Every real estate investor is looking for all possible ways to maximize his/her return on investment with rental properties. One strategy to do that which has proven itself over the years is investing in off market properties. However, many new investors struggle with finding an off market property, especially in tight seller’s markets. In addition, buying off market properties does not necessarily equal to buying positive cash flow income properties. To overcome these dilemmas, investors need to get access to a real estate investment software platform like Mashvisor which not only helps them locate but also analyze homes which are not listed on the MLS.
To start looking for profitable off market properties in the US housing market now, sign up for Mashvisor now.
What Are Off Market Properties?
Have you been hearing the expression “off market properties” but still have no idea what this means? In the strict sense of the term, these are real estate properties which are not listed on the MLS. These could be personal homes or investment properties which the owners have or do not have the intention of selling any time soon. FSBOs are one specific type of these homes.
If we apply a more loose definition, the term “off market property” could also refer to foreclosures, bank-owned homes, short sales, and REOs as they are not typical real estate listings. While most of these properties get listed on the MLS, this is not absolutely always the case.
Another term which real estate professionals sometimes use for this kind of houses is “pocket listings”.
Why Should You Buy an Off Market Property?
You might be wondering what the big deal is with off market properties. After all, they are real estate properties like any other. However, savvy, smart real estate investors know that buying off market properties offers some major benefits compared to regular MLS listings:
- Less competition: First and foremost, these homes for sale face significantly fewer buyers – if any – than traditional real estate listings. This is particularly important in a hot seller’s market where beginner real estate investors already stand basically zero chance of outbeating more experienced professionals when it comes to MLS-listed properties. This means that finding a lucrative off market property gives newcomers the opportunity to enter the exciting world of real estate investing and start making money from rental properties.
- Better sale price: With less competition there come lower property prices. If you are one of just a handful of property buyers interested in a certain home, it is much easier to negotiate a below market value price with the homeowner. Buying cheap real estate is something which every smart investor should be aiming at.
- Higher return on investment: The largest advantage of investing in off market properties is the fact that even beginner real estate investors can maximize their return on investment with this strategy. A lower sale price automatically translates into a higher rate of return on a rental property, whether you look at the cash on cash return or the cap rate of traditional investment properties or Airbnb income
How to Find Off Market Properties with Mashvisor’s Real Estate Investment Software Platform: 3 Different Tools
If you are now convinced that you should look for pocket listings to start your real estate investing career or expand your investment portfolio, this next section is for you. Here we will show you how to use Mashvisor’s real estate investment app to find off market properties in any US housing market. Furthermore, our platform goes the extra mile and provides investors with readily available investment property analysis for these homes. After all, buying just any off market property does not guarantee a lucrative investment, even if located in one of the best places to invest in real estate. There are many factors which go behind making a profitable rental property investment, and Mashvisor takes all of them into consideration to advise investors which properties they should go for and which not.
Without further ado, here are 3 of Mashvisor’s real estate investment tools which help even beginner rental property investors find and analyze the investment potential of off market properties in any US city or town.
Related: How to Find Off-Market Real Estate Properties
1. Mashboard
The first tool on our real estate investment software platform which you can use for this purpose is called the Mashboard. While this platform was designed with real estate investors and brokers in mind, it gives part-time investors the opportunity to perform like professionals too. With Professional and Expert plan subscriptions, you get access to homeowner data. Our homeowner database is not limited to the owners of the real estate properties for sale listed on the investor platform but goes beyond that.
If you are relatively new to real estate investing, you are probably wondering how having access to property owner data will help you find off market properties. You will be surprised to learn how many homeowners as well as real estate investors would agree to sell their home or rental property (which they initially have no intention of selling) if they get a good offer.
So, what you can do with our homeowners data is to start contacting the current owners of properties which seem like a good investment opportunity and exploring whether they might be interested in selling their house.
How to do that?
It’s easy!
From your Mashboard, click on the “Find Owners” button on the Owners section. This will prompt a pop-up form where you can enter the criteria which your investment property should meet. You have two options.
Mashboard: How to Find Homeowners Data
Option 1: You can search for a specific home that you’ve noticed while driving for dollars or heard about from a friend or colleague. You just need to enter the street address, the city, and the state as well as the type of homeowner information which you want to obtain. You can choose address, phone number, email address, or any combination of them.
Option 2: You can conduct an off market property search within a certain location to obtain a list of all homes and homeowners there. The only obligatory criterion is the state, but you can focus your search by:
- Address
- Zip code
- City
- Property type: single family home, condo, apartment, townhouse, duplex, triplex, quadruplex, multi family home, mobile home, manufactured home, and many more
- Year built
- Sale date
Related: Where to Find Property Data Online in 2020
Once again, you can obtain property owner contact information including the address, the phone number, and/or the email address.
As soon as you’ve submitted the criteria for your search, your homeowner list will start being generated, and you’ll be notified by email when it’s ready and you can access it. After you’ve downloaded your customized homeowner database, you can access it from the Leads tab on the left and filter by different criteria such as city, state, property type, and others.
Mashboard: How to Access Homeowners Data
You can access the full information about every single homeowner by clicking on his/her name. This will take you to the property owner profile and show you all the data that you need to decide whether to contact this potential property seller or not.
However, the help which our Mashboard provides to real estate investors does not stop here. With subscription to the Expert plan, you can prepare email templates and send outreach campaigns to these homeowners to try to buy their off market properties. Meanwhile, you can keep log of your activities associated with every owner, using the Mashboard as a CRM platform.
As you can imagine, reaching out to hundreds of homeowners would be a total waste of time if you don’t know whether their houses could turn into positive cash flow properties. To use your time in the most efficient manner, Mashvisor’s real estate investment software gives you the opportunity to perform rental property analysis on any off market property before contacting the owner. This analysis will only take a few seconds. You can use the Property Marketplace tool to analyze rental properties within the market for which you’ve obtain homeowner data. You can focus your property search by:
- Distance from this particular real estate market
- Budget
- Preferred rental strategy: traditional vs. Airbnb
- Type of property
- Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
- Cash on cash return
- Cap rate
Mashvisor’s Property Marketplace
For each off market property which matches your search criteria, you will get access to complete investment property analysis, just like the one we provide for MLS listings. This analysis is based on the performance of actual traditional and Airbnb rental comps and includes expected:
- Property price
- One-time startup costs
- Comparable traditional and Airbnb rental income
- Recurring monthly expenses
- Airbnb occupancy rate
- Cash flow
- Cash on cash return
- Cap rate
- Optimal rental strategy
Mashvisor’s Investment Property Calculator: How to Analyze Rental Properties
To find out the step-by-step process of getting homeowners data through your Mashboard, read this article on our Help Center.
Sign up for Mashvisor now to start finding homeowner data.
2. Property Marketplace
The second Mashvisor real estate investment tool which allows investors to find off market properties is the Property Marketplace, mentioned above.
One important property search filter in this regard is the listing type. You can choose Non MLS and/or Foreclosure listings to find an off market property in your selected real estate market or markets. Once you’ve done your property search, you can continue with the real estate investment analysis as described in the previous section. Conducting diligent analysis based on both traditional and Airbnb data is the only way to assure buying positive cash flow income properties with a high return on investment each and every time.
Related: Where to Find Airbnb Data in 2020 for Real Estate Investing?
3. Investment Property Search Platform
Yet another tool on Mashvisor’s real estate investment software app which allows even beginners to find off market properties quickly and efficiently is the Investment Property Search Platform. When starting your rental property search, you can utilize the Property Status filter to focus on Foreclosure and/or Pending listings which qualify as off market properties. You can further narrow down your search based on many other criteria such as property price, minimum cash on cash return, cap rate, traditional or Airbnb income, and others.
After you have selected a few income properties which match your investment expectations, you can analyze them in detail before deciding whether to move forward with buying them or not. Using Mashvisor’s Airbnb calculator, you can make sure that you invest in positive cash flow, high return off market properties in any US real estate market.
Related: 5 Best Real Estate Investment Tools for 2020
Finding off market properties is one thing, finding profitable off market properties is a different thing. Mashvisor’s real estate investment software platform allows you to do both. Sign up now to start making lucrative real estate investments in traditional and Airbnb income properties.