Every savvy real estate investor understands the importance of lead generation to their success. They know how to find great deals quickly and efficiently. In fact, knowing how to find investment properties is the foundation of every real estate investor’s career. After finding investment properties for sale, you can then analyze them to see their investment potential and pick the best. The more seller leads you generate, the better your odds of finding a profitable investment property.
This skill is key to creating new business at a tenable rate and growing your portfolio. Therefore, it’s important that you learn how to generate leads for real estate investors. However, there’s no need for reinventing the wheel. There are a variety of tried and tested strategies for finding great deals. Read on to get insights on real estate lead generation for investors.
6 Ways to Generate Leads for Real Estate Investors
1. Work with a Real Estate Agent
Before you begin searching for property leads, you should consider hiring a real estate agent to be part of your team. A real estate agent will help you find investment properties for sale in a number of ways.
First, since they have access to the MLS, they can scan through it to find listings that match your criteria. With their knowledge of the local housing market, they will also be able to identify off-market real estate leads and update you. Working with a real estate agent can save you a lot of time since they will do much of the legwork for you.
Related: Do You Need to Find a Real Estate Agent to Buy Investment Rental Properties?
2. Network
Another method for sourcing leads for real estate investors is networking. As you have probably heard before, real estate is a people business. This means that the relationships you develop over the course of your real estate career will have a huge impact on your success.
This begins with your friends, family, and colleagues. You’ll never know if there’s someone in your network that can be a potential lead if you don’t make your intentions known. Even if they aren’t selling themselves, they might know someone who is looking to sell.
Nevertheless, you should not just rely on your inner circle. Try to expand your real estate network as much as possible. Establish relationships with lenders, real estate attorneys, wholesalers, bankers, landlords, etc. Attend real estate meetings and seminars. You could also hold some meetings yourself.
With a solid real estate network, you have the potential of generating countless real estate leads for investors. To motivate people to bring you leads, consider offering a bonus to anyone that does.
Related: How to Build and Maintain a Real Estate Investment Network
3. Drive for Dollars
This real estate investing lead generation technique involves driving through the neighborhood looking for distressed properties. It’s an excellent way to find motivated seller leads in your local market.
While driving for dollars, keep an eye on the physical state of properties. Generally, you should look for properties that are in a state of disrepair. This shows that the property has been neglected. The homeowner is probably unable to maintain it and may be motivated to sell.
Here are some signs of a distressed property to look for:
- The house is vacant
- Peeling paint
- Overgrown yard
- Drooping gutters
- Broken windows
- Broken fences
- Piles of newspapers on the porch
Write down the addresses of the distressed properties you find and check public records for information about the owners or use Mashboard (more on this tool below).
The benefit of buying distressed properties is that you’ll have less competition. Therefore, you are likely to buy the property below market value. However, this strategy of generating leads for real estate investors can be time-consuming and ultimately limits you to your local housing market.
4. Use Social Media
Social media is a great tool for real estate investor marketing. With platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you can reach a huge number of people. By consistently posting informative posts on real estate, you can generate many followers. These followers can be a good source of leads for real estate investors. Moreover, you can pay for social media ads to reach a more targeted audience.
5. Try Direct Mail Campaigns
Direct mail campaigns are great for finding off-market real estate leads. This involves mailing letters to a large number of targeted homeowners and asking them if they are looking to sell their home. Before you begin seeing results, you may need to send multiple letters. This shows them that you are serious and they may warm up to the idea of selling their property to you and decide to contact you.
Even if they are not planning to sell now, they may be motivated to sell in the future. Therefore, always include your contact information so that interested property sellers can easily contact you.
6. Turn to Online Real Estate Lead Generation
One of the best real estate investor lead generation methods is to use online listing websites. There are many real estate websites where you can access data on investment properties for sale with the click of a button.
The best real estate investment software for generating leads for real estate investors is Mashvisor. Unlike many websites out there, Mashvisor doesn’t just help in generating leads for real estate investors. It also helps you to analyze them to find the best.
Here is a list of Mashvisor’s top real estate investment tools and how you can use them to generate property leads:
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Real Estate Heatmap
First, you can use Mashvisor’s Real Estate Heatmap to do a neighborhood analysis on your city of choice. The tool uses different colors to show how different neighborhoods are performing based on selected filters. You can use filters such as listing price, rental income, cash on cash return, and Airbnb occupancy rate. This will help you find the right location to start searching for seller leads.
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Rental Property Finder
After finding a profitable neighborhood for rental investment, you can use Mashvisor’s Rental Property Finder to find rental properties for sale in the area. You simply add the filters and you’ll get a list of high return investment properties for sale that match your criteria.
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Investment Property Calculator
Mashvisor’s Investment Property Calculator is used to perform investment property analysis so as to identify the leads with the highest profitability potential. With this tool, you can estimate several key real estate metrics including rental income, cash flow, cap rate, cash on cash return, and Airbnb occupancy rate. You can also use the calculator to find real estate comps for rental properties on the platform. This will help you to estimate the fair market value of a property. Additionally, it also functions as an Airbnb calculator allowing you to make realistic calculations on short-term rental ROI and revenue.
Related: What Should You Look at in an Investment Property for Sale?
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Mashvisor Property Marketplace
With Mashvisor, you can also find off-market real estate leads without much effort by using the Mashvisor Property Marketplace. This tool allows investors to find off-market properties like short sales, foreclosures, REO homes, and more. Using a variety of filters, you can narrow down your investment property search to match your criteria. You can then use the calculator to analyze them.
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Mashboard
With Mashboard, you can easily get homeowner data such as names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers. You can contact the homeowners directly through the platform using email campaigns, make offers, and begin negotiations.
To start your 7-day free trial with Mashvisor and subscribe to our services with a 20% discount after, click here.
The Bottom Line
Learning how to get high-quality property leads is the key to building a profitable real estate business. There are multiple strategies for generating leads for real estate investors. Your next deal could come from anywhere. Using multiple real estate lead sources for investors could help you cover all your corners. But we recommend that you use Mashvisor because it’s the easiest and most efficient method.