Looking for houses to buy, fix up, and sell again is a whole different ball game compared to hunting for a place to live or a long-term investment. Finding these houses can be tricky, but there are plenty of ways to track them down. Explore online listing sites and public records, or get creative with marketing and advertising strategies. Follow this guide on how to find houses to flip and start your search right away!

What Is House Flipping?

If you’re getting into real estate investing, there are many different strategies for building your portfolio. One approach is house flipping, which involves purchasing a home that needs repairs or renovations. After updating the property, you resell it or hold onto it and rent it out. Fix-and-flip investments are among the most popular choices since the goal is to buy low and sell high, increasing your profit margins. If you resell, there is no tenant management.

How to Find Houses to Flip in 7 Ways

Finding and purchasing a property to renovate is often more complex and time-consuming than buying a home for full-time living. Buying the right property at the right price, ideally below market value, maximizes profits. That’s why knowing where to search for these properties is crucial. Here are the steps to find homes to flip.

1. Visit Online Real Estate Listing Sites

One of the easiest and most popular ways to find houses to flip is through real estate listing websites. They’re user-friendly and give you lots of info about properties and the local market, which helps you spot good houses to flip.

While these popular sites are great, if you’re serious about learning how to flip houses, you should look for sites that focus on preforeclosures, for sale by owner (FSBO) listings, and auctions. These properties are usually listed at lower prices than similar ones and are often sold “as is.” 

Here are a few of the top websites to look for homes to flip:

Listing Site
Best For
Learn More
Zillow
Zillow is the top real estate website, so it’s an ideal resource for finding homes to flip. It provides extensive search filters, such as price, square footage, location, type of property, and home features. Search for keywords like “as is” or “opportunity.”
Visit Zillow
RealtyTrac
This real estate listing platform for investors offers foreclosures, preforeclosures, bank-owned properties, and auctions. It also offers a selection of investment tools, such as market trend reports, a long-term rental calculator, and a wholesale calculator.
Visit RealtyTrac
Foreclosure.com
This listing website specializes in foreclosures and preforeclosures, which helps you find houses before they hit the market. It also allows you to search bankruptcies, tax liens, as-is deals, and short sales nationwide.
Visit Foreclosure.com
FSBO.com
This is the top listing site for homeowners selling their properties without an agent. With property filters, you can search through active listings in your state or look at foreclosures by state.
Visit FSBO.com
Auction.com
This site provides exclusive listing information for in-person and online auctions. You can look for foreclosures, bank-owned properties, and short sales and use their calendar to attend in-person property auctions.
Visit Auction.com

To search for properties amid foreclosure, check out Foreclosure.com or use the widget below. Foreclosure.com has over 1.3 million listings in various stages of the foreclosure process, including fixer-uppers and as-is deals. Search for homes in your location and get property data for only $39.80 per month. This can help you learn how to find cheap houses to flip and increase your profitability and return on investment (ROI).

Powered by Foreclosure.com

2. Meet With Real Estate Professionals

When asking yourself, “How do you find houses to flip?” Local real estate pros are a valuable resource for anyone looking to find houses to flip. This includes agents, brokers, wholesalers, or mortgage brokers. They’ve got the inside scoop on the local market, know the best neighborhoods for flipping, and can keep you updated on properties that might be a good fit.

Here’s how each type of real estate professional can help you find properties to flip:

Type of Professional
How They Help
Real Estate Agents or Brokers
Agents and brokers are two of the best sources of information you have available. They have access to the multiple listing service (MLS), a large pool of buyer and seller connections, and spend time in various neighborhoods.
Wholesalers
Wholesalers focus on finding distressed properties and may also have properties that are not on the market. They are more focused on finding deals and may be an incredible source. In addition, their success depends on finding an investor like you to purchase the home.
Mortgage Brokers
Mortgage professionals have inside information about homeowners struggling financially and looking for a way out of their homes. Being connected with a finance professional allows you to find a property before it’s in preforeclosure and simultaneously help someone out of a bad situation.

Pro Tip: Once you’re ready to sell your fix and flip property, hire a real estate agent to help you—unless you decide to become a real estate agent yourself. Getting a real estate license can help you immerse yourself in the real estate world and maximize your profits.

3. Manually Search for Potential Properties

Even though most real estate transactions start with online listings, this isn’t the only way to find cheap houses to flip. While offline strategies take more time and effort than searching online or speaking with real estate professionals, they can be a lucrative way to find properties to flip. These are the primary offline strategies that real estate investors use to find potential flip properties:

  • Public records: Search public records for properties with delinquent mortgage payments. This indicates that the homeowners may be in financial trouble, so they may be open to receiving an offer to buy their home. Public records can be found at your local government office, but most agencies have an online presence where you can view and request records.
  • Tax records: This is another way to find homeowners who haven’t paid their mortgages, which may motivate them to sell their homes. Check your state’s Secretary of State website for details about how to view or access this information.
  • Probate court: Probate properties are usually neglected homes because they’ve been left to someone who doesn’t want the responsibility. Attending probate court can put you in direct contact with someone with a home they want to get rid of without the hassle of listing it on the market.
  • Driving for dollars: This means actively driving through local neighborhoods and searching for distressed properties that could be flipped. It can be time-consuming and challenging, but it’s a great strategy to find off-market properties and essentially eliminate a competing investor from making an offer.
A homeowner contact and mortgage information, showing notice of default on their home loan.
Contact information from REDX (Source: REDX)

An ideal way to find leads without spending hours on manual searches is by using REDX, a prospecting platform that searches through thousands of databases. It provides the most updated and accurate information on FSBO properties, preforeclosures, and expired listings. It even includes an easy-to-use contact management system to stay on top of all communications and potential deals.

4. Engage in Networking

Building a network is a core element of any successful real estate investing business. The more connected you are with your network, the more likely they will send you potential properties. For example, other local real estate investors are the most likely people to find distressed properties, and it may not be the right fit for their current financial or business goals. A few simple ways to connect with other flippers and investors include: 

  • Associations: The Real Estate Investors Association (REIA) has local chapters in most states and cities. 
  • Local events: Do a simple search for fix and flip groups and events on Google or Meetup.
  • Real estate networking platforms: Websites like REIClub have searchable directories to help you find local groups and events.
  • Social media: Search for Facebook groups for investors and flippers, or search for social media profiles that talk about renovations and home flipping.

Important Note: The more people who know that you are a flipper and want to buy worn-down properties to renovate, the more easily you’ll be able to find and contact home sellers. You’ll also be able to find mentors who can help guide your decisions and minimize the learning curves of investing.

5. Implement Marketing & Advertising Strategies

Learning how to market and advertise your business and target distressed properties can be challenging for new investors, but there are various ways to go about it. In fact, marketing and advertising as a home flipper is not much different from marketing as a real estate agent. Both methods involve pinpointing your audience and implementing a plan to reach them and bring awareness to your business.

Here are some of the most effective ways to market yourself and find properties to flip:

Strategy
How to Implement
Create a Website
A real estate website is like having a home base, where potential partners, sellers, or team members can learn more about you and decide whether to reach out to you. Even a one-page website with simple yet professional information about who you are and what you do can help you find houses to fix and flip.
Social Media
You don’t have to become an influencer or a professional marketer to use social media effectively. By creating a simple yet consistent social media strategy and being active online, you’ll more easily build brand recognition, make connections, and become an authority figure for flipping houses in your area.
Online Advertising
Online advertising platforms like Google and Facebook also provide very detailed targeting options, so you are more likely to reach the exact audience you’re looking for, like people with distressed properties, FSBOs, or other investors.
Direct Mail
Mailers are seen as a more traditional marketing method but still extremely effective for investors. Direct mail can include brochures, postcards or flyers, newsletters, and prospecting letters.
Bandit Signs
You’ve probably seen real estate signs on street corners saying, “We buy houses.” These are called bandit signs and can be an affordable and effective way to capture the attention of homeowners in financial trouble.

6. Look Into Auctions

Most real estate auctions sell bank-owned houses, foreclosed, short sales, or in preforeclosure. This makes them an ideal place to find homes to flip because starting bids are usually well below market value, and the final sale amount only depends on your budget and your competition. Real estate auctions can happen in person or online. 

7. Monitor Change of Life Circumstances

Instead of searching specifically for distressed properties, pay attention to changes in life circumstances in local neighborhoods to target potential deals. Major events happen, like divorce, death, an inheritance, or changes in the executor of an estate. Although this is an unfortunate situation, it creates an opportunity for home flippers to find profitable properties. 

Property ownership is often automatically changed, and the person who inherits the house may not be able to pay for the mortgage or property taxes. If you can connect with these leads at the right time, you are more likely to get a great deal on a home and reduce the costs of flipping a house.

A lead dashboard showing different home addresses and their property value.
Catalyze AI lead dashboard (Source: Catalyze AI)

Catalyze AI is an event-driven predictive analytics tool. It accurately predicts the buying cycles of consumers and homeowners by analyzing hundreds of millions of data points, therefore providing property leads that are more likely to need an investor’s help.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)





Bringing It All Together 

Now that you have your answer to “How do you find houses to flip?” you can hit the ground running. Using a combination of methods we gave you in this guide will help you build your investment portfolio and become a pro house flipper in no time. 

Do you already use some of these techniques? Let us know in the comments!