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No matter what business model you adopt, you must acquire profitable deals for successful real estate investing.
 The following tips will help you identify profitable deals and weed out bad ones.
1)    Fair Market Value
 You must  have a property market value before you can buy it.   When buying houses, I try to work with low market value to be safe.

The value at the county records can be a good indicator of the fair market value.   It is often lower than average comparable sales in the area.   However in a poor house market,  depressed house values can be caused by foreclosures in the neighborhood.  If you do not have access to the MLS, you might need a local realtor in your dream team to run comps for you.

2)    Repair Estimates
 You will need to do some kind of repair on most properties.   You must reliably estimate repairs quickly without getting too detailed. Once you get used to looking at houses, you can be in and out of a property in 5 to 10 minutes with an estimate of the repairs needed.

 I try to estimate higher to stay safe.

3)    Mortgage Balance
 You cannot buy a property unless you know the mortgage balance.   If the offer you make cannot pay off all the outstanding debts on the property and leave a room for profit, then it is probably not the best deal for you.

 If a seller is not motivated enough to provide this information, you better look for another deal.

4)    Asking Price
 If a seller wants full market value for their house, they are not motivated enough for you. Unless they can leave room for profit for you, then you would better off moving on to the next one.

Sometimes motivated sellers may not know the market value of their house, and showing them your numbers may change their minds and accept your offer.

5)    Is It Vacant?
 This shows how much a seller is motivated.  If they are making more than one mortgage payment, they will unquestionably want to sell fast.   It also means you can take ownership of the house as soon as you buy it.

 How do you receive this information?
The easiest way to have this information is to have a good real estate investor website.   The website should pre-educate them how you work and allow them to submit their house information directly on your website.

The form should ask them for as little information as possible, but just enough for you to find out whether it is a deal or not.

The less information you collect the more response you will get through your website.    This will be a big time saver because you will only talk to motivated sellers whose houses you can buy.

You can then collect more information once you talk to them.

Simon Macharia is a real estate investor in Dallas, Texas. His business is run from a real estate investor website that pre-educates motivated sellers delivering pre-screened and pre-negotiated deals. Click here to see how to pre-screen motivated sellers hands-off.