MODULE 07
BUILD THE BUYER SIDE
BEFORE THE CONTRACT.
Most people build the buyer side after they have a contract, under time pressure, with a seller waiting. That is backwards and it is the reason so many contracts get cancelled.
Build it first. It is free, it teaches you underwriting, and it is the part that decides whether you can perform.
Who actually buys
Local renovators
Buy, renovate and resell. Tight criteria, know their submarkets precisely, and will tell you exactly what they want if you ask properly. The backbone of most buyer lists.
Rental buyers
Buy to hold. Care about condition, rent potential, neighbourhood stability and management practicality. They will take properties a renovator passes on, and they move more slowly.
Landlords growing a portfolio
Often already own nearby. Geography-driven and frequently the easiest buyer for a property that is odd but functional.
Owner-builders and trades
People who do the work themselves. Will take heavier damage than most, and need longer timelines.
Land and mobile home buyers
A separate group entirely, with their own criteria around access, utilities and title status. Do not assume a house buyer wants a parcel.
Institutional buyers
Narrow, rigid boxes and process-heavy. Useful when a property fits exactly and useless otherwise.
Learning criteria properly
A phone number is not a buyer. A buyer is somebody whose criteria you could write down from memory.
What you need from each one: the geography they will actually go to, down to neighbourhoods rather than counties. Property types. The condition they will take and the condition they will not. Whether they need to see it before committing. How they fund purchases and how quickly. How many they have closed this year and where. What they passed on recently and why. That last question is the most informative one in the whole conversation.
Keep it written down and keep it current, because criteria move with a buyer's capital and workload. A buyer who was aggressive in spring may be full by autumn. Ask at every contact.
If this was useful, Ben Lovro's main site goes deeper.
Why a real list beats posting publicly
The default beginner move is to post a property in a public group and see who bites. It is fast, free and it costs more than it looks.
Public posting broadcasts a property to strangers whose ability to close you cannot verify, invites your contract to be reshopped by other people, and puts your marketing in front of an audience that includes the seller and the seller's neighbours. It is also where unlicensed activity questions come from, because advertising a property you do not own to the public is difficult to distinguish from brokering it.
A small verified list does the opposite. You send a property to three people who actually buy in that submarket, with a scope, honest photographs and your number. One of them acts, and you know before you send it whether it is likely. Verified means you have seen proof of funds or closings, not that somebody replied enthusiastically to a post.
How to build it before you have anything to sell
- Pull recent cash sales from county records in your area. Deeds are public. The names that repeat are your market's actual buyers.
- Attend the local investor meetings in Columbia and the surrounding Midlands and go to listen rather than to pitch.
- Ask closing attorneys, contractors and property managers who is actively buying. They know before anyone.
- Call each one and ask about their criteria, with nothing to sell. People are remarkably willing to describe what they want to somebody who is not pitching them.
- Send them deals you are not involved in that fit. Being useful before you need something is the whole relationship.
- Underwrite properties as if you were them and check your number against what they will pay. This is free training in the only skill that matters.
Twenty buyers you have spoken to is worth more than a thousand email addresses, and it takes about a month to assemble.
Keeping a buyer after the first deal
Acquiring a buyer is a month of work. Losing one takes a single transaction.
What keeps them is boring and consistent. Accurate numbers, including the ones that hurt. Honest condition disclosure with photographs of the problems. No surprises between the contract and the closing table. Respecting their criteria instead of sending everything to everyone. Telling them promptly when a property is gone. And never running a fake auction between two buyers to lift a price, which is transparent and ends relationships.
Ask for feedback on the ones they pass on, too. A buyer explaining why your number was too high in that particular submarket is giving you the most valuable training available in this business, free, from someone who has actually spent money being wrong there. Write it down and check it against your next estimate in the same area.
A wholesaler with six buyers who trust them has a business. A wholesaler with a large list and a reputation for optimistic numbers has a lead generation hobby.
Frequently asked
Questions people actually ask
How many buyers do I actually need?
Fewer than the industry implies. A handful of active, verified buyers whose criteria you know covers most of what a beginner will contract in a year. Depth beats size.
Where do I find cash buyers?
County deed records show who has been buying, local investor meetings show who is active now, and closing attorneys, contractors and property managers know before anyone. Start with the public records because they are evidence rather than claims.
Should I post deals on social media?
It carries more risk than it appears to. You cannot verify who sees it, your contract gets reshopped, the seller may see it, and publicly advertising a property you do not own is exactly the conduct that raises unlicensed brokerage questions. Ask a South Carolina attorney before advertising anything.
What makes a buyer verified?
Proof of funds or a record of closings you can check in county records. Enthusiasm is not verification, and a buyer who cannot perform costs you the seller relationship as well as the deal.
What if my buyer backs out?
You either find another quickly, close it yourself if you can, or you go back to the seller honestly and early. Which of those is available depends on your contract and your reserves, which is why the buyer side is built first.
Make your next move
A year from now, what will you be glad you started today?
You don't need another promise that everything will be easy. You need something useful to learn — and a next step you're willing to take.