Since I started my own real estate investing business, I’ve gotten a lot of “out of the blue” friend requests and chat messages from old friends on Facebook. They always say they’re interested in catching up, but they usually want one of two things: to sell their house to me or to get advice on how to invest in real estate too. I could get annoyed at them for beating around the bush, but in reality, I’m always happy to snatch up a good deal on a house or add a new investor to my professional network.

So, when my old college roommate invited me out to coffee unexpectedly, I wasn’t surprised to find out he’d recently invested in a couple of fix-and-flip properties and was considering quitting his office job to invest full-time. He’d heard that Propstream was a great way to find motivated sellers of distressed properties, but before he paid for a subscription, he was hoping to get an unbiased opinion from a professional investor.

Lucky for him, I’ve used Propstream as part of my lead generation strategy in the past, so I was able to provide some pointers and discuss the pros and cons so he could make an informed purchasing decision. Here’s what I told him about how to find motivated sellers on Propstream.

3 Tips for How to Find Motivated Sellers on Propstream

Propstream is a popular web app for real estate investors. It helps you research distressed properties, generate “comps” (real estate lingo for information on comparable properties in the area), and contact homeowners. However, this data alone won’t be enough to find motivated sellers on Propstream. Here are some tips for how to turn this data into leads.

1. 1. Conduct Neighborhood Research

Most of Propstream’s value lies in its market research features. You can create custom property lists and filters to help you target properties that meet certain criteria, and use comps to determine what a home is really worth and how much you could potentially sell it for after a flip. However, setting up broad searches across a wide geographic area (or even nationwide) isn’t necessarily the best strategy for finding great investment properties.

Instead, you should conduct neighborhood research before you create your filters. Look for up-and-coming neighborhoods with growth potential where you can still find cheap houses. Avoid expensive city centers, and instead focus on the areas becoming more popular with professionals, young families, and new businesses. You can search specific zip codes in Propstream and look at current, historical, and projected home prices as well, so you can spot trends and avoid bubbles.

1. 2. Use Filters Wisely

Once you’ve chosen a neighborhood to target, it’s time to put Propstream’s custom filters to work. The platform includes many criteria for distressed homes, including properties in pre-foreclosure, homeowners going through divorce or bankruptcy, and homes with expired MLS listings. These filters will help you generate a customized lead list of distressed properties and homeowners who may be motivated to sell.

1. 3. Reach Out to Distressed Homeowners

Propstream also offers some marketing and outreach tools to help you make contact with distressed homeowners. These tools include automated emails, voicemails, direct mailing postcards, and custom landing pages. The idea is to make reaching out to homeowners as easy, fast, and automated as possible. However, that’s not necessarily the best way to go about things.

After all, think about all the marketing emails, automated voicemails, and generic mass mailers you’ve received over the years. How often have you been driven to conversion based on these low-effort outreach efforts? I know, I would never sell my home to someone based on a robot voice in my voicemail.

That’s why my advice is to take a more personal approach. First, you should have used your filters to hone in on a select few properties that could make great investments—this eliminates the need to send out dozens of automated messages all at once. Then, you should reach out to the homeowners personally and try to have a human conversation with them. Remember, most distressed homeowners are going through a difficult situation, so a sympathetic ear (and a reasonable offer on their home) could go a long way.

Overall, Propstream’s biggest strengths are its ability to filter properties and generate comps. However, to actually use that data, you still need to do your own independent research and develop strategies for contacting and negotiating with distressed homeowners. Personally, I didn’t find Propstream’s marketing tools very useful—they were focused entirely on outbound marketing and automation, neither of which translated to any actual deals for me. I needed a better way to get qualified real estate leads.

An Easier Way to Find Motivated Sellers

A far better marketing strategy for investing in distressed properties is inbound marketing—getting homeowners to come to you. With inbound marketing, you target specific neighborhoods with media like billboards and radio spots advertising your services. This gets your brand into the local zeitgeist and creates name recognition for your business. Then, when a homeowner is facing foreclosure, bankruptcy, or some other distressing event, they’ll know they can reach out to you to sell their home fast.

The best part is, you can take advantage of inbound marketing while still getting a full suite of real estate investing software tools. All you have to do is join HomeVestors®, one of the nation’s largest and most successful real estate investing franchise networks. Plus, as a new independently owned and operated HomeVestors® franchisee you’ll also gain invaluable real estate investment training, and the one-on-one mentorship of an experienced local Development Agent.

You don’t need to know how to find motivated sellers on Propstream, because HomeVestors® brings distressed homeowners to you. Contact us today to learn more.

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