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by OppGen

Cash buyers make selling properties a faster and simpler process. There’s no need to worry about waiting to find out whether or not a buyer is approved for a mortgage loan if they already have the funds. Cash buyers can help you close a deal from anywhere from a few hours or days.

Buyers who need a loan may have to wait weeks or months to figure out all of the financial details, and for wholesalers, builders, or rehabbers, all of the waiting can make timelines tighter than they already are. There’s no guarantee of a buyer being able to receive a loan, so if the loan falls through, you’ll have to start back at square one and repeat the process of finding a different buyer.

Finding a cash buyer will make things easier for your real estate investment business in the long run, but it’ll take quite a bit of time and effort to find those buyers in the first place. That’s time and effort well-spent, though, and once you’ve got the hang of it, finding cash buyers will be a breeze.

Learn about how OppGen Marketing can help you find cash buyers quickly.

 

Who are Cash Buyers?

Even though trusts, funds, and corporations can be cash buyers, it’s far more likely you’ll be working with individual people as cash buyers. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but at the very least it’ll give you an idea of what kinds of people could be cash buyers.

 

Heirs, Lottery Winners, and Settlement Beneficiaries

These are three very different categories, but the general concept is the same: these are all people who’ve recently come into wealth unexpectedly. One received money from a recently deceased relative; another, against all odds, won riches through luck; and the last one received money from a legal settlement.

These cash buyers may be looking to improve their overall lifestyle and living situation, and so persuading them to buy a house with cash is one way to go.

 

Landlords

Landlords often own many different rental properties, and there’s almost always a chance that a landlord could be looking to add another one to the mix.

 

Retirees and Seniors

Recent retirees and seniors who need to downsize are excellent prospective cash buyers. It’s a matter of offering them the house they’re looking for size-wise and location-wise.

 

Other Real Estate Investors

Flippers, wholesalers, and other kinds of real estate investors are often cash buyers themselves, so don’t hesitate to reach out to people in your local REI network.

 

How to Find Cash Buyers Online

Craigslist

Craigslist’s apartments and housing section is a goldmine for creating a list of landlords and property owners. It’s easy to change locations on Craigslist, which is great for real estate investors who are not working in their local housing markets. If you see a listing of a property for sale or a rental that’s similar to the one you’re trying to sell, reach out to the poster to see if they might be interested in buying your property for cash. 

You’ll have to make some cold calls and cold emails, but it’s worth it if you manage to connect with the right cash buyer.

You can also post a listing for free and request for only cash buyers to contact you. While you may get a few people who are not cash buyers, you still might end up finding someone who wants to buy the property and can get approved quickly for a loan.

Don’t create a fake listing just to get people to reach out to you if you don’t have a property yet. Be upfront and create a listing with a simple subject line (“Wholesale real estate deals starting at x% ARV”) and a short blurb explaining that you’re looking to wholesale deals. 

 

Facebook

If you haven’t joined local real estate investor groups on Facebook, it’s high time to do that. Active group members constantly post their deals in these groups and discuss topics pertaining real estate investing, wholesaling, and more. These groups can help you build your network and even help you find cash buyers who might already be an active member of these groups.

Facebook’s paid advertisements offer a wide array of ad types at cost-effective prices — and some of the best audience targeting tools.

If you’re trying to sell a small home in Columbus, Ohio, that might be a good option for a new retiree who’s downsizing or a senior, you can adjust your ad’s audience settings to have it only be shown to users who are over the age of 55 living in the Columbus area. You can narrow down these options even more with other targeting categories, like sex, interests, behavior, and lookalike audiences to ensure that the people who are most likely to convert are the ones who’ll see the ad. 

 

MLS Websites

MLS isn’t just used to refer to the MLS; there are several other multiple listing service (MLS) websites that are free for the general public to use. (Think along the lines of Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin.)

MLS websites allow you to narrow down your search options by location, price, and even how many beds and baths a property has. But how, exactly, can these sites help you find cash buyers? Well, a lot of the people who are putting up rental property listings are landlords or property managers, who may be seeking an affordable house they can rent out.

Once you’ve found a few properties, copy and paste the addresses, and get the owners’ contact information from county records. Using that information, send them a handwritten letter. Your letter should say that you’re a wholesaler who’s putting new homes under contract regularly and it should ask if they might want to work with you in the future. Be sure to include your contact information as well.

If you send multiple letters to different property owners in the area, you may very well find one who’s willing to buy using only cash.

You can also reach out to real estate agents for assistance on some of these MLS websites. For example, Zillow lets you see recently sold homes, so you can even see how much a property was sold for as well as the agent who listed the property and the buyer’s agent.

Contact the buyer’s agent to see if their client might be interested in the property you’re trying to sell or knows anyone who might be interested in it. When doing this, be sure to tell the agent that they can represent you in this case and get both sides of the commission (and don’t forget to build that commission into the price of the property). They’ll be more likely to help you find cash buyers if there’s something in it for them.

 

Public Records

Some prospects may not have all of their contact information available on MLS sites. Craigslist masks posters’ personal contact information, so the phone number and email listed on the posting are not the direct lines of contact.

If you have the address of a rental property, use your county tax assessor’s website to find the current owner. You can also use this to confirm whether or not these property owners own multiple houses; if they have more than one rental under their name, they might make for a good cash buyer who wouldn’t mind adding one more property under their name.

You can also check Whitepages, too. If you don’t mind spending a little extra, you can get even more information (such as a background check that includes financial history or tenant screening) from Whitepages, either on a subscription or a one-time basis. There are several search options available — not just based on knowing a prospect’s name.

There are several other record websites similar to Whitepages, but Whitepages are well-known and established for a reason.

 

Search Ads

Search engines like Google and Bing are now one of the first places consumers go when they’re looking for a product or service, so it only makes sense that they should be one of the first places businesses go to advertise their offerings.

You can run pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which are text ads that are brought up when a prospect searches certain keywords and phrases. These ads are placed at the top and bottom of search engine results pages. You can choose to run these ads only in certain geographic locations and during certain times of the day or week when people are more active and/or likely to be looking for houses to buy.

Google also offers display ads, which are typically charged at a rate based on every thousand views. Display ads are often used in remarketing campaigns. Remarketing, which is also known as retargeting, refers to the practice of displaying ads related to a website a user has visited but did not click through anything beyond the home page. Remarketing is a highly effective strategy that can help bring users who bounced back to your website to take action.

Click here to learn more about how a search ad campaign can help you find cash buyers quickly.

 

SEO

Creating a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy will not yield immediate results, but it’s worth investing time into. Optimizing your website to rank higher for particular Google search results doesn’t cost you anything financially. SEO encourages good website design on multiple devices, fast loading times, and well-written content — all of which contribute to a better experience for website visitors. Creating thorough content also keeps people coming back to your website for more information, and hopefully, they’ll get to the point where they contact you about a potential cash offer.

OppGen’s SEO program can help bring in a more consistent flow of cash buyers. Contact us to learn more.

 

How to Find Cash Buyers Offline

County Courthouse and Tax Assessor

Your county courthouse and tax assessor contain goldmines of public records that are worth digging through to find cash-buying prospects. It doesn’t hurt to visit the county courthouse in-person, and it often does more good to be able to put a face to a name.

You can use the records to find the names and potentially contact information of current and former homeowners; some may own multiple properties that they rent out to tenants; others might be prospects you’ve found from online research, but you weren’t able to find their contact information in the Whitepages.

 

Real Estate Auctions

People at real estate auctions are usually looking to buy with the funds they already have. Take the time to introduce yourself to those present with a 30-second elevator pitch (it never hurts to practice your pitch beforehand). Exchange contact information whenever possible, particularly with the people who are bidding more often (and more money) than others. When you reach out to your new contacts the next day, include your name and the real estate auction you met them at.

Only one person will walk away with ownership of the property, so have your business card and elevator pitch prepared for those heading back home without the property deed and title, so you’re very likely to find someone who’s interested. If they don’t respond to your emails right away, don’t drop them; follow up from time to time with information about your current deals and available properties.

 

REIA Meetings

Attend a few local real estate investing association (REIA) meetings to network in-person. REIA meetings make it easy to build relationships with people who are in the same field. They’re great opportunities to learn from more experienced real estate investors and wholesalers, too, so take the time to go in with more than the intent to meet cash buyers. Listen to the experts before going in with your fancy business card — you might just discover a different way to find cash buyers than any of the options listed here.

 

Start Finding Cash Buyers Today

Now that you have some ideas about how to find cash buyers, it’s time to start putting those ideas into action. Contact us today to help you start finding those cash buyers, or fill out our free digital audit for even more ideas.

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How to Find Cash Buyers