If you are just starting out flipping homes you may still be trying to pre-screen sellers yourself. This can be great to get a real feel for this part of the real estate investing business, but at some point you will want to delegate this job. Having someone else pre-screen your sellers not only frees you up for more profitable tasks but also helps you to be able to go into negotiations wiser and with more ammunition so that you can get the best deals for flipping homes.
Remember that pre-screening for flipping homes is about a lot more than just getting to know how many bedrooms and bathrooms a home has or what condition it is in. Most important is finding out what motivation the seller has to sell. Are they just hoping to get the price they want or are they under real pressure to get rid of the home as quickly as possible? Some sellers will give up information such as being behind on payments, being in the middle of a divorce or being forced to downsize due to medical bills. Though many others will not. If you have a good system in place you may even be able to run a quick search on the seller and discover judgements and other issues and pressures they may be under that can help you negotiate a better deal and more profit while you are flipping homes.
One of the most important things you will learn as you pre-screen sellers to help increase your real estate investing profits is to determine what they really need. Perhaps they just need to get out from under the debt and do not need any cash at all or may be they are willing to get out of the property for a couple of thousand dollars in order to move into something else. Discover what they need and if the numbers work if you have a deal, if they don’t then do not waste your time and move on to the next one.
