How to Find Houses to Flip for Profit in 7 Ways
Gina is a licensed real estate salesperson, experienced trainer, and former high school educator of 1,000+ learners. She writes for Fit Small Business with a focus on real estate content.
Kaylee specializes in real estate, B2B, and SaaS companies. You can find her expertise in sales and real estate content on Fit Small Business.
Searching for houses to flip is a slightly different process than looking for a primary home for your family or turnkey rental investment property. Houses for flipping are typically distressed or worn down and in need of a wide range of repairs or renovations, which flippers can leverage to make a profit once the property is fixed. Finding homes to flip in this condition can be done through popular online listing websites or through manual and creative methods like searching public records and advertising on signs.
In this article, we explore seven of the best ways to find houses to flip:
1. Online Real Estate Listing Sites
Real estate listing websites are the most popular sources of investment properties, so it’s a logical place to start finding homes to flip. They are generally easy to use and provide you with extensive property and local market data that help you learn how to find houses to flip.
Zillow displays the tax history and monthly mortgage estimations on each listing. (Source: Zillow)
Zillow provides extensive search filters like price, square footage, location, type of property, and home features. It allows you to search for keywords like “as is” or “opportunity.” Plus, it provides detailed property information, sales history, value and payment estimations, and market data. Other real estate site options that show you where to find houses to flip include:
- Realtor.com
- Trulia
- Loopnet
- Foreclosure.com
- FSBO.com
- PropertyShark
- Roofstock
- Auction.com
- Craigslist
- RealtyTrac
While popular listing websites are certainly valuable, flippers benefit from websites that offer preforeclosures, for sale by owner (FSBO) sales, and auctions where they’ll find the most feasible options for fix-and-flip projects. These properties are often listed at lower prices than other properties of similar size and are frequently sold “as is.” The homesellers are unwilling or unable to make any improvements before closing. This allows flippers to buy homes cheaper, fix them up, and then sell them for top dollar.
Powered by Foreclosure.com
To search specifically for properties in the midst of foreclosure, look at Foreclosure.com or start using the widget above. It has over 1.3 million listings in various stages of the foreclosure process, including fixer-uppers and as-is deals. Search for homes in your location and get property data for $39.80 per month. Fix-and-flip investors can increase their profitability and return on investment (ROI) by leveraging these properties.
To get more details on these online property listing sites, visit our guide How to Find Investment Properties for Sale.
2. Real Estate Professionals
Local real estate professionals are valuable resources for any new or aspiring flipper learning how to find cheap properties to flip. Professionals can include real estate agents or brokers, wholesalers, or mortgage brokers. They can provide you with firsthand insight into the local real estate market, ideal neighborhoods for finding houses to flip, and real-time updates on potential properties.
Learn more about the types of real estate professionals by clicking the tabs below:
Agents and brokers are two of the best sources of information, properties, and connections you have available. They have access to the MLS, a large pool of buyer and seller connections, and actively and consistently spend time in a variety of neighborhoods in your community. Hence, they know areas that are ideal for flipping. They can often pinpoint distressed properties or get in touch with distressed sellers more quickly than any other platform or lead source.
Wholesalers focus on finding distressed properties, but don’t have to also manage the purchase, renovation, and sale of each property. This means that they are more focused on finding deals and may be an incredible source of how to find houses to flip. In addition, their success depends on finding an investor like you to purchase the home.
Mortgage professionals may have inside information about homeowners struggling financially and looking for a way out of their homes. By being connected with a finance professional, you may be able to find a property before it’s even in preforeclosure and simultaneously help someone out of a bad situation.
Working with a real estate professional helps you build more connections in your community more quickly. Agents and wholesalers generally have extensive networks of homebuyers and sellers, and they may be able to locate a distressed property from one of their connections quickly.
Pro tip: Once you’re ready to sell your fix-and-flip property, enlist the help of a real estate agent—unless you decide to become a real estate agent yourself. The general process requires fulfilling prelicensing coursework, passing the real estate exam, submitting an application, and finding a sponsoring brokerage. To review the specific requirements in your state, visit our article How to Get a Real Estate License in Every State.
3. Manually Search for Potential Properties
Even though most real estate transactions start with online listings, this isn’t the only way to find cheap houses to flip. In fact, there are multiple offline strategies to help you find a house to flip. While they will take more time and effort than searching online or speaking with real estate professionals, they can be a lucrative way to find properties to flip.
Check out this list of offline sources for finding properties to flip:
- Public records
- Tax records
- Probate court
- Driving for dollars
Manually looking through public records and tax records will show you properties with delinquent mortgage payments or taxes. This indicates that the homeowners may be in financial trouble, which means they may be open to receiving an offer to buy their home. Another creative place to find homes to flip is in probate court. Probate properties are usually neglected homes because they’ve been left to someone who doesn’t want the responsibility.
Sample probate document (Source: pdfFiller)
When you’re searching for information about how to find homes to flip, you will probably see suggestions to “drive for dollars.” Driving for dollars means actively driving through local neighborhoods and searching for houses to flip. It can be time-consuming and challenging, but it’s a great strategy to find off-market properties and essentially eliminate a competing investor from making an offer.
Contact information from REDX (Source: REDX)
While offline strategies for finding houses to flip are incredibly effective, they are also time-consuming. One of the best ways to find houses to flip using these methods—without spending hours digging through records or driving through neighborhoods—is by using REDX.
REDX is a prospecting platform that automatically searches through thousands of databases to find the most updated and accurate information on FSBO properties, preforeclosures, and expired listings. It even includes an easy-to-use contact management system to stay on top of all communications and potential deals.
4. Networking
Building a network is a core element of any successful real estate investing business. To be successful in finding, fixing, and flipping properties, you need a variety of connections that include other real estate investors, real estate professionals, financial professionals, home improvement professionals, and active members of the community.
To connect with other flippers and investors, search for fix-and-flip associations in your area or state on Google or Meetup. There are many state-specific groups, like Brooklyn Flippers and Funders and Fix & Flip Real Estate Investors of Denver. The Real Estate Investors Association (REIA) also has local chapters in most states and cities, like the REIA of Washington and Miami-Dade REIA.
Arizona Real Estate Investors Association offerings (AZREIA)
Another great place to search is Flipper Force, where you can search your location and find even more investing and flipping groups and connection sources. Each group or meeting listed includes details about the group, meeting dates and locations, and a contact name and number.
Real estate investor group search (Source: Flipper Force)
The more connected you are with your network, the more potential houses for flipping you’ll be able to find and evaluate. For example, other local real estate investors are more likely to find distressed properties in ideal locations than one of your family members, and it may not be the right fit for their current financial goals. You’ll also learn invaluable information and tips from other real estate professionals, like what to look for when buying a house to flip and even how other house flippers find houses and generate a profit.
On the other hand, being connected to active members of the community—even if they don’t have real estate experience or knowledge—is a key strategy to building awareness. The more people who know that you are a flipper and want to buy worn-down properties to renovate, the more easily you’ll be able to find and contact homesellers.
5. Marketing & Advertising
While you’re learning how to find houses to flip and going through your first fix and flip, you may not necessarily need to invest in a comprehensive marketing plan to generate a profit from one property. Buying and flipping one property is possible without having a brand or authority in the community, but you’ll need to increase your marketing and advertising efforts if you want to make money flipping houses long term or full time.
Learning how to advertise and target distressed properties can be challenging for new investors, but various methods can work for you. In fact, marketing and advertising as a home flipper are not much different from marketing as a real estate agent. Both methods involve pinpointing your audience and implementing a plan to reach them and bring awareness to your business.
Some of the most effective ways to market yourself and find properties to flip include the following:
A website is like having a home base, where potential partners, sellers, or team members can learn more about you and decide whether to reach out to you. Even a one-page website with simple yet professional information about who you are and what you do can help you find houses to fix and flip. With GoDaddy, you can easily get a domain and set up a beautiful, easy-to-manage website in a matter of hours.
Advertising on platforms like Google and Facebook can help you reach thousands of people at a relatively affordable cost. Digital advertising also provides more detailed targeting options, so you are more likely to reach people with distressed properties. Plus, running real estate Facebook ads is included and simplified with tools Real Geeks.
Mailers are seen as a more traditional method of marketing, but they’re still extremely effective for investors. Plus, using a real estate direct mail service like ProspectsPLUS! automates the process, so you can send comprehensive mail campaigns without wasting time.
You’ve probably seen real estate signs on street corners saying “we buy houses.” These are called bandit signs and can be an affordable and effective way to capture the attention of homeowners in financial trouble.
Real estate flyers from VistaPrint (Source: VistaPrint)
Although marketing can be complex, using the right tools simplifies the process. In fact, you can create marketing materials in a matter of hours with VistaPrint, including designing and distributing mailers, signs, and promotional products. VistaPrint provides an easy-to-use design platform and design services, and offers a wide variety of customizable products. Learn more about how VistaPrint can help you scale your flipping business.
6. Auctions
Most real estate auctions sell houses that are bank-owned, foreclosed, short sales, or in preforeclosure. This makes them an ideal place to find homes to flip because starting bids are usually well below market value, and the final sale amount only depends on your budget and your competition. Real estate auctions can happen in person or online through platforms like Auction.com or RealtyTrac, and the government’s website for HUD Homes. You can also search for local auction houses near your location to attend a live auction.
Auction.com foreclosure listing (Source: Auction.com)
With online auctions, the due diligence paperwork and financial estimations are often included in the property listing. This makes it easy for investors to thoroughly evaluate the property before participating in the auction and increases the chances of getting a profitable deal. For example, Auction.com provides local comps, rental estimates, sales history, tax history, and neighborhood analyses on every listing.
7. Change of Life Circumstances
Another time when properties in good locations can be offered below market value is when major events happen, like divorce, death, an inheritance, or changes in the executor of an estate. Although this is an unfortunate situation, it provides an opportunity for home flippers.
When these events occur, they often automatically change the ownership of a house or property. In many cases, the person who inherited a house after a family death or divorce ends up being unable to pay for the mortgage or property taxes or wants to offload the property which reduces the costs of flipping a house.
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Catalyze AI lead dashboard (Source: Catalyze AI)
Instead of searching specifically for distressed properties, pay attention to change of life circumstances in local neighborhoods to target potential deals. This is easy to do with Catalyze AI, an event-driven predictive analytics tool. It accurately predicts buying cycles of consumers and homeowners by analyzing hundreds of millions of data points, therefore providing property leads that are more likely to need an investor’s help. Learn more about Catalyze AI today.
Bottom Line
“How do you find houses to flip?” This is one of the most common questions aspiring house flippers ask. The good thing is that there are various methods—both online and offline—to find potential properties and factors to consider in each property. Learning how to find fix-and-flip properties effectively will help you become a successful investor.
You don’t have to become an influencer to use social media effectively. Approximately 4.7 billion people use social media, and they often use it to evaluate whether a business or person is worthy of their trust. Social media is a useful tool for building connections, trust, and authority in your area. Plus, social media tools from Constant Contact allow you to schedule content, create social media ads, and easily view and manage analytics.