Increase your property deal flow

One of the most critical challenges (after finding the money) for property investors is having a steady stream of good deals.

Are you finding it difficult to get good deals?

To build a steady stream, you need to be finding good deals, and some of us are falling at the first hurdle for a variety of reasons:

1. Just starting out and haven’t earned the right to get the best deals yet

2. Not sure/don’t know what a good deal looks like

3. Not having good estate agents pushing deals to us

4. Not knowing how to market direct to vendor and negotiate a great deal

5. Rejecting too many deals and finding the offers dry up.

For many of us just starting out, we don’t know what we need to keep our deal pipeline in good flow.

How many viewings do you need to make an offer?

How many offers do you need to make to get a deal accepted?

How many estate agents are there locally who can source and deliver the best deals and opportunities?

How many financiers and/or Joint Venture partners do you need lined up to finance agreed deals?

Deals don’t fall into your lap. You need to make them happen, and the best ones tend not to be those that get agreed immediately.

You will find that deals that have been ‘pipelined’ over months or even years where the motivation to sell has increased, or the price dropped, or deals fell through etc., are more likely to be the best ones.

According to Rob Moore of Progressive Property:

“The best deals out of the 720 we’ve bought or managed have been ones we negotiated on for two years or more. We viewed it two years ago, it wasn’t right (likely too expensive), and we got a diary reminder that popped up every eight weeks to check in to see how the deal was progressing”.

A simple ‘Pipelining’ technique to increase your incoming deal flow

For every viewing – enter the details into your CRM system (if you don’t have one read this). That’s contact and offer details, plus notes on the agents and vendor.

Then put a recurring eight-week reminder in your diary (outlook, google calendar – whatever you use, but it has to be an automated system). Some CRMs can do this for you too.

When that reminder pops up every eight weeks, you put in a call or an email to the agent or vendor. You’re just ‘checking in’ with progress on that deal, or putting in a lower offer, or a reminder that you are still interested in buying etc.

Doing this over a few months means that you will soon have daily reminders of deals pipelined and a huge deal flow.

Deals can and do change over time, so revisiting them every eight weeks puts you in the strongest position if it becomes a great deal for you!

Ultimately no viewing is a waste of time. Every viewing goes into your pipeline until it is sold.

If you don’t get a deal, chances are you will have benefited in another way – built relationships learned something new etc.

Importantly, track your numbers. You might get one in 10, or one in 50 viewings turn into a deal – know your ratios.

Here are our Super Tips:

1. Keep filling your pipeline, because deals and finance will fall through.

2. Have a good pipeline of back up buyers, financiers, agents, tenants, etc.).

3. Don’t get fussy – you can be selective later once you have the experience to spot the deals that are unlikely to go through.

4. Don’t stop til you get enough – when you think you have what you need remember you don’t, keep going!

About the author

Steven Lai is a property investor, founder of Super Developments and creator of CRM for Property Success. He is a CRM expert with over 12 years commercial experience of managing sales teams.

Join the CRM for Property Success Facebook Group to ask him anything (about CRM, property or 80's trivia!).