For the past couple of years we’ve been told that housing prices are so high, and bidding wars are so competitive because there is an incredible shortage of inventory. Yet, the data shows that there are actually millions of vacant properties across the US. Could these not only be the answer to retaining some affordable housing, but also fueling your deals as a real estate investor?
America Has 16M Empty Homes
According to a new report from Florida Trend in May 2022, the US has 16M vacant homes. Most of those are in Florida. Which has 1.7M, despite being one of the hottest states for buying activity.
This doesn’t count all of the vacant land and building lots out there which can also be used for housing. Nor, the enormous amount of no longer needed office buildings, and other commercial properties which are ripe for being converted to housing.
Affordable Housing
One of the big observations with all of these vacant houses, is that they far outnumber the amount of homeless in the country.
Official counts only put the number of homeless in the whole country at 500,000. Each could be given almost four houses each in Florida. Still, leaving over 14M empty homes across the nation.
More can be carved out either by government, private investors, or combinations of both in partnerships to retain a pool of truly affordable housing. That’s certainly better than spending over $500K a unit to develop new housing for the homeless as some governments are doing.
Of course, plenty more of this pool of properties can be sold wholesale to rehabbers and landlords to operate at market rates.
Finding The Deals
The discrepancy between the retail market and all of these vacant properties, is that they are not being publicly advertised for sale online. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be bought.
The key to unlocking all of this deal flow and profits is direct marketing to true off market sellers.
This can be done by mail, email, cold calling, and search engine marketing.
This is a great service to provide. You can help these owners liquidate all of these properties which are costing them money to hold every month, and turn them into cash.
On the flip side, you are providing much needed inventory to retail, rehabber, and landlord buyers. Like mining for diamonds or gold and bringing it to market.
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