Courtest of Ludomir Wanot
Real-estate investor Ludomir Wanot wants other investors to know that there are deals to be found — you just have to know where to look.
"I love rentals. I love to see the physical, tangible assets," the Seattle-based millennial, who built his wealth wholesaling and now runs an AI company that helps lenders communicate with their clients, told Business Insider. "The proven, consistent strategy that's worked for me over the last seven years is sticking with the rental strategy of buying at a 30% discount to appraised value, making sure it cash flows at least $500 a month, and the property has to be in an opportunity zone — and I find these properties all the time."
He's acquired five units in Oregon in the last five months, which BI verified by looking at settlement statements.
"They're definitely out there," he said. "But sometimes they're not in Washington. Sometimes you have to look outside the state."
Wanot shared strategies that any investor can use to find deals, what types of properties he's looking for and what he's avoiding, and the simplest way for anyone to break into real estate investing in 2025.
One strategy for finding deals is to look for off-market properties — meaning, properties for sale that are not listed on the multiple listing service. While more difficult to find, they're typically easier to negotiate thanks to less competition.
There are various ways to find off-market properties, from real-estate auction websites to Craigslist to door-knocking. There's also wholesaling, which is when the person acting as the wholesaler finds and buys a discounted property and then sells the contract to another buyer.
Having done wholesaling for years, Wanot is aware that "there are wholesalers that consistently find discounted properties, and you can find those people on Facebook, through investment communities, they're all over."
He encourages investors to meet with wholesalers in their area and provide them with specific property criteria. If you're new to investing and haven't yet built a network, start by attending real-estate meet-ups or joining online real-estate communities.
As Wanot has learned, "Surround yourself with people who know more than you, ask questions, and build relationships with all different kinds of people you meet because you never know when you can work with them down the road."
Wanot doesn't expect rates to drop significantly in 2025. To get a property to generate positive cash flow in a higher-rate environment, he recommends leaning into creative financing.
"With interest rates remaining high, traditional financing methods may not yield the best returns," he said, but strategies such as seller financing, subject-to agreements, and private lending could help investors lock in better terms and avoid excessive borrowing costs.
Courtesy of Ludomir Wanot
Seller financing is when the buyer buys directly from the seller. The seller acts as the lender and provides a loan with agreed-upon terms about things like the interest rate and schedule of payments.
With subject-to financing, the buyer takes over the existing financing. The buyer doesn't actually assume the mortgage — it remains in the seller's name with the same terms — but will make mortgage payments on behalf of the seller.
Private money lending is another way to avoid a bank or traditional mortgage lender, and can be a "great way to avoid high interest rates and fees," said Wanot, adding: "I've had a lot of luck sourcing private money lenders through real estate Facebook groups."
"If you're a new investor, I'd definitely go after the distressed, small single-family homes," said Wanot.
Another tip is to look for property where the seller has "at least 50% equity in the home and has owned it for a long time," he said, as they might be more motivated to negotiate, especially if they're managing it from out-of-state. "I'm looking at owners who are over the age of 50 because the older owners tend to want to get out of the real estate space. It is so draining and requires a lot of physical and mental work."
Wanot owns multi-family properties but has found that they're more difficult to make the numbers work, at least in his current market.
"If you're a sophisticated investor, yes, small or large multi-families are good if you actually have run your numbers 1,000 times and you know exactly what you're looking for," he said. "There have been probably five properties that I was going to buy in the last year that I didn't pull the trigger on because the profit and loss statements that were given to me were significantly different from the actual bank statements."
A common mistake he's seen investors make, especially when it comes to these big multi-families, is just paying attention to the P&Ls, "which are made by the property managers or the owners of the property and show one story," he said. "They're not actually going through the bank statements and seeing what actual revenue is coming in and what expenses are going out."
He also advises avoiding the BRRRR — buy, rehab, rent, refinance, and repeat — method in a high-rate environment: "It hasn't really been working the last couple of years because the interest rates are so high right now, and so smart investors are moving away from that."
For most new investors, the simplest and most risk-averse way to get started is "creating rentable units in their single-family home space," said Wanot, referring to a strategy known as "house hacking."
This requires owning a primary residence and converting a garage, basement, or even a bedroom into a rentable space. If you have a bigger budget and meet zoning requirements in your area, another option may be to build an ADU.
At a minimum, renting out a portion of your home will reduce your mortgage — and could even fully cover it. Lowering your monthly housing payment could then help you save up to buy a proper investment property.
Wanot's top advice heading into the new year, however, is to actually implement what you read about and learn. Taking action could be as small as joining a real estate community and networking.
"People are buying programs, they're going to the events, they're watching people come up onstage and talk about how wealthy they got through a particular strategy. But very few people actually implement anything they're being taught," he said.
"The day we actually stop listening to and reading all these stories, podcasts, and YouTube videos and actually apply ourselves is the day we're finally going to start seeing progress in our lives."
