Property sourcing is the work of finding a property to buy before it is priced by the open market: the house an agent will show a known buyer before it goes on the portal, the owner who will sell if asked, the probate sale, the auction lot, the landlord retiring from a portfolio. What is property sourcing to an investor is a set of routes that each cost time or money, and a sourcer is somebody paid to walk them on the investor's behalf. Off market properties uk investors chase are not cheaper by definition; they are earlier, and earlier is only worth paying for if the comps and the appraisal say the price is right. This page sets out the routes, what a sourcer does and charges for, and how to find off-market properties uk investors can actually appraise.
The routes, and what each one costs
Agents who call a known cash buyer before a listing goes live, which costs a relationship and a reputation for completing. Letters to owners in a target street, which cost postage and patience and land one reply in a hundred. Probate and executor sales, found through the notices and the solicitors, which cost time. Auctions, where the lot is public but the timetable is short, which cost a survey done in a week. And retiring landlords selling a portfolio, found through the letting agents who manage it. How to find off market properties is a question of which of those routes the investor has the time or the money for, and none of them is free.
What a sourcer does, and what the fee buys
A sourcer walks the routes for a fee, usually a fixed sum per deal handed over, and the honest ones hand over the comps and the figures with it. The fee buys the earliness, not the price: an off-market property with a sourcer's fee on top has to be appraised at the price plus the fee, from comps the investor worked themselves. A sourced deal that only stacks on the sourcer's rent estimate is a deal for the sourcer. The rent comparables sheet on this site works the estimate from three lets in the street, which is the check every sourced deal gets.
Every found property goes into the file, bought or not
Sourcing produces far more properties than purchases, and the value of the work is in the ones not bought: the street whose comps are now known, the owner who said not yet, the agent who now calls first. A deal file that keeps every property found with its source, its comps, its appraisal and the reason it was passed on is what turns sourcing from a hunt into a record, and it is what Yieldzo Pro keeps.
Questions people ask about what is property sourcing
Are off-market properties cheaper?
Earlier, not cheaper. A property found before the portal is bought without competing bids, which can mean a better price; it can also mean a vendor who has not been told what the market would pay. The comps decide which, every time.
How much does a property sourcer charge?
A fixed fee per deal is the common shape, and it goes into the appraisal as part of the cash in. A fee expressed as a share of the price rewards the sourcer for the price going up, which is not the investor's interest.
Is rent to rent a form of property sourcing?
Sourcing finds a property to buy; rent to rent takes on a property to let without buying it. They use some of the same routes and a different appraisal, which the rent-to-rent guide on this site sets out.