How to Find Off Market Properties: Why the Best CRE Deals Never Hit the Market

There's a myth in commercial real estate that the best deals aren't marketed. That they never get sent out to Crexi, to LoopNet, to the MLS. And that's kind of true, but it's also not. The best deals are 100% marketed. You're just not on the list. And if you want to learn how to find off market properties, that distinction matters more than anything else I'm going to tell you today.

I've done some of the best deals of my career completely off market. I'm talking about a nine-story office tower I bought for $1.8 million and sold 15 months later for $4.6 million. And that deal only happened because of an Instagram story. So today, I'm going to break down exactly why the best opportunities never hit the open market, how deals actually get done behind the scenes, and the three lanes you can use to start finding off market properties yourself.

The $2.2 Million Off Market Deal That Started on Instagram

Let me tell you about a deal you will never see on Crexi or LoopNet. This was Newell Tower, a nine-story office tower in Chattanooga that we bought for $1.8 million back in 2021. I sold it in 2022, not even 15 months after we acquired it, for $4.6 million.

Newell Tower: By the Numbers

$1.8M

Purchase Price

$2.4M

All-In Basis

$4.6M

Sale Price

15 Mo.

Hold Period

We had spent about $600,000 on plans, demo, and carry costs, so our all-in basis was roughly $2.4 million. That means we walked away with about $2.2 million in profit in 15 months. It's one of the craziest deals I've ever done.

And here's the thing: we found it completely off market. I posted on Instagram (I might have had 15,000 or 20,000 followers at the time) that I was driving through Chattanooga on my way to Atlanta to look at some projects, and that if anybody knew of anything off market, they should reach out. One of my followers screenshotted that story, shared it with a buddy in Chattanooga, who then reached out and set up a tour that same day to look at three different properties. One of them was Newell Tower. I think we had it under contract literally the next week.

This deal is actually the reason we bought Peerless Mill. The contractor who did the demo for Newell Tower told me he knew of another off market opportunity. No brokers ever touched either deal. That's how some of the best commercial real estate deals get done in this industry.

Why Listed Deals Leave Nothing on the Table

Most investors are hunting for deals by picking over all of the same opportunities. If you're going on Crexi and LoopNet, the phrase is "LoopNet is where deals go to die." I'd say that's 80 or 90% true. You can still find some great deals there (I've bought deals that were listed on LoopNet), but here's the thing: everybody has access to that. Literally everyone. If you have access to that data, so does every other buyer.

Broker email blasts? If you're on a broker's blast list, you're probably one of 500 to 2,000 people getting that email at the same time. Networking events? By the time you see a deal at a networking event, chances are everybody else on the buyer list already has it. I'm not saying don't do all of this stuff. I'm just saying it's a lot more competitive than you think.

There are three specific reasons why listed deals eat into your returns as a commercial real estate investor:

Bid compression. A competitive process eats at the spread before you ever underwrite a deal. I'll never forget my uncle (who's a residential investor here in Nashville) telling me about his neighbor, a doctor, who bragged about a "great deal" on a rental property but was paying a few hundred dollars a month out of pocket toward the mortgage. That doctor didn't need cash flow, he just needed to shelter income. And that's exactly who you're competing against on listed deals. They can pay more than you can.

Adverse selection. The easy deals get listed. The interesting ones really don't. Some of the coolest properties, the biggest deals, the best opportunities just never hit the market. Maybe the seller doesn't want tenants or hotel guests to know something's going on. It's better to quietly shop those deals off market.

The marketing tax. Sellers price the cost of going wide. You pay for the auction. It can get very expensive. What's best for a seller is not necessarily what's best for a buyer. But sometimes there's a middle ground where buyers and sellers meet off market, and it works really well for both sides.

"The best deals are 100% marketed. You're just not on the list."

- Tyler Cauble

Lane 1: The Preview List (The Call You're Not Getting)

Brokers do not list the best deals, at least not at first. They preview them to 5, 10, 20 buyers. My preview list is probably about 50 to 100 people, depending on the type of deal. Right now, I've got a deal we just previewed to about 200 investors that will be hitting the market next week. The top clients see it first.

Think about it at the most basic level. Brokers get paid commissions, which means they only get paid if a deal closes, which means they are highly incentivized to send deals specifically to the buyers they know are going to close. That's why they go out and see if they can get it done quickly first. Some of the top brokers only work with a handful of people.

The preview round closes most of their inventory. If the first 20 buyers want it, the listing is never going live. If we get an offer this week on that deal I just previewed, I'm not listing it. We're getting everything we need without having to take it to market.

So how do you get on the list? You need capital ready. You need to have closed a deal before (even if you were just a minority partner, that's your track record). You've got to be easy to work with. And you've got to be willing to give feedback.

I cannot stress that last point enough. If you get on a broker's list and they send you a deal and you don't contact them to explain why the deal doesn't work for you, they're going to stop sending you deals. I've had plenty of buyers tell me, "Hey, I want to look at all deals that fit this criteria." So I send them those deals. Then you never hear back. You check in, send another deal that checks all their boxes, and still nothing. No feedback. Guess what? I'm taking them off the list. I don't have time to chase somebody down if they're not going to buy or even give me feedback when I send them great opportunities.

Put yourself in a broker's shoes. If you had a deal and wanted the best opportunity for it to close and earn you a commission in the easiest way possible, what does that buyer profile look like? That's what you as the investor need to mold yourself into.

Lane 2: Tired Sellers Who Want Out Quietly

"Tired seller" doesn't necessarily mean somebody in a distressed situation. It could just be an owner who's ready to move on. I had a friend buy a deal for two or three hundred thousand dollars under what the seller had paid for it a decade earlier. The seller told him something really interesting: "Being on the other side of it now and having as much wealth as I do, you start to realize the last few hundred thousand dollars don't matter." Sometimes people just want an easy deal with somebody they know is going to close.

Here are the most common types of tired sellers you'll come across when looking for off market properties:

Operationally exhausted owners. Commercial real estate investing is not easy. Everybody thinks it's completely passive, and it can be to a certain extent, but you need the right systems and processes. If you've always self-managed, you're going to be worn out by the day-to-day. I personally have a property management team because I can't stand the management side of things.

Estate and inheritance situations. When someone passes away and hands a property off to their family, that family typically doesn't want to deal with it or doesn't understand how commercial real estate works. They want the money, not the investment. The family might want to sell quietly and just divvy up the proceeds. This is why approaching estate planning attorneys can be a great strategy. There's a property I've been looking at where the owner passed away over a year ago. I've reached out to the estate planning attorney a couple of times to say, "Hey, I'm very interested. If the family doesn't want to take it to market, bring it to me. I'll pay fair market value and cover the closing costs." For the attorney to be able to tell the family they can save 6 or 7% on commissions? That's a pretty good deal for everyone.

Aging out with no succession. This doesn't always mean they don't have kids. It could mean the next generation doesn't want to run it. Maybe they have no kids at all and want to sell and give the money to charity. I've also seen sellers with two or three kids who know the portfolio doesn't divide up easily, so they'd rather sell and give their kids cash than deal with the infighting.

Lane 3: Direct Outreach (My Favorite Way to Find Off Market Properties)

This is my favorite approach and I think it's the most overlooked strategy in commercial real estate. Everyone and their grandmother is sending out mailers in residential real estate. The texts, the phone calls, the hard mailers are insane. But in the eight years I've been investing in commercial real estate, I can think of maybe two times I've received actual direct mail from somebody trying to buy one of my properties off market. Two times. That tells you how much opportunity there is.

Here's how to do it right:

Pick one asset class. Get specific. RV parks, flex space, neighborhood retail, industrial real estate, whatever it is. That doesn't mean you can't invest in other types, but when you're doing direct outreach, have one investment thesis and one focus.

Pick one market. It should be a market you can drive to in maybe 90 minutes. For me, it's literally a 15-minute radius. All of my properties are within a 15-minute radius of where I live. I'm lazy, man. I don't want to drive across the river here in Nashville to check on my properties. You want to talk about building the right lifestyle? Go invest within a 15-minute radius of where you live.

Pull the ownership list. You can go to the county records and get this stuff for free. Go to the county and say, "I want a list of all the property owners who own this type of real estate in these zip codes, and they've owned it for seven years or more." You can download it. Every county typically has some sort of tax database or GIS records. You may have to go down to the courthouse, but there is a way for you to pull this for free.

Start the conversation. Send out the letters, make the calls, do the drive-bys. At any given time, about 5% of those owners are willing to consider something. So if you send mail to a thousand owners, that's 50 properties willing to entertain a conversation. Not all of them will be at a reasonable price, but that's 50 opportunities.

The nice thing about commercial real estate is that every single deal, regardless of whether it's hidden in an LLC, is going to have a mailing address in the tax records. That's where tax bills get sent, utility bills, everything. So if you're sending mail to the mailing address, chances are it's going to a decision maker. Hand address it and it's going to look very important. That's a sniper approach, not a shotgun approach, but it works.

"I used to send 50 mailers a week because I'd do 10 a day. Print them, hand sign them, hand address them, stamp them, drop them in the mailbox. It doesn't take that much time. Maybe 30 minutes. And absolutely worth it if you find one deal that could make you a couple hundred thousand dollars."

- Tyler Cauble

I bought a great deal back in 2021 off a mailer we sent out. It took probably 45 to 60 days for the seller to call us back, and we closed within three months. Patience is a virtue with direct outreach.

Real-world example: We have a member of our CRE Accelerator mastermind right now working on an RV park she sourced entirely through direct outreach. She's buying it for $1.5 million, and by the time she's done repositioning it and implementing her operations, it's going to be worth over $5 million. She picked the asset class (RV parks), picked a region (the Southeast), and made the call directly. No broker, no intermediary. She found a tired seller who doesn't want to operate a modern RV park anymore. That combination of direct outreach and a tired seller is where the real magic happens in off market deals.

Are You Actually Ready for Off Market Deals?

This approach is absolutely right for you if you have capital ready to deploy (or at least have access to it through a line of credit or banking relationships), you've closed one or two deals (even as a minority partner), you can wait 90 or more days for the right opportunity, and you're able to talk to owners directly and speak intelligently about what you want to do.

This is not for you if you need your first deal in the next 30 days. That's not going to happen. If anybody tells you that you can get rich quickly in commercial real estate, they're lying. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You can build a tremendous amount of wealth if you buy your first commercial property the right way and keep going from there.

If you don't have capital lined up, you're going to get presented an opportunity and not be able to take advantage of it, and you'll probably never get a second chance. If you're still trying to pick an asset class, you're not ready yet. You need that dialed in so you know exactly what you're doing the moment an opportunity arises.

Off market is not harder. In my opinion, finding and negotiating and closing off market real estate deals is substantially easier than on-market because you're not competing against hundreds if not thousands of other people. It's just a different approach and you have to know how to go about doing it.

The best deals are not hidden. You're just not in the room where they're happening. So fight to get on that list, approach owners directly, and start sending those mailers. Send 10 a week, 20, 30. I used to send 50 a week. You're going to get about a 1% response rate, so send out a few thousand before you decide it doesn't work. It does. I've proven it.

Key Takeaways

Off market doesn't mean hidden. The best deals are actively marketed, just to a select list of 5 to 100 buyers. Getting on that list is the real game.

Listed deals have built-in disadvantages. Bid compression, adverse selection, and the marketing tax all eat into your returns before you ever start.

Three lanes to find off market properties. Get on broker preview lists, identify tired sellers, and run direct outreach campaigns. Ideally you're working all three.

Give brokers feedback. If a broker sends you a deal and you ghost them, you're getting removed from the list. Tell them why it doesn't work so they can send you better deals.

Direct mail is wildly underused in CRE. In eight years of investing, I've received direct outreach maybe twice. That's your opportunity. Send 50 mailers a week and be patient.

Have capital ready and an asset class picked. Off market deals move fast. If you're not ready when the opportunity shows up, you won't get a second chance.

This article is based on an episode of Office Hours, my weekly live show on the Tyler Cauble YouTube channel where I break down commercial real estate strategies and answer your questions live every Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. CST.

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About Tyler Cauble

Tyler Cauble is a commercial real estate broker, investor, and developer based in Nashville, Tennessee. As the founder of The Cauble Group, he has acquired over 2 million square feet of industrial, retail, and office properties. Tyler is the author of Open for Business: The Insider's Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and the host of the Commercial Real Estate Investor podcast. Through his CRE Accelerator mastermind at CRECentral.com, he coaches investors at every stage of their commercial real estate journey.