Transcription
The hottest wholesaling list in 2025. Guys, this is Rick Gin and today I'm going to go through the list you need to be pulling to find motivated sellers. I'm going to give you seven of the best lists we use in our company and I'm going to show you how to use these lists, how often to pull them, and I'm going to show you the Rick wisdom on what to look for in these lists and how to get them to work.
But before I get into it, do me a favor. Make sure you smash that like button, hit that subscribe button so other people can find the truth out about wholesaling. So guys, let's just jump into it. I'm going to start out. Now, there is no specific order for this list. They all work, but I'll give you a couple little hints on the tricks and the trades on using these lists to get the best motivated seller list.
So guys, remember, we have to find motivated sellers. We need to look where there is smoke because trying to find fire by itself is an impossible task. Smoke rises, it gives you clues and then you can find the fire from that. So what we have to do is extract the best list. These lists are what we call prospects and everybody has to start out with a list on wholesaling and somewhere in that list there are gold mine wholesale deals. So let's get into it.
The first thing is what we kind of call a generic list and it's really important you understand it. It's called a high equity list. Now high equity is exactly what it means. It means people have a lot of equity in their house which means they don't owe a ton of money on it. And the higher the equity, 100% equity means they own the house clear and free, which means when they sell it, they get all the cash on it. Now, why would they use a high equity list? Obviously, people that don't owe a lot of money on the house or less than people that owe a ton more money are much more negotiable. And these lists tend to have people that have been in the house for a longer period of time. Why is that important? Longer period of time means there's deferred maintenance, there's wear and tear on the house, and people get bored. People want to move around. So high equity is what I call the catchall list. The people that are going to use high equity list are people like me. A lot of people that do direct mail. We need lots of volume. Now I start out doing government list. And we're going to work through some of those as we go in here. But at some point in wholesaling, everybody has to switch over to a high equity list. That's why I'm going over it first.
So let's go over the filters. And these filters, I'm just going to give them to you. Remember, we give everything free and I share it over at freeh wholesaling.com. We have no payw wall for you. We're going to actually show you how to do wholesaling because I've been doing it 22 years, guys. The information is the easy part. The execution is what you need to bring to the table. So, the first one is we do 40% equity. Why? Because my data shows over 22 years, 40% plus up to 100% is the sweet spot. The lower you go, the more phone calls you get and the less room you have to negotiate. Now, we're trying to get properties 20 30% discount. This is just an obvious explanation of why you want to do it.
The next one is the type of home we want. I want to do single family residential and I like to always throw in multifamily in there. Why not? Who cares if it's a duplex, triplex or a regular single family house. So single family residential and multi. Now the next one is going to be your average medium price for your market. You want to be under or at least equal or less. So if your median price in your market is 350,000, start at 320 and below. So, make sure you come in at or below your average medium price for your market because those are the type of houses we do not want to pursue because that's not what the cash buyers are looking for.
The next one, I want to make sure they have less than four properties. Why is that? Because once they have four or more properties, I consider them a seasoned real estate investor. And these people are only going to hang on the numbers. And the techniques me and Zach teach most likely won't work because the only thing they're focused on is the highest offer. And you know, as a wholesaler, you cannot be the highest offer. So, try to avoid that. It will save you a ton of time. I know you're thinking like, Rick, don't we want somebody with more properties? My numbers indicate over 22 years when they have four and more properties, they usually are not very serious about selling at a deep discount. And I want you to avoid those people like the plague.
Now, one of the things we always talk about is how often you pull these. It just depends on the number. So when I pull a high equity list, I'm usually pulling 20, 25K, sometimes 30,000 people on that list. And the reason I do that is because I need the numbers. Now, a lot of you don't need the numbers that. So if you want to narrow down your criteria and make it smaller. So say list you only want to list to 5,000 and you ran it came up at 9,800 under X leads, then what I'm going to do is tighten up these property criteria. And one of the easiest ones to do is the equity percentage and the average medium price. It will narrow it down very very quickly.
Now, how often you pull these as needed. Now, in the old days, we used to just pull these like once every 6 months, the old days. Then we went to once a quarter. Here's the beauty. When you work inside of something like X leads because you get such an insane amount of counts and you can skip trace any one of these, just pull them every month. Who cares? Why? I want the absolute freshest data. I want the best odds for me to get the greatest wholesale deal. So the the new technology through X Leads, you can pull this once a month. So do it. I used to put it back cuz this data used to cost you a lot of money every month. At X Leads, we've removed that. You don't have to worry about it. And keep in mind, guys, you can skip trace these people.
Now, let me give you like some words of wisdom here, which I love to talk about in wholesaling. So Rick's wisdom on this is high equity is number one, with X leads, you can skip trace. Okay, why is that value? Number one, it's free. Even a basic account's 15,000 free skip traced X leads. And number two, I want you to understand this. You can easily take your high equity and rotate it through an SMS campaign. Why? Because it doesn't cost you any more money. You already have the data. You guys understand that? So, if you understand that, that's some of the wisdom things that I figured out, especially working with Xley. The last thing I want you to understand this. Stop worrying about if it's an absentee owner or it's owner occupied. Why? Let me ask you this. Why do you care? I'm here to tell you everybody chases around absentee owner. I switched a long time ago. I actually focus on owner occupied. I still do absentee owner. I find absentee owners more difficult. Period. If people are just if everyone's going absent, I go to owner occupied. Owner occupied. Honestly, those are, in my opinion, the best deals you're going to get in high equity.
Let's move on to the next list cuz it's important. Next list is just good old pre-forclosures. Now, why I like these is it's really easy to pull in these softwares like X leads. And what am I looking for? Honestly, I'm looking for pre-forclosures. There's two ways to do it. There's what they call list pendants depending on now, by the way, you all have the right to pull this up at your courthouse. You can pull it online or you can use a software like Xleads to easily pull it in the comfort of your home or your office. The other one we pull is also called an NOD which also stands for notice of default. Now if I have to pick the perfect one, it is always going to be NOD and this is the legal notice where the bank says the borrower has violated the terms of the agreement and they are seeking legal action if it's not rectified immediately. So this is always going to be number one. Now depending on what state and what part of the country in you might not get that information. If not a list pendants, this is going to be number two. And then this is what they call the lawsuit of the foreclosure. The notice of default is your final notice to cure the breach. And then the list is the lawsuit.
Now, how often do we pull these? Once again, I am going to pull them on a weekly basis. Why? Because I use X leads and it's super simple to do. Why not? In the old days, we used to have to pull them monthly if not quarterly. And you don't have to do that anymore. Now, here is the Rick wisdom on pre-forclosures and this has never changed since I started it. People in pre-forclosure are infamous for procrastinating. Honestly, they're embarrassed of the situation. They don't choose to be in this, and our job as a wholesaler is to help them out. But you got to understand, when people procrastinate too long, it becomes their norm. And once it becomes their norm, it doesn't bother them anymore, which means they don't want to fix it. I'm going to drive people 6 months or less behind in pre-forclosure. Why? Because once they go past 6 months, they won't make a decision until the final auction date. And honestly, waiting at the end of the auction day are some of the worst wholesale deals you can ever do because there's so much stress. Everything has to be rushed. You have to bring in attorneys. You got to get transaction specialists. It's a nightmare. So, the sweet spot, the sooner you can catch them. Honestly, I would love to see it four months or less, but 6 months is kind of my rule cuz past 6 months, the odds of them doing a deal with you are probably less than 15%. Why? Because I've done this a long time and this is the Rick wisdom. So, if you understand that, try to catch them early. Keep in mind too, the longer they get behind, the further their payments get in a rears and the equity becomes less and less. And once they get like a year behind, there's usually very little equity left in someone and especially someone who's owned a home like 3 years or less. So, keep that in mind when doing the pre-forclosures, which leads us to our next one, which is going to be a tired landlord list.
Now, what is this? These are just landlords that own property a long time. I'm one of your screaming tired landlords. Every now and then, I will tell you, I just get sick of a property when somebody moves out and I sell it. I don't give my properties away, but I'll be honest with you, I have sold some properties for great deals in down markets cuz I just didn't want to deal with the headache of the property. So, if I'm going to do it, think about all the landlords across America that do it. And there is no exception in 2025. What are we looking for in these? Most of these are going to be owned by LLC's, individuals, and trust. Don't get cute with this. Pull them all. You need as many opportunities as possible. The more opportunities you have, the better off you're going to do. A lot of people will tell you, "Well, only find people that own it in their personal name because they don't know what they're doing." Promise you, people open up LLC's all the time. They have no idea what they're doing. In fact, most people open up LLC do not understand its application. They don't understand the legal implications. They also don't understand the IRS designation on it. So, I don't care. And why? Because the old news is, well, we can't skip trace LLC's. Go inside X Leads. We skip trace LLC's for you. So, that obstacle has been removed. So, do not let someone trick you and go only do LLC's. Honestly, I've bought ton of properties from individuals LLC's. Trust me, when you've got a property that needs to be sold, it really doesn't matter who owns it when they're retired landlord.
Now, you do want to look for an absentee owner cuz this will designate it's a landlord. And what does that mean? It just means they get mailed to a different address, which means they're either renting the property out or they use it as a second home or some people are super rich and they have an extra home. So, by designating the absentee owner on the different mailing address, you already know there's a high probability it's going to be a landlord. Now, on the equity filter, I like to go to 50% plus on the equity. That's the bare minimum. Why? Because it means they've probably owned it for a while and they got plenty of room to negotiate. A lot of these properties, they're run down and they're tired. And remember, this part is all about timing. If you can reach out to someone when they have a vacancy going on or a really bad eviction and they don't want the property anymore because it's anything but passive, that's when you create opportunities in wholesaling.
Now, how long they own it, I like to add this a minimum five plus years. I used to do 10, but five is more than ample. It'll give you a good robust list and you can make it work. Anything below 5 years. I've done four, but five is the better number. Now, how often you going to pull these? Honestly, pull them monthly. Why? It doesn't cost you anything extra. And these are not like 10,000 plus lists. If you can get 3 to 500 in your market, that is dynamite. But you make sure you use these criteria.
Now, my words of wisdom. If you do come across someone that owns four or more properties, only deal with one property at first. Why? You have to use it as a test. Trust me on this. I've contact people in 20, 30 properties. Like, just give me a number on all of them. And then they want you to run comps. They want to get all the details. They want to get contracts from you. And basically what they're doing is using you as a wet rag and they're going to use it as leverage for the next wholesaler or a realtor that comes by. So for me to circumvent that whenever I'm doing that, they have multiple properties and they go, "Rick, just make me an offer on all of them. It's not that easy because one can be a deal and one can be horrible. I'm here to make money and I can't hide in the numbers. So what I want to do is snuff out one property. I'm going to find their weakest link. Give me your most tired property." Why? because it is brutally important if they won't cut a deal on a vacant property that needs rehab that they just did an eviction on, why do you think you're going to get a deal on the other five, 10 or 20 properties. So, I like to take down one property. You can set up a relationship and if they like doing business with you and worked out wonderfully, I guarantee you, you will have a shot at every other property. Remember, think long-term in wholesaling. Stop trying to be the guy that just crushes it in one year and just destroys it. I've been doing this 22 years, you're better off picking off a property here and there instead of trying to be the hero taking down 20 properties at once because most likely you're going to overpay for them and you're going to work for free. So take the retired weakest property and take it down if that works out and just continue to move forward.
Now the next one is somewhat of a government list but you can easily pull this in online softwares. It's tax leans. That's right, tax leans. These are people that got behind on their property taxes. So the criteria is I like to get people that are two years plus behind. one year they can be using it financing. The next one I want to keep at or below the average median price for that market and make sure I got plenty of cash buyers for that property. I'll put that little symbol there. And then we come down to how frequently we do this. I do it twice a year. Why the list doesn't change. Either you paid your taxes or you didn't. This is a list that is pointless to pull monthly because depending on what state you are, like in the state of Florida, taxes come due in November and you basically have till April to pay. And then if you don't pay it, the unpaid taxes goes to a tax certificate sale. And then after 2 years, they can actually do a tax deed auction.
Now, I'm going to give you my wisdom on this. I will tell you this does not work good with mail. The only way I tax leans is going to be reverse driving for dollars or I'm going to door knock. I know it's old school, but that's how Rick started. If not, I will do a cold call and you better be creative with it. But guys, tax leans, it is a low hit rate, but when you get them, they actually they have urgency to get them sold and you can easily pull these lists inside of the software.
Now, I'm going to go with some that maybe you didn't think of completely here. The next one is the vacancy list. One of my absolute favorite. This is the derived from the United States Postal Service. Now, with the vacancy, the only filter I do on that is the average medium price at or below of your target market. Other than that, the list is not huge. So, you can't put on too many filters. How often do you do it? Quarterly, which means every three months. Because you're going to find this list doesn't change a whole lot. And I love this list because it's so accessible and it's so easy to pull. Obviously, if you have a vacant house, you got to get the story behind it because that's where the real magic happens in wholesaling. Remember, our real estate, all these lists, there's nothing more than symptoms. There's underlying problems and you have to put the real estate aside and get to the human to find out how this problem happened and see if you can help them out. Now, if you have the chance, I try to avoid off-market properties cuz I don't want to talk to realtors cuz I think it's usually a waste of time. And keep in mind, get to the story behind the real estate. And then that's how we solve problems in wholesaling. This goes with everything I have on the board. I just want to remind you on that.
Now, another one is that is often overlooked and you can easily pull these online are HOA leans. And what criterium again? Once again, at your or below your average medium price. And then I want to look for leans that are at least 5K or more. Obviously, I like to do them around 10 because I know the property has to be sold to fix it. Now, these are usually nicer neighborhoods, but don't get scared of that. I want to tell you, I'm going to talk about some of the advantages, how often you can pull these. You can just pull them monthly. And the beauty is you can pull it inside these softwares and it's all readily available to you.
Now, what's the story behind it? What's the secret to HOA leans? A lot of people like, why do I want to do HOA leans? cuz if they can't afford it, we're going to have problems. Is these are desirable homes. They're e much easier to sell. Although you'll pay more for them, they're much easier to dispo. So, do not be scared of it. When I see a $10,000 HOA lean in a certain neighborhood, by the way, the board that runs these, they just need their money so they can keep the upkeep in the facilities. They actually will push the offer to get it done. In fact, I'm here to tell you if you can help get the property sold, you save the HOA from doing a foreclosure. And depending on what state are you in the state of Florida, HOAs have extreme powers and they're right there. They're behind property taxes, behind the mortgage, but they can foreclose. And in certain instances, they can supersede the mortgage depending on where it is, what state you are. But nevertheless, guys, I've done well with cuz those are really nice homes. And the other thing is I told you fix and flip people. They absolutely love these types of properties cuz they're so desirable.
Now the last one on here is what we call an AI list which is artificial intelligence. And these this is basically incredible. Now the criteria is it'll pick it out with you. A good wholesale software will give you a score and I like the score to be 800 plus. Now if you go inside of X leads it'll go up to a,000. 800 seems to be the sweet spot, but 750 is the least amount of do. And guys, all this is I want you to understand is it is just advanced list stacking. The day the days of list stacking from these old school softwares, it's over. Ax leads has destroyed this. Now, it ain't cheap. I'm not going to lie to you. But it's going to congregate all the data, the probates, tax delinquencies, properties that are free and clear, pre-foreclosures, and it's going to tag them. And you can decide which is the important information that you want to do. and I just click a button. I don't have to do complicated software. I don't have to import. I don't have to export. It's all right there and they score them. Now, you still have to do the work, guys. AI is not going to replace you talking to these sellers, connecting with them, building report, but it's going to give you the greatest odds probability of success. And because of this, it's great. My secret to this is you can pull this as often as you want. You just need one zip code. Stop going broke buying this data, guys. And inside of X leads, you can switch that zip code every 30 days. Some people go, I want to buy the county, I want to buy the state. No, you don't. You would have to have a huge operation to make that work. The average person get away with one to maybe two zip codes of places you you want to target. Now, this is dynamite for local. It's even as powerful for virtual wholesaling. What is the secret? It sorts the list for you and gives you the the highest percentage of success. Now, I will tell you, it's not going to replace you as the wholesaler. And you have to understand that.
Now, let's go over the other side. I want to talk about a couple lists that you absolutely want to avoid. Like, no matter what, please avoid these list because I keep seeing them pop up and you're wasting your time. Specifically in wholesaling, these lists you don't want to do. You don't want to do divorce. It's a waste of time. You will get divorces naturally through acquaintances, people you know, title companies, but chasing down the divorce list. I've wasted thousands of hours doing it. Don't do that. The second one is going to be mechanic leans. So guys, mechanic leans so you know is just our lowlevel usually handyman and landscapers and painters and they just slap a lean on a property. Most of them never stick and all of them fall off usually within 12 months. I don't waste my time chasing these lists because they're usually just a couple thousand. I think there's usually a threshold limit depending on what stage you're in, $5 to $10,000. And most of them get squashed because there's no consent from the owner. So, chasing down mechanics leans is going to waste your time. Make sure you don't buy them. And the other one is divorce. This is obvious, guys. It is tough, especially when they got kids involved. And honestly, sometimes the husband agrees to give away the house and the soon tobe ex wants a million dollars. And dude, we I don't have enough skill set to teach you on how to solve this. They have to come to the decision as a family and then you as the wholesaler make the offer and that's all you can do. And most of these properties have to go to retail because there's so many bills. there's there's a divorce decree that has to be settled. I don't get in the middle of it.
Now, I want to leave you with one tip before we go. Stop overiltering your list. What do I mean by this? So, I just gave you all the filters you need on the back side of the sport. If not, replay this video. What do I mean by filtering? When you when you decide, oh, it's got to be the number of bedrooms. I got to have a threebedroom. It's got to be the number of bass. If it's got to be like the the the year built, it's got to be, you know, from 1985 plus. And I don't want anything no pools and let's see. I don't want anything less than 1,000 square ft. Now, I'm telling you right now, if you're doing this right here, you're overfiltering. And what does that mean to me? You're letting your personal bias come into wholesaling and it's not allowed. Why? What do you care? Like seriously, why do you care how many bedrooms? I've sold houses from onebedroom to 12. Number of baths, I sold them from a half bath to eight baths. your built. I bought them from 1901 to 2024. Pools, I don't like pools. They are a pain in the butt for wholesalers, but the end buyers like them and the flippers like them. And square feet. I've bought a house as small as 546 ft. The bottom line is I don't let my personal bias come in. I used to in the beginning I only did three bedrooms, two baths. It's a huge mistake. Guys, you are not living in the property. If you want to run a wholesale business, stop filtering based on your personal preferences because these are all what are they? They're all opportunities. So, if you overfilter and you decide to use any of this criteria, you are missing out on opportunities. If you're not going to live in the house, it doesn't mean you have to own it. If this is maybe you have criteria for a rental property, just cherrypick the ones you want to keep for your business. Guys, stop overfiltering your list. It makes no sense. Why limit the opportunities? It doesn't matter how big the house is. I just don't want to buy million-dollar houses that nobody wants to buy that you take a ton of risk. Leave it to the fix and flipers. There's plenty of people on YouTube will teach you how to do multi-million dollar fix and flips. But it is a huge learning curve. You need tons of capital. And I'm trying to get you started in wholesaling. Do not do this. And if you do that, avoid these two list. And guys, refer back to these top seven lists.
Now, here's the good news. Every one of these lists you can get inside of Xley. Go to xleys.com. You guys can start up with an account for $49 a month if you do the prepaid one year. You get 15,000 leads you can download. You can also upload and you get free skip tracing for it. And if you guys want to step up and you want to get the entire dispositions, you can run comps, you can run your CRM, and we also give you a free go highle account with it. Guys, there is no better value than Xleads. Make sure you check it out xleys.com. And as usual, if you got value from this video, do me a favor. Make sure you smash that like button, hit that subscribe button, and guys, let me know in the comments which of these lists you guys are going to use to get your wholesale list in 20125. This is Ricken.