A Tactical Playbook for Finding Off-Market Real Estate Deals

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors.

In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year.

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Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock, and Jeff Sayfright.

Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. I'm your host, Chris Craddock, and I am super pumped to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is finding off-market sellers, finding off-market deals, what you can do with them, what are some creative options.

We definitely don't want to have enough time and a half hours to go through it all, but this is a chance to figure out how to build well, right?

So you always want to keep the best, sell the rest, right?

Every deal that ever hit the MLS that was an actual deal has slipped through the hands of a real estate agent at one point in time that did not have the foresight to realize this was a deal that they should have been buying themselves.

So with that said, what are we going to do? How are we going to find them? What are we going to do to make big things happen?

My favorite piece about real estate is you get a chance to build well. A lot of people think wealth is a big fat bank account.

Well, you know what, your bank account, if you leave it in the bank by itself as a melting iceberg, you do not want to leave your money in the bank, even getting interest will not keep up with the price of inflation, right?

Cash is a melting ice cube, and I'll tell you, the rich are going to get richer, and the people who are rich, it's the same people that have always been the rich, always, always, always.

This go back to like the middle ages, it's the landowners, the landowners are the ones that are going to be wealthy, the landowners are the ones that are going to become more and more wealthy, the landowners are the people that are going to be the ones that will disproportionately grow their wealth.

And here's the best part about living in America right now, anybody can be a landowner, there is no distinction, right? At all, every single person can do that.

And if you're in real estate, you get a special unfair advantage where you get a pick through things before they even hit the MLS and say, should I keep this, should I buy this?

And let me just share with you, before you go to any thoughts on, oh yeah, wealthy people, get us say wealthy, here's the story of my family, right?

This is my mom's side of the family was like upper middle class because there were bankers and bankers who gave birth to kids that were bankers, gave birth to kids that were bankers.

My dad's side of the family was super blue collar, my grandfather was a road worker with a GED for me $3.25 an hour working on the side of the road.

But he bought properties in North Arlington, which if you know the DC area, it's right outside of DC.

So he bought properties in North Arlington and ended up dying an incredibly wealthy man by the world's standards.

He was definitely upper middle class by the world's standards because he owned properties.

And so that was the whole thing.

The rich will get richer and the court will get poor.

People are going to have a harder time affording real estate as time goes on.

So buy now, buy now, buy now.

This is for you, the real estate professional.

You need to buy assets.

All right, with that said, you keep the best, you sell the rest.

And how do you sell the rest?

We're going to talk it briefly.

Again, we don't have a ton of time with it.

You can list it.

You can wholesale it.

You can do nobitions.

You can, I mean, there were just a lot of options for how you can sell lease options.

There's just things that you can do and be creative on that.

So and we'll touch on all of those before the half hour is up.

So let's talk about how we find properties that are off market.

First, you look for dilapidated properties, right?

Again, if you're sure like homes, right?

If you think about things like that, everything tells you something, right?

So if you go and you see a dilapidated property, it will tell you something.

It'll tell you they don't have the time to take care of the property.

It will tell you maybe they don't have the money to take care of the property.

Maybe they're just super overwhelmed and they need to downsize.

Whatever it tells you, it is, it is that in all likelihood,

this is not a property that they need to keep.

And so if you are real estate agent, you have the double whammy.

You get to talk to him and say, hey, would you ever be willing to sell

if you got the right price for this property?

That's the easiest script ever.

Would you be willing to sell if you got the right price for this property?

Then if they say yes, then you find out what their situation is.

Is the house dilapidated because they don't have money?

Is it because they are overwhelmed and don't have time?

Either way, a cash offer where people aren't coming into their house

may be the right offer for them, right?

Now, you may say, oh, but Chris, I don't have the cash.

Well, I've been sharing this story forever, right?

Here's my iPhone.

Now it's a couple of years old, right?

It's the Pro, whatever, Pro Max 14, right?

The big 14.

I think it's like one generational, I think there's a 15 out now.

Maybe there's 16, whatever it is.

But I think that this is one generational.

It's still worth, I don't know, somewhere between 500 and $1,000 is my guess.

It's got a terabyte of data available like on the like a hard drive

on the terabyte.

So there's a lot of stuff in it that makes it valuable.

But if I were to say, hey, I'll sell this to you for 25 bucks.

You know, yes, you buy it.

But what if you're flat broke and you have no money?

Well, then you find a way to get 20, let's say it's $200.

And let's say you have $0 in your bank account, right?

You say you call a friend and say, hey, well, you'd love me $200.

Or you want to go in on this together, give me $200.

And honestly, flipping a phone where you make a couple hundred bucks is not that exciting.

If somebody called me and asked me to lend them $200 to flip a phone, I probably are talking to laugh at them.

But you get where I'm going with that, right?

The whole idea is if you find a deal, there are options.

So let me put it this way.

You can always be a buyer.

Again, if you say, but I don't have the cash, if let's just say your market, like in the DC area,

the average price, price point on a house is about 500,000.

If I found somebody that would sell their house right now for 200,000,

if they could just walk away, no questions asked, hassle-free, give me 200 grand and I'm good.

What would I do?

Let's say I had no cash.

Let's say I'm bringing you to the industry.

Let's say whatever it is, maybe let's pretend like I haven't been producing for a while.

I don't have access to cash.

What would I do?

I would be creative and I would be resourceful.

It's never lack of resources.

It's always a lack of resourcefulness.

I would call every friend that I know and say, hey, I've got this awesome deal.

And I would not say, do you want to buy it?

And I get a commission, right?

I would say, why don't we buy this together?

I'll bring the deal, I'll manage the deal and we'll just split the proceeds if we flip it.

Or if you have cash, then you buy it and hold on to it as a rental.

Let's say it's in a good neighborhood.

And if you don't know what cost segregation is as a real estate professional,

Google it right now and send me a message and I'll introduce you to my cost set guy

because you can say about fortune in taxes as a real estate professional by owning your own properties.

You need to pay the government or the government will pay you to have rental properties for people, right?

The government pays you as a real estate professional by accelerating the depreciation

and saving tens of thousands of dollars on every property you buy.

It's awesome.

So, what do I do?

I go to my find out what they want.

If they want easing convenience, then I find a cash offer for them that will make sense.

If they just say, hey, I need to get the most money for the property and listen,

I know you're an agent, your fiduciary is not to get people the most money for the property.

1,000%.

If you think it is, you're dead wrong.

Your fiduciary is to serve them and think the golden rule.

But it's not the golden rule, right?

The golden rule is do under others as you would want done unto you.

Well, the reality is the platinum rule is to do under others as they would want done to them.

And so, you know, the reality is there are other people.

When I traded in my car, there were people like I, I prefer to get $2,500 less or five grand less on the trade in for my car.

Then have people come and take my time and negotiate with me and all the other stuff on a car.

I'd rather take that time to a higher dollar per hour activity that is in my wheelhouse rather than negotiating on a car.

But there are other people, maybe they make a few, maybe they make less money or maybe they're in a different phase of life or whatever it is where, you know, that $2,500 would be life changing for them.

And so, for me personally, the fact that I would trade in, I just wanted to trade in my car and take less was better for me.

But if somebody was in a different situation, maybe they'd want to do their own thing, right?

Well, that's how we've got to look at these sellers with distressed properties, right?

So, it's the equivalent of trading in a vehicle, right?

When I'm trading in a vehicle, I want to know that I've got certainty.

And this is the thing, so many real estate agents have gone in, you've done marketing and said,

okay, but I'll list your house for you.

And these people want certainty, right?

Their house is dilapidated because they're overwhelmed.

And so, they want certainty.

Well, what is the certainty? Could you imagine if I went to the dealership and traded in my car and they're like, okay, but we can't give you the cash now.

But what we can do is listed on auto trader for you, listed on cars.com for you.

And we're going to get you more money later.

I would have been like, what are you talking about, you jack wagon?

I want to trade in my car and be done with it and move on.

So, understand that that is the case for some people, not everybody.

So, when you think about your fiduciary as a real estate agent, just know it's not to always get the most money for them.

And I know so many agents are super rigid about this, right?

It's not about getting the most money.

It's about getting them what they need, what's best for them in their situation.

And so, offering the cash offer.

And then again, if you don't have cash, I'm telling you, if somebody wants to sell at a massive discount, reach out to me.

Reach out to people in your market.

Don't have the first call, be like, hey, look, all just pay me a two and a half percent, three percent, five percent commission.

Whatever it is, let the first call be, should I buy this?

And then the second, and then thing through, okay, if not, then I can sell it.

I can list it, I can wholesale it, I can innovation it, like any of those other pieces.

So, back to finding them.

You look for these dilapidated houses, right?

Deal machine is a great tool.

If you use the promo code uncommon, you'll get a discount on it.

And what it does is it has a little app.

And you just click on everything.

And if you see a dilapidated house.

And the average is, according to deal machine, the average is every 158 dilapidated properties that you find, you will get one spread deal,

a deal that you can flip, a deal that you can do some sort of creative investment deal, or that you would buy substantially under market and keep as a rental.

But if that is the deal there, that means at least two or three of those could be listings where they want to sell, but they want to sell at a higher price.

And they don't have a need to sell immediately.

So, just understand that for every 158 properties, you'll find stuff like that.

Now, I live in, I live right outside the DC area.

It took us forever to find this little neighborhood we live in.

It's a little worst community, right?

In a question community, there's 20 houses in here.

Each of them on five acres.

And there's a horse trail around it.

Well, there's two properties that I see over and over and over again that I mean they're overground.

One of them has a tarp on the roof and has the tarp on the roof for like a year.

Like one of them like everything is falling apart all like everything's rotting on the house.

And other people would look at it and say, oh my gosh, that's nasty.

And our neighbor has hated it and they're all bitter about it.

And I see opportunity, but here's where I drop the ball.

I need to go knock on their door and just ask them if they'd be open to selling.

That's it.

That is the opportunity there.

So, when you're looking for properties, you know, it's opportunity.

So, here's the way to think about it.

When you think about getting a massive headache, which if your property is dilapidated and falling down,

a headache is so it's really bad for the person with the headache,

but you want to know who it's good for.

It's good for Tylenol, right?

Tylenol makes a lot of money when you get a headache because they're solving a problem.

So, when you think of yourself, but solving their problem that you're Tylenol to their headache,

that's when you can make the most money because this is my quote that I say to my team all the time.

It's the quote that I say to the people I coach all the time.

The quote that I'm always, always, always sharing is the people that make the most money

are the ones who solve the most problems.

And the bigger the problem, the more you get paid.

Yes, absolutely.

So, where are we finding these products?

Every time you go on any appointment, every time you leave the house,

you pull up the deal machine app or pull up whatever you want to pull up, I don't care.

But go a different way and look for any house that any house that you can find that is dilapidated.

And every single one that's dilapidated, you just click it.

Maybe the grass is too long.

Maybe it looks like all of the, you know, around the windows.

You know, all the window trim is, you know, deteriorating.

Maybe the paint is really bad.

Maybe you're looking at the roof and the roof is just nasty.

Like the things where it looks like the house is not up to snuff.

Now, you may be in a neighborhood where everything is just falling apart.

You know, like a really dilapidated neighborhood.

And if it's below, you know, if everything is, is like that,

then that's probably not the neighborhood you're, you're looking for.

You're looking for like an average neighborhood where the house is not quite up to snuff.

So that's the first one.

Now, now here's the second absentee.

And we've only got 13 minutes left.

So I'm just going to do one, one second absentee landlords, right?

We're in the investor space, which is where I spent a lot of my time.

We called them tired landlords.

And let me just share with you.

I bought my first investment property in 2008.

And again, so many of you think that you have to do it by yourself, right?

I did not make much money, but I knew that owning real estate would be my retirement.

And it was when I was a pastor and I made no money.

And so I, we got a property, we got a deal.

And I, I cobbled together what money I could, could find, but I didn't have enough.

So I went to my mom, right?

My mom was my business partner.

And went to my mom and said, hey, do you want to buy this house?

I can't afford to buy it, but it's a great deal.

And it's cashflow positive.

And it's, it's awesome.

Can we, do you want to buy this with me?

And she said, sure.

So we bought the deal together, right?

So just understand that that's, that is a thing.

Well, here's what I have it.

The first year we had no means.

It was awesome.

I was loving it.

The second years.

Oh boy.

The HVAC condensate line, you know, when, when, you know, the water needs to go to a drain.

Well, that got clogged and ended up backflowing into the HVAC.

Flooded out to the flooring, ruined the basement flooring.

And right at that same time, we had this old cast iron pipe,

because the property was built in 1953.

And the sewer pipe, you know, if you know anything about the cast iron pipes,

they start collecting stuff.

The sewer pipe ended up backing up and creating a mess and mess.

We had to get that fixed.

Well, I'll tell you what, if somebody would have called me.

So we, you know, just like real estate always, it had gone up in value.

I probably, if somebody would have called me and told me they could get me out of that property

for my breakeed and what I paid for it and what I put into it,

I probably would have said, sign me up.

I'm done.

I'm so tired.

I was tired landlord.

Right.

And this one before I knew what I know now, right?

Well, there's good years and there's bad years.

And I probably would have sold for less than what I've had into the property.

But like I was so tired.

I was so done.

I did not want the headache of all the problem.

And now I know that, you know, some years, there's problems.

And then other years, you like don't have problems for years.

And so, so what that taught me is, and also knowing that the average landlord sells their property

within three years.

Right.

So, what that told me was, man, landlords are tired and they're happy to sell.

Right.

So, if you want to have just a target rich environment to find off-market properties,

you call these absentee landlords.

And again, feel free to reach out to me on my Instagram page at crowdrocks,

C-R-A-D-D-R-O-C-K, I'll get my staff to send you who we use for data.

If that's helpful, you can get cell phone numbers.

You can people obviously scrub it on the DNC list, don't do anything stupid.

But you can call these people.

And here's the best card about calling absentee landlords.

You get the double whammy, right?

Work smart.

Not just, you need to work hard, but you also need to work smart.

So, here's the double whammy.

You call and say, hey, you don't know the average landlord.

And here's your shit.

I know the average, I see that you own a property right here in Fairfax County.

I know the average landlord sells within three years.

If you get the right price for your property, would you be open to selling it?

A lot of them are going to say no, right?

You're just looking for the yeses, right?

It's going to be the majority we'll say no.

No, I mean, we've had it for a while.

We've got a low interest rate.

Oh, cool.

Well, I'm just curious.

So, I'm calling people like you day in and day out.

If I found some people that wanted to sell, maybe they wanted to sell under market

just to have an easy, easy sale.

Would you be open to purchasing more rental property?

If I found something that was a good deal.

Yes, I would be, right?

But you got to watch out because some of the more tire kickers were like,

ah, just send it over.

If they say yes, here's how to tell whether they're going to be a great fit for you.

You say, oh, awesome.

What is the criteria you'd be looking for?

And if they don't know, then you ask a couple more questions.

And if it's like, ah, just send me stuff.

Don't waste your time.

They're not going to be the people.

But if they tell you, well, if it's cashflow positive in this zip code,

then they're a real buyer, right?

And then you can call all the absentee landlords.

And you know that you've got a buyer.

And then you know what?

Here's the other thing.

Maybe you're selling a property and you get like a 5%, a 6%, a 8%,

whatever the commission is.

But if you know that you have already made buyer,

you can charge a larger commission if you want to, right?

The whole commission is completely negotiable, right?

So you can charge that in.

Here's the thing.

If somebody brought me a deal, please understand this.

Think about this.

If somebody brought me a deal that was $200,000 under market,

and they wanted me to pay them a $50,000 commission.

And maybe it's a $200,000, or like a $400,000 house,

and it would be worth 600.

And they wanted me to pay them a $50,000 commission on a $400,000 house.

I would pay it without Blinky.

I would say, yes, done.

That's awesome.

So don't be trapped into the idea that this is what you're owed.

I've got a friend of mine.

She worked with a lot of investors down in Florida.

And she told me this story.

She said that she didn't understand what she was doing

with all these properties for all these years,

until she read this article.

And this guy that she found tons of off-market properties for

was in this article.

And he talked about how he built $25 million with an equity.

And she ended up feeling sick.

Because she was like, you know, I made a few million dollars

in commissions over the years.

But he built $25 million in equity.

And I, if I rethought about partnering,

if I rethought about keeping myself in the deal,

if I thought about bringing somebody else in to be the cash

in that, she's like, I could be at a point

where I never work a day in my life again if I don't want to.

Because that's why we build wealth is it gives us freedom.

And so you've got to just rethink how we're building wealth here.

So these off-market opportunities, I'll tell you,

I could give you a bunch more.

And I will if anybody reaches out to us after the fact,

I'm happy to do another half hour stamp where we talk about

some of these other opportunities.

But here's my take is, man,

like these two things alone, it's called driving for dollars,

looking for dilapidated houses,

and just call calling absentee tired landlords

and asking them whether they would sell,

they got the right price.

And if they say no, whether, and if they say no,

whether you would, whether they'd want to buy more properties,

I'm telling you, you will absolutely,

absolutely grow your network.

So we're kind of in, I know,

this will go out as a podcast as well,

but I know there's a handful of people that have joined us live.

If anybody has any questions or things they want to talk about

or whatever reason it did not be connected to Facebook today,

feel free to join our Facebook community on Common Real Estate.

But please feel free to post anything if you want to talk about that

before we sign off.

But otherwise, I just want to say this.

Please, I'm begging and pleading with you.

You got to think about real estate as an avenue to build wealth.

It is not if you're only buying and selling properties.

I'm telling you, you will be on the transaction treadmill forever.

Right?

You, like my investments are earning when I'm on vacation, right?

Because if it's only about buying and selling properties,

when you go on vacation, your income goes on vacation,

when you get sick, your income gets sick.

Right?

You want money working for you when you're sleeping.

And I said this at the beginning, wealth is when your money works harder

than you work.

And you look at it, there's a pastor at my church.

He was in a small townhouse.

I begged him pleaded with him to get into their house

so they can raise their family in.

They did.

Right?

And the prices over the last five years have gone up like crazy.

And he called me right as we sold his house.

He had like five days in between.

He had a short rent back before he was buying his new place

down in St. Louis.

And he said, Chris, I've got over $300,000 in my bank account.

He's like, you know how much I make.

And it's not a lot.

He said, there is no world in which I couldn't have this kind of money

if I would have not bought property.

If I would have not bought real estate.

He said, you just can't out earn investments like this.

It's incredible.

So please rethink how you think about real estate.

Be people that build wealth.

I'm telling you, it will change not only your life,

but it will change everybody in your family's life.

It will change the financial destiny of the people that you care about.

When you start thinking differently, right?

It's a rich dad poor dad.

All it takes is one person start thinking differently about wealth

that will change the financial future of everybody else that you care about in your world.

So if I can do anything for you, please let me know.

You know, reach out on Instagram at credrock.

I answer most of those.

It's not a it's not the system.

It's me answering most of those.

And I'm happy to help.

And if you decide that this is something you want to run with,

something you want to build, please reach out because people are so generous with me.

And with their time and energy.

And as long as you're going to do the work,

I'd be happy to help you set a great game plan in place.

All right.

Until next time, go kill it.

Make things happen.

Change the destiny of your family.

And create a financial legacy that people will look at for generations and say,

man, I'm so thankful that this person changed how we thought about money,

finances, and our future.

Go get it.

Boom!

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate,

where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors.

In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate,

you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year.

Don't follow the herd.

Be Uncommon.

Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor,

Chris Cratic, and Jeff Sayfright.

Thank you.