Real Estate Investor Case Study: 15 Off-Market Properties in 90 Days

Client Background

The client is a small, agile real estate investment group focused on acquiring distressed residential properties for renovation and resale (fix-and-flip). Their primary bottleneck was deal flow. They were heavily reliant on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), where they faced intense competition from other investors, driving up acquisition costs and compressing their margins.

The Challenge: Finding Deals Before They Hit the Market

To scale their business, the investment group needed to find a consistent source of off-market deals. This meant identifying motivated sellers—such as absentee owners, homeowners in pre-foreclosure, or those dealing with probate—before their properties were listed publicly. Their attempts at direct mail were inconsistent and untargeted, yielding a low response rate and a high cost per lead.

Our Solution: Data-Driven Direct Outreach

We implemented a data-first approach to solve their deal flow problem. Our strategy focused on precision targeting and enabling effective direct communication:

1. Targeted Data Lists: We provided the client with high-quality, regularly updated lists of motivated sellers in their target counties. This included absentee owners with high equity, properties with pre-foreclosure notices (NOD/NTS), and probate filings.
2. Skip Tracing & Data Enrichment: For each property, we appended accurate contact information for the owners, including direct phone numbers and email addresses, through our advanced skip tracing services. This enabled the client to make direct contact instead of relying solely on mail.
3. Direct Mail Templates: We provided a set of professionally designed and written postcard and letter templates, tailored to the specific circumstances of each list (e.g., a compassionate tone for probate leads, a direct approach for absentee owners).

The Results: A Scalable Acquisition Engine

By shifting from a reactive, MLS-based approach to a proactive, data-driven strategy, the investment group was able to build a predictable and scalable acquisition pipeline. The targeted nature of the lists and the high-quality contact data dramatically increased their response rates and allowed them to secure properties at a more favorable cost basis.