Hi

Im looking at property sourcing as a p/t time job to start with, before i get too into it, How time consuming is it?, and can most of it be outsourced?, and what money can i expect to earn as a sourcer?

Dave

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07412487926

Contact me for ready made deals northwest-REAL CASHBUYERS WANTED

'The brave may not live forever...but the cautious do not live at all' richard branson
www.fastcompletion.com

The absolute definitive answer, Dave, is... yes you can make a full time living from property sourcing - if you have what it takes (dedication, lateral thinking, risk management). If you get it right, you could become very rich very quickly. We have several such finders who work full time, supplying us.

As you will not be buying for yourself, you need to source where reliable buyers want to buy. I would suggest that, in the current market, the best place to focus your efforts is the South East corner of England - say a 50 mile radius of London.

There are certainly bargains to be had around the rest of the country - and you may find a buyer... eventually. But if this is to be your principal source of income, then you need to be sure the property and location suits the extremely few available fast and reliable buyers.

You really need to work backwards, as my words above suggest... find your buyers first, and learn about what and where they buy, then; identify the most certain and profitable opportunities.

Let me share my personal opinion based upon my painful experience of the last 12 months...

Firstly, buyers... it is almost impossible to find a reliable source of traditional buyers who use buy-to-let mortgages. Yes, you will find the odd one or two buyers who are lucky enough to succeed in obtaining a mortgage - but I doubt you'll find an outlet that can provide a steady stream of reliable buyers. We've tried half a dozen such outlets - all of whom now struggle to find buyers who can complete quickly or at all. Abort rates are easily higher than 90% in our experience! Also, if you want an income stream sufficient to sustain you, forget supplying to the new-wave Lease Option and Assisted Sale outlets... you won't receive much per deal (typically only hundreds of pounds) and, for assisted sales you may not be paid for months (because they rely upon selling via estate agent methods).

And now, sourcing... we've tried most of the high volume web-based finders, but they do not suit the current market. Most of them were very good at providing leads that, if you could go back a few years and find a good source of amateur property buyers who didn't care too much about property type and location, would work wonders. However, because you're talking about a business model where you have to provide yourself with a reliable source of income, you MUST focus on property types and locations where the very few cash buyers will be keen to buy. Identify these requirements, and focus your sourcing efforts tightly. Web-based advertising will not work. You need to have professional sourcing contacts in the locations of interest (such as solicitor, surveyors, IFA's, etc.). Local forms of advertising will win over web advertising if you need to focus your efforts.

What financial rewards are available?... what if I said you could earn a year's salary in one deal? And you could do several deals per month? This is what our sourcers can achieve.

Forget about what worked a year or two ago. TIMES HAVE CHANGED. Two years ago if you found a £75k property in Hull for a buyer who could pay £50k, you may have received a £1k finder fee. Because there were streams of buyers available in those days, you could shift half a dozen of these per month and make yourself £6k per month (nice!). That won't work these days - because you'll struggle to find a stream of buyers in most locations. Secondly, if you did find buyers, they'd very likely fail to complete the purchase due to BTL lenders now sniffing out most BMV cases. This does not provide a robust source of income.

NOWADAYS, I suggest that only genuine cash buyers, and buyers with private funds, can satisfy your goals. Be warned, though, as there are individuals and firms advertising on this forum claiming they are "cash" buyers, but really cannot help you on a sustainable basis. Many are not cash buyers at all - they're simply trying it on to get your business. Those who are genuine cash buyers, usually have one or two million pounds and can take only a few deals per month in total. This is better than nothing, but won't get you the volume of transactions you need to do this full-time.

I don't want to blatantly advertise our company, but let me tell you about a typical case in order to help answer your question... One of our finders, who sources from professional contacts, is regularly providing medium and high value leads to us within London M25. A recent example is a large derilict property in SW Outer London (13,000 sqft), worth around £6m in its current state. Initially negotiated down to £4.4m by the finder, I managed to negotiate it down to £3.5m. Our finders get paid 5% of the discount achieved upon completion so, in this case, the finder gets £125k - just for this one deal. Unlike most of our competitors, we directly represent a buyer for London residential and commercial deals who always has at least £150m HARD CASH available, and works with syndicates to provide cash for individual transactions above £150m. Finders fees can be paid in as little as one week for the right deals! Outside London, and for portfolios too, we represent over £0.5bn of "cash" buyers (buyers who do not need to raise finance).

I hope this has helped you.

Analyse and plan against your risks - then just DO IT!

Best wishes,

__________________
AlanO
Leads wanted in England, Scotland and Wales. We buy Cash/Nett. Market-leading fees paid
NEW IMPROVED: We pay any fee! for pre-agreed London 25%+ BMV deals. We buy with hard cash. See website for conditions
www.LeadIntroducer.co.uk

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Dave

I think Alan hits this spot on, whilst it may be easier to source "potential deals" outside the South East, finding an investor and getting the transaction through to completion so you get paid is tough. However, it can be certainly done, if the figures are genuine i.e. MV is not over estimated, and the discount sufficient for the location and property condition.

Whilst we are a much smaller company than what Alan operates, we are a genuine cash buyer of residential property and are always looking for distressed/below market value deals as well as development/refurbishment opportunities in the South East.

Generous finders fees are paid for any business passed to us.

Please feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss how we can help you - we have helped a handful of finders to get started in the past. The idea being, we help you to build a successful business which enables you to find us good deals.

Best regards

Sam
The PMD Group
33 Great Cumberland Place ¦ London ¦ W1H 7TB
Tel: 0800 822 3330 ¦ Fax: 0207 681 1195
Website: The PMD Group

Sam and AlanO

Thanks for the great posts.

It makes sense what you say about finding buyers first (i have two right away lol), trying to find people who can get mortgages i may struggle, So alot of people are buying down south but what about up north, surly there are areas up here where people want to invest?, i guess i need to determine that for myself, iv got some contacts up here so il do some digging, i would need to relocate down south if i was going to source down there, unless i can pre qualify some way then go down?? but for a longterm plan thats not the best idea.

How can i find such deals (30%BMV+) without having professional contacts etc...? the old fashioned leafletting and paper adverts? as im going to start part-time 1 deal every 6 months would do me (if i can make £2-£3k per deal), to start with.


Dave

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07412487926

Contact me for ready made deals northwest-REAL CASHBUYERS WANTED

'The brave may not live forever...but the cautious do not live at all' richard branson
www.fastcompletion.com

Hi Dave.

One of our Funds is interested outside London. HOWEVER, as with any Fund, they only want properties they know they can shift again quickly when they want to.

This means that they might allow us to buy a standard 2-3-4-bed house for them in a very large town in, say, Scotland where there is good employment and therefore demand for property. But they sure as heck won't take anything (for example) in most of Cumbria - because there just isn't the certainty of resale demand there at the moment.

Note that this particular UK-wide Fund will not allow us to buy ex-LA properties, nor anything with a Market Value below £100k - which limits your target areas further.

Sourcing...

Our most successful London finder lives in NE England! He simply spent some time in London building relationships with sources, and now does everything via telephone. Or, taken to another level... I live in Spain, and buy properties all over the UK. You simply need to work out what "contacts" you need.

If you don't have the time (or patience!) for locating professional sources, then leafletting and newspaper ads do work - but you need to carefully identify the locations and property types the buyers are looking for. Sadly, I reckon your home location is a way away from any areas where Funds would wish to buy at the moment. The nearest places would probably be down towards Manchester, or up around Edinburgh and Glasgow. Having said that... if you're going to organise advertising there, then there's not really much difference to dealing with London.

When qualifying a deal that you've sourced from your own advertising, there really is no need to physically visit a property. Wander up and down the street using Google Streetview; get the vendor to provide photos (most are happy to email photos taken using their mobile phone). Ask concise questions about the condition and standard of the property.

If you succeed in finding professional sources, then ask them to do that leg-work for you! Surely this, in itself, is a good reason to seek some out - just so you can delegate to them!

If we're interested in a property after considering your research, we'll pay for a RICS surveyor and local estate agent to undertake a detailed viewing and provide opinions and photos to help us decide whether or not to buy for one of the Funds.

Don't let the geography put you off. If I can do all this from Spain, then you can do it from Cumbria . You simply need to think a bit farther outside the box.

Hope that helps.

__________________
AlanO
Leads wanted in England, Scotland and Wales. We buy Cash/Nett. Market-leading fees paid
NEW IMPROVED: We pay any fee! for pre-agreed London 25%+ BMV deals. We buy with hard cash. See website for conditions
www.LeadIntroducer.co.uk

Total Awards: 3
Total Points: 0

Spain ay? thats great! you must have to come back here alot though?, are you sourcing out in spain too or just uk?

whats your investors criteria? do they rent the props? resell?

whats your role? do you source as well?

As for getting cash buyers, networking? and advertising?

Sorry for all the questions!

__________________
07412487926

Contact me for ready made deals northwest-REAL CASHBUYERS WANTED

'The brave may not live forever...but the cautious do not live at all' richard branson
www.fastcompletion.com

There's no reason why you can't make £10k per deal. I source my own deals and prefer to sell them myself mainly through the auctions rather than sell for a finders fee. I either get them under contract on an option agreement or get a JV financial partner to help with buying them.

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Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve. - J. K. Rowling

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Hi Dave. Let me answer your questions...

During the last 12 months I have been back to the UK only once - and that was for less than 24 hours - simply to meet a bank in the hope of obtaining my own funding again (no joy, sadly).

Now why would I want to go back to UK? I work my butt off almost solidly from 6am to 10pm 7 days a week - but I can do that sat out on the terrace next to the pool, with views of over 50 miles across the sea and around the bay, views across a 27-hole golf course, mountain views too. My family visit and stay with us, our granddaughter stays with us every year throughout the summer holidays.

One of my associates, Greg Jackson (who currently looks after some marketing aspects), flew out to Spain for a meeting with me and enjoyed a short break too.

Unless you are someone who NEEDS regular touchy-feely interaction, remote-working seems like an almost perfect solution.

I have seamless access via the internet to my sales agents and my General Manager in the UK who look after the low value leads whilst I look after the high value stuff myself. The telephone system is also seamless, courtesy of Voice Over IP - so customers and suppliers have no idea I'm in Spain unless I choose to tell them.

For the record - don't interpret my living in Spain as an indication of me being affluent. In reality I'm stone broke. The recession killed me when it kicked in and stopped me from buying and extracting "cashbacks". It took me YEARS of hard talking, and networking (via the forums), and some chance encounters during an FSA briefing session in London a couple of years ago, to develop a network of cash buyers and proficient sourcers. It will take some time to clear the credit and arrangements that have tided me over throughout the last years - but then I can finally go back to my plan to "retire" (my definition: to work when I wish).

No, I'm not presently sourcing in Spain. The market turned against me when I moved here 4 years ago. However, this year the market seems to have firmly turned back to a rising market. I shall wait until Autumn and maybe start sourcing here again - if the banks start lending again (they're currently even more cautious than UK banks!).

I buy mainly for Investment Funds (such as Pension Funds). In some cases I directly represent and act on behalf of them, in some cases I actually buy via my own company then transfer to them upon completion, and in other cases I simply "introduce" deals to them.

Most of the Funds, in this current market, are reselling most of the properties almost straight away - keeping only the best rent-yielding properties as long-term investments.

Criterion... quite simple when distilled down to the bone... 30% "meat" required after all costs taken into consideration; must be highly resellable at a price that allows for 30% "meat" to be taken. Price no object... anything above £100k. Biggest single purchase (not via me) was £1.1bn, hot off press: I now have a Fund with several £bn ***CASH*** available for highly discounted hotel opportunities in London!

We do anything and everything - but now undertake very little of our own advertising. Just about all of our leads are obtained from a vast network of sourcers. At one end of the scale we have some very amateur sourcers providing the odd £100k lead every few months, at the other end of the scale some full time professionals who hobnob with unbelievably rich and powerful international figures (e.g. Celebrities and Royal Families) who wish to sell properties at any price as long as they can be kept off-market.

Often, our sourcing network is 4 or 5 levels deep - so we usually agree to deal directly with the coalface once a potential deal has been brokered - usually copying correpondence to the top end of the chain to provide transparency.

Sorry for the length of this post - but I needed you to see that, if you put a lot of thought and effort into this, you CAN make it work no matter where you are geographically located.

(Perhaps I should write a book entitled "Remote BMVing"?! I don't have the time at moment though!)

Best wishes.

__________________
AlanO
Leads wanted in England, Scotland and Wales. We buy Cash/Nett. Market-leading fees paid
NEW IMPROVED: We pay any fee! for pre-agreed London 25%+ BMV deals. We buy with hard cash. See website for conditions
www.LeadIntroducer.co.uk

Total Awards: 3
Total Points: 0

Hi Karispirit,

On your post you mentioned that you do options or contracts on the properties and sell them at auction.

I never fully understood this concept, because if your literally signing an agreement with the seller and then taking it to auction. Isn't this something that the seller could do just as easily, but without the third party?

I'm sure i'm missing something, but this seems a bit too straight forward

Any chance you could elaborate further on this?

Thank you

Rob

Dave Hi!
Firstly I would like to thank you for asking the questions!
Secondly I would like to thank AlanO for opening up and giving such in depth responses.
Thank you both.

__________________
Andy de Gruyther (andy@a2bproperty.co.uk)
You just never can tell what you least expect! (Wise words from a Cumbrian Farmer)
Looking for BMV in Cumbria and the North West

Hi Rob,
Most of the time vendors want and/or need certainty (and I can't get mortgages any more).

I tell the vendor either I will buy it in a certain period of time or I will find someone else to buy it and how I find that person is up to me. Me taking care of some of their financial pressures is obviously a big motivating factor for a lot of them as well.

Majority of the time vendors either can't afford to put the property into auction themselves and/or they don't have the confidence to. There are upfront entry fees to pay as well as the final sale commission fees ( I negotiate with the auction house to pay them at the back end) and/or the vendors are scared by the whole auction process and think that they will lose control of their property and all their equity in it once it goes into auction.

By setting the deal up this way I have found it gives the vendor certainty as they then know how much they are going to get and they have a time frame in which they are going to get it.

Of course there's always a chance the property doesn't sell at auction but if I set it at the right price and I put it into auction at the right price most of the time it will sell.

I really enjoyed reading your post about how you manage your business from Spain alan. It has given me a lot of encouragement, inspiration and confidence as I intend to do the same from Florida.

Caroline

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Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve. - J. K. Rowling

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Thanks for that Caroline, its good to hear how other investors are making deals, and I think for me that was one method I have always over looked.

Maybe worth visiting a few auction houses soon

No probs andy!, im glad people like alan reply to my posts with great depth.

__________________
07412487926

Contact me for ready made deals northwest-REAL CASHBUYERS WANTED

'The brave may not live forever...but the cautious do not live at all' richard branson
www.fastcompletion.com

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Alano-

I agree with caroline, i find it inspiring that you can do this remotely from anywhere, ever since i read the 4 hour work week i have been looking for my 'muse' and property is my passion. Can i ask alan do you have any rentals property of your own in the uk? (you did mention resession hurt you) reason i ask is if you do do you use L/A's? can property portfolios be run remotely? (i mean long term sustainable?)

The thing that i like about sourcing is start up costs are low!

So Alan for someone starting out as a sourcer with limited funds (got a website) and with my plan of earning thousands a year through sourcing and building my own portfolio (with the profits) and a view to running as much of the business as possible remotely or outsourced, What should be the first steps i take?

I have a big white board up at home with 'Research' on it, im looking at affordabillity areas, regeneration areas, but as you have said start from the end, as in with the 'buyer' its turned my research plan upside down as i dont have any buyers!, i was relying on posting leads on property sites like this, and offering J.V's on them maybe, i dont even have a database, So now im looking at buyers, and the severe shortgage of them and thinking how can i find these 'cash rich' people? or even mortagable people with deposits?

Im currently doing a J.V with a sourcer from liverpool who is very sucsessfull and i enjoy learning from who has given me alot of time, its people like this who i think highly of as why should they help me? they have no vested intrest as such, just 'good people' helping a newbie on a journey to financial freedom, after the whole Rapid property thing im determined to get back on my feet and make a decent living through property, and after relising there are still good people out there it gives me strength and hope!, some people do have vested intrests in trying to educate newbies, but i think im getting better at spotting those



Hope im not rambling to much!



With a clear defined plan i know i can and will make a sucsess of it

Thanks

Dave

__________________
07412487926

Contact me for ready made deals northwest-REAL CASHBUYERS WANTED

'The brave may not live forever...but the cautious do not live at all' richard branson
www.fastcompletion.com

Hi Dave.

The "4 Hour Work Week" is one of my guides too. However, since the recession hit me hard, I have had to temporarily become an "employee" of my business because there has not been enough cashflow to "pay other people" to do everything (that being the essence of the 4 Hour Work Week, and indeed all entrepreneurial fundamentals, including "E-Myth" - my other guide). Fortunately for me, my "Cash Buyers" are now slowly pulling me out of my recession, and I'm looking forward to having more time to myself again (hopefully later on this year).

You certainly seem to have the right attitude - so hopefully you will succeed. The learning process is very much ongoing though, so don't hold back from starting out, expecting to feel that you've learnt enough. I've been 100% fulltime in property investment since 2002, and I'm still on a steep learning curve (as you will see from some of my posts - especially the one regarding me trying to expand the number of my cash buyers).

Yes, I do have my own rental property portfolio in UK - just under 100 properties. They are all managed by letting agents. There are two key reasons for me using letting agents... (1) I didn't wish to do this myself, I wanted to utilise "other people", and; (2) there are an increasingly large number of regulatory requirements of being a landlord, and I'd rather pay a knowledgeable expert to keep up-to-date on all the regs.

Interestingly, I started off using letting agents dotted all around the country near to my properties - but now I have settled on one letting agent who manages the whole lot remotely. The key for them is to find reliable tradesmen and entrust them into also undertaking some of the procedural aspects such as facilitating viewings, checking up on empty properties, etc.

Don't get too hung up on starting at the end of the process and first finding the perfect buyer. If you can find good deals you should be able to find a buyer somehow then, once you have some movement, you can then seek out better buyers. It is still possible to pass deals to "old-fashioned" ready made deal outlets (we do just that for cases that are not suitable for our Cash/Fund Buyers) - just be prepared for disappointment when deal after deal is delayed endlessly due to buyers' mortgage applications being declined.

First steps to sourcing with a vew to working remotely/outsourcing...

Do SOMETHING!

Key aspects of research...

Establish where reliable (cash) buyers wish to buy. My company's requirements (stated earlier in this thread) will give you a fair degree of guidance - because each new Fund or Cash Buyer I come across seems to be looking in much the same areas with the same requirements. It largely distills down to this... we'll buy anything anywhere as long as we can be confident of reasonably quickly making a 20% nett return. This can easily be achieved within London but, with a bit of hard work, can be made to work anywhere (e.g. by negotiating much deeper discounts).

My solution to sourcing attractive leads... seek out professional finders who have good contacts and/or have large amounts of cash to pay for expensive marketing campaigns.

So, my suggestion to you... establish your own network of sourcers. You will struggle to find huge volumes of attractive leads quickly yourself unless you have large amounts of cash to undertake expensive marketing campaigns. You can, of course, build your own marketing up slowly but, in my opinion, it's very hard to do so at this present time.

I think the essence of all this is... be prepared to be the man in the middle (especially if you wish to work remotely).

Best wishes.

__________________
AlanO
Leads wanted in England, Scotland and Wales. We buy Cash/Nett. Market-leading fees paid
NEW IMPROVED: We pay any fee! for pre-agreed London 25%+ BMV deals. We buy with hard cash. See website for conditions
www.LeadIntroducer.co.uk

Total Awards: 3
Total Points: 0