I used to occasionally get a post card from a realtor saying something like, "I have clients who are interested in buying a home like yours." This was in a townhouse community of 48 homes. There were two similar but larger ones nearby, and they probably all got postcards, too. I don't know if anyone decided to sell because of it (San Gabriel Valley, probably 2003-2005).

If you have lots of time, you could target a neighborhood your client likes, and see which houses last sold for less than their current value, then check for ridiculous mortgages, then send cards.

Or you could send them to NC. I'll sell cheap.

[NinaN]

The "make me move" leads that I emailed all have said they would sell...for the price they set at the peak that didn't sell back then. So not really positive, but surprisingly enough to me - they all responded!