📈 Market Snapshot

📰 Headlines

• 🏛️ Biden proposes “boldest housing plan in a generation”

• 🔥 Inflation came in hotter than expected - what it means for rates and real estate this summer 

• 🔍 Curious about supply? View a graph of the 30 cities with the most upcoming new multifamily units over the next 5 years

• 📊 An investor walks through the numbers of a $4M strip mall purchase

• 💰 Here’s what will happen to home prices as inventory grows this year

🏚️ Deep dive

Finding off-market deals

Does this describe your process looking for deals?

1. Open up the MLS / Zillow

2. Check and see property after property in contract for $150k+ per door

3. Immediately slam your laptop shut and wonder if ‘cashflow properties’ still exist

Look - I don’t want to be overdramatic….

There are still good deals to be had on the MLS.

But if you’re not spending a little time each week sourcing your own deals?

You’re cheating yourself out of opportunities to find cash flow.

Some of the most popular ways to find properties off the MLS:

• Wholesalers

• Auctions

• Driving for dollars/mailer campaigns

Pick one of these and get really good at it. You’ll thank me later.

Today, I’m going to focus on driving for dollars (DFD). 

How good can DFD be?

An investor in Youngstown, Ohio recently bought 2 distressed properties for $37,000 doing DFD.

Those will be incredible deals for him.

All because he took his deal flow into his own hands.

I’m going to show you how to:

1. Find distressed properties without relying on wholesalers or auctions

2. Save hours every week by delegating a huge chunk of this process to a virtual assistant for $5-10/hr

Step 1: Drive for dollars

You may have heard about ‘driving for dollars’ -patrolling neighborhoods for derelict houses.

I don’t have a driver’s license (living in NYC will do that to you).

But I’ve got great feet and they love a long walk.

Every day, I pick a new direction, pop in an episode of the Smartless podcast, and walk for 30-45 minutes.

These walks are huge unlocks:

1. You get great ‘self-reflection’ time - walks have produced some of my most lucrative business ideas

2. You see a ton of real estate 

Little side streets Google Maps would never tell you to go to.

Most importantly - being on foot gets you in with the neighbors.

The other day I saw a distressed property, asked a neighbor about it, and got a 30-minute summary of the neighborhood and owner's situation.

Absolute gold.

Look around… distressed properties usually have a few of the following things:

1. High grass

2. Missing electrical meter

3. No blinds

4. Trash on the ground

Here’s a property I saw on my walk the other day.

Step 2: Find the owner

Go to your county auditor site by Googling “XYZ county auditor”.

Here’s the site for Columbus/Franklin.

When you look up the owner you’ll see one of two things:

1. An individual (e.g., “Nathan May”)

2. An LLC

If it’s an LLC, there’s one extra step, which is to look up the owner in your state’s business registry.

At this point, you should have the owner’s name and potentially their address.

The final step is to visit True People Search and plug this in to find their phone number/email address.

Boom - that’s the cliff-notes version of how off-market buyers get their deal flow (and how wholesalers find deals to send you).

Bonus step: Automate outreach with a VA

What if all you had to do was identify properties and then someone else did the rest of the work?

Welcome to the world of international virtual assistants (VAs).

VAs allow you to delegate manual tasks for very little money - my VAs save me 20-30 hours of work every single month.

You can find them on Upwork for anywhere between $5-10/hr.

If you don’t have a VA - get one.

Working with your first will teach you about effective delegation and they add immense leverage to your personal life as well as your 9-5.

Here’s how you’re going to have one do your property research for you:

1. Create a Google sheet of addresses you found driving/walking around

2. Make an account at True People Search for your VA to use

3. Record a Loom video showing them how to look up the owner on the auditor site, pull their information, and put it into the sheet

4. Have them complete 5-10 addresses, manually check their work, and then let them proceed with the full task

BOOM. You’ve just spent $25 to buy back 5+ hours of your weekend.

📊 Chart of the Week

Inventory levels are increasing across the country.

If they outpace demand, that will mean a weakening housing market.

Duplexx’s take? Markets in the midwest, like Ohio, are still 50-60% below their pre-pandemic inventory levels.

There is still a long way to go before supply outpaces demand.

🐤 Real Estate Rizz

#1

This is fascinating. Philadelphia is a row-house city. And in Mesa…. one in six people live in a mobile home??? 🫢

#2

You should know that your buddy Nate has a newsletter on bonus depreciation/cost segregation coming up. But in the meantime, Melanie does a pretty good summary.

🔥 Want everything you need to buy 1-5 units this year?

Check out the Duplexx Blueprint and get all of these goodies:

Note: If you’ve joined in the past 2 weeks, you’ll automatically be taken to a special page to receive 80% off. 

• Cash-on-cash returns calculator

• Guide with 75+ items for your next rehab

• PM/Contractor interview guide

• 30-minute mini-course on finding deals