10 Real Estate Investing Tips To Find More Deals Every Month

Want to grow your real estate investing business?

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There’s 1,001 ways to do it — and even more strategies that won’t actually move the needle.

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To help you save time, money, and frustration, we’ve put together some of the most effective ways you can grow your real estate investing business.

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Below are 10 real estate investing tips you can use to find more deals and consistently make more money in your business.

1. Audit Your Investing Business

If you’ve set goals for your business, you want to make sure you’re auditing the business from time to time to make sure you hit those goals as efficiently as possible.

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Many times, we can get in a rhythm, letting months go by without actually asking ourselves if what we’re doing is helping us hit our goals — or if it’s making us comfortable and slowing us down.

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This is especially true if you’ve been flying by the seat of your pants so far, like most investors tend to do once they start building momentum.

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To get started auditing the business, there are 4 areas you want to dig into.

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• Marketing
• Sales
• Lead Management
• Your KPIs

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For your marketing, to give you an example, if you’re driving for dollars, it might be worth investing time into learning how to pull lists, stack data, and use direct mail to drive leads.

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On the sales and lead management side, if you’re currently operating out of notebooks or relying on your memory to track your leads, investing in a solid CRM can dramatically improve your efficiency & help you hit your goals faster.

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Likewise, look at your operations, the systems and processes you use, and streamline them so you’re being as productive as possible. Or, if you aren’t already using systems and processes, look at what you’re doing over and over again -- then systematize it so it’s repeatable.

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And, if you’ve been in business for an extended length of time, understanding your numbers, setting KPIs (key performance indicators) and tracking your numbers will help you monitor the business’ performance month-over-month. 

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Here’s some of the KPIs you want to monitor:

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• Return On Investment
• Net Operating Income
• Appointment To Contract Conversion Rate
• Appointments Booked
• Cash Flow
• Internal Rate of Return

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If you want to learn how to easily audit your business the right way, to make sure you’re hitting your goals faster, click the link below. 

Take The 5-Day Audit Challenge Now!

2. Stack Your Data For Targeted Marketing

Don’t take your lists and just start sending out mass mailers.

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Instead, take the data you have and start refining it down into smaller, more targeted lists.

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To give you an example, let’s say you’ve pulled lists of vacant properties, tax delinquent properties, inherited properties, and properties with active code violations.

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You can send campaigns to each of those different lists with a message specifically tailored to their unique situation and see good results.

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With list stacking, though, you’re able to uncover even higher motivation levels.

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Taking those 4 lists, you would start combining and filtering through the data to uncover properties that meet multiple different criteria. Like absentee owners with vacant properties. Or absentee owners who are delinquent on their tax bills.

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While the list size may be smaller, the message you can use to get their attention will be even more targeted and the likelihood of them entertaining an offer goes up significantly.

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Here are some other sophisticated lists you can stack in REISift…

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• Exhausted Records (homeowners you haven’t been able to contact by phone)
• Offer Made But No Response
• Lead Temperature (Hot, Cold, or Lukewarm)
• List Stacking, Count (only filter records that fit a certain number of lists)

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… and LOTS of others. In fact, we’ve got the most sophisticated list stacker in the industry. 

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For a more in-depth guide on stacking lists, uncovering higher motivation levels, and examples of high-performing list combinations, check out the guide below. 

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Learn More: What is List Stacking? How to Find Highly Motivated Sellers

3. Improve Your Google Rankings

SEO, or “search engine optimization”, is one of the best marketing channels you can use to grow your real estate investing business — outside of paid advertising and direct mail.

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When it comes to improving your Google rankings, there’s two things you can do.

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The first is making sure your website is optimized for the keywords you want to rank for.

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To give you an example, let’s say you want to rank for “sell my house fast dallas” — a search term that gets around 720 searches per month.

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Ranking #1 for that keyword would be a significant increase in your lead flow.

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To optimize your website to rank for it, the first thing you want to do is make sure you have a page or blog post on your website that’s titled “How To Sell My House Fast In Dallas”. This will let the search engine algorithms know what the page is about.

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Then, the next thing you’ll need to do is start promoting your website or business on other people’s websites so you have links pointing back to yours.

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These links are like votes in a popularity contest in the eyes of Google’s algorithm. The more links you have, the more popular your website looks -- and the more Google wants to rank it.

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To get started, connect with local bloggers and provide tips on helping people sell their home, getting the highest price possible, etc, with a link pointing back to your site and the page that you want to rank. Your page on selling homes fast in Dallas, in this example.

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Learn More: 8 Proven Lead Generation Tactics for Real Estate Investors

4. Find A+ Cash Buyers (Or Lenders)

If you’re wholesaling properties, building a network of A+ cash buyers is critical to keep your business moving forward.

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If you’re using a model like fix-and-flip, having a network of lenders who can help you get deals done fast is just as important.

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There’s a few ways to make this happen.

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The first, like we mentioned in tip #2, is to improve your Google search rankings.

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Ranking for keywords like “investment properties in {CITY}”, and “real estate deals in {CITY}” are great ways to start building your email list of cash buyers that you can announce new deals to when you’re ready to start marketing them.

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But you don’t just want to rely on your email list. You want to be proactive about building relationships with cash buyers or lenders in your area so you always have options.

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Branching out and attending networking events, going to foreclosure auctions, or using software like ListSource to increase your reach so you can get more deals funded and contracts flipped.

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Learn More: 10 Ways To Find Real Estate Cash Buyers in Your Market

5. Juice Your Data For All Its Worth

Don’t make the same mistake so many investors make with their data.

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When you’ve built your lists, don’t just market it one time, toss the data out, and then pull new lists to start marketing again — only to rinse and repeat the same mistake.

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Instead, plug the data you have into a CRM like REISift to make sure you’re getting every last deal possible from it.

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REISift helps you track the offers you’ve made and take notes on the responses you’ve gotten from people so you’re never trying to remember what offers have been made and where you left off the conversation with the owner.

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You can also track the calls you’ve made and whether or not the numbers you’re calling are good or if you need to skip trace for better data.

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You’re able to filter through your lists to drill down and stack your data so the marketing you do is even more effective while also keeping notes on any homeowners who you haven’t been able to contact yet so you can use REISift’s built-in direct mail features to send them mail, instead.

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If you want to grow your real estate investing business, though, you want to start treating your data like the gold it contains and juice it for all its worth — not discard it after the first use.

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Learn More: The Ultimate Real Estate Investor Marketing Plan: Better Data, More Deals

6. Drive For Dollars

Getting to know the areas that you’re working in most often is never a bad idea.

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Which is why driving for dollars and beating the streets is one of the best things you can do to grow your real estate investing business.

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Not only does it put you square in the middle of the areas you want to work in the most, but it is one of the best sources of off-market deals that you’ll ever use.

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Now, it isn’t the most efficient way to find properties, but it is incredibly effective.

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You don’t have to do it all the time since it’s a strategy that doesn’t scale very well but it’s worth doing at least once or twice a week.

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You can drive through the areas you want to work in while you’re heading to the office, on your way to the gym, or when you have some downtime on a Saturday afternoon and want to do something other than relax around the house.

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Your main goal is to keep an eye out for signs of distressed properties -- overgrown lawns, bad paint, old roofs, uncollected newspapers, notices on the doors and windows, etc.

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Then, write down the addresses of those properties and skip trace the owner’s information so you can start a conversation with them. 

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Learn More: What is Driving For Dollars? [Complete Guide]

7. Run Radio Ads

One great old-school strategy you can use to grow your business is running radio ads.

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Not many investors actually do it which is why it’s such a great strategy — if you do it right.

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It’s an excellent way to get in front of your market and start drawing sellers out and into conversations with you about their properties.

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If you’re going to use this strategy, testing is the name of the game. You’ll need to figure out the right stations to advertise on, the right time to advertise, the right message to use, the right pain points to touch on, and the right call to action that will get your phone ringing.

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You can’t rely on the radio station to give you this information, either. While they’re great at radio, the same can’t be said for their advertising experience for the real estate industry.

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It’s not a full-on guessing game, though.

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If you want to test the strategy, click here to listen to a podcast episode where Chris Arnold breaks down how he’s made radio advertising work for his business.

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He’s made all the mistakes, learned all the lessons, and figured out exactly what works in the real estate industry and lays it all out for you on that podcast episode.

Take The 5-Day Audit Challenge Now!

8. Be Consistent With Your Marketing

Marketing is a numbers game and the fortune is in the followup — not the first contact.

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Many times, a person won’t actually respond to you until the 5th, 6th, 7th, even 10th or 12th time you’ve contacted them.

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That means you need to be consistently marketing to the same lists over and over again. The followup you do with those contacts really will determine how quickly your business grows.

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On top of that, being consistent month over month is crucial, regardless of the marketing methods you’re using. You don’t want to send 1,000 mailers one month, start working the leads, and then not mail again for 2 or 3 more months.

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Treat your marketing like a pipeline and keep it as full as possible all the time. The more people you feed into it, the more consistent your deal flow will be — as long as you’re organized.

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Your goal should be having prospects at every stage in your sales pipeline so you never feel the rollercoaster or feast and famine so many investors feel because they market hard for a bit then take their foot off the gas pedal to catch up with the new leads they’ve brought in.

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Staying organized with a CRM like REISift will help you stay on top of your marketing so you can stay consistent from month to month without feeling overwhelmed.

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Learn More: How to Use a CRM as a Real Estate Investor

9. Use Creative Financing

If you’re not able to get funding fast, or you’re short on cash when it comes time to getting a deal funded, it can cost you big. Speed is the name of the game.

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That means you’ll want to tap into some of the more creative financing strategies to make sure you’re not having to walk away from great deals.

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There’s quite a few different ways to get them funded, too.

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For example…

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• Subject to
• Seller finance
• Morby method
• Cash-out refinance
• Hard money
• Private money
• STABBL Loans
• Installment Contracts
• Business Credit Lines
• Home Equity Loan
• Cross Collateralization
• Self-directed IRA
• BRRRR Method
• Crowdfunding

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Look through the list and determine which ones may be a “path of least resistance” strategy for you right now. Especially the “Subject To” strategy that can help you alleviate a seller’s tough financial situation while also giving you the ability to immediately take over a cash-flowing asset.

10. Stay Flexible With Your Investing Strategy

When you’re just starting your investing business, focusing on one model and learning the in’s and out’s of it is highly recommended.

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However, if you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve probably had to pass up on deals that didn’t fit into the specific model you’ve gotten familiar with.

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That means you’ll want to branch out and start educating yourself on the different investing strategies that are available. This will keep you from having to pass on deals.

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To give you an example, let’s say you’re looking for fix-and-flips but you find a great deal on a property in an area with high rents. In that case, buying and holding the property so you can rent it out for far more than you’re paying on the mortgage may make more sense.

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Likewise, if you’re fixing and flipping but you come across properties you don’t necessarily want to invest in, understanding how to wholesale them and flip the contract to another investor could help you put more coin in your pocket -- instead of passing on the deal.

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Getting familiar with the different investing strategies that are available to you will help you get more deals done and may even unlock profits that you typically have to pass on.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking to grow your real estate investing business, the tips on this list are great for helping you consistently make more money.

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However, it all revolves around the first tip we gave you: audit your business.

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From your marketing, to your sales, lead management, and operations, understanding where you can move the needle -- and what’s already optimized -- is critical.

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Without auditing what you’re already doing, all you’re actually doing is making uneducated guesses about where you can grow and where you should focus your energy moving forward.

Take The 5-Day Audit Challenge Now!