Secret to Short Sale Success: Lining Up Buyers

If you want to be certain that your short sale is going to be successful, make sure you have one or more end buyer for the deal. The secret to short sale success is in your buyers list.

The most successful investors will start with building a buyers list, perhaps even in advance of selecting a property to acquire using a short sale. Many list services and online systems for investors are available to help you identify active buyers in your area and the price ranges they buy in. It is also possible to find this information out by hand by going to the courthouse or checking deed information for purchases by non-lender businesses and all cash individual buyers who are buying multiple properties in the area over a short period of time. These are the active investors in your area. Map out where they are buying and note the price ranges they buy in.

Contact these individuals to find out more specifically whether they are still interested in buying property in the area, and find out what exactly they are looking for. Are they rehabbers who want to fix up and resell properties in a certain area? Are they buy and hold buyers looking to rent the property? Are they your competitors in flipping property or do they prefer to wait until distress situations have been cured before they buy? While you might start your contacts with email or a letter, you must eventually start a conversation with these people to establish a level of trust.

Often times the regular investors in your area will be regulars at local real estate investor or landlord association meetings. They may also be active in a local chamber of commerce or business lead group. Start attending these meetings on a regular basis.

Then start targeting agents who have active short sale and REO listings in the areas where your active buyers want to own property and work hard to gain trust among these agents. Pinpoint the type of property that the buyers on your list want to own and make offers in the price ranges that will work for your buyers. You will quickly gain credibility with the agents who really work the short sale market once you’ve shown that you have great buyer contacts that are eager to put buy your deals for all cash.

Obviously, the most successful agents will have buyers’ lists of their own, and will be plugged in to marketing to find potential retail buyers as well. Between your investor-buyer contacts and the contacts of your best agents, it should be relatively easy to find end buyers for all of the well-targeted short sales that are priced right and in the right neighborhoods.