How to Find Off-Market Homes for Buyers When There's Nothing for Sale (2026)

If there's nothing for sale for your buyers, you're probably shopping the same MLS as every other buyer's agent in town, and seeing the same nothing they are. The house your buyer wants exists. The owner just hasn't decided to sell it yet, and chances are no one has asked. Handwrite fifty notes to the owners on your buyer's three favorite streets. Call the ten agents who list the most in that neighborhood and ask what's coming. Call the landlords whose rentals have been sitting. Total cost: a box of note cards and fifty stamps.

By D.J. Paris, president of sales and marketing at Kale Realty and host of the Keeping It Real Podcast. The fix is below. If you want to talk it through, there's a 10-minute option right after it.

The real problem: you're searching the same list as everyone else

Every buyer's agent in your market logs into the same MLS every morning. You set the same filters, you sort by newest, and you look at the same handful of listings. Then you tell your buyer there's nothing, and they hear "my agent can't find anything," which is not what you meant but is what lands.

Low inventory is real. What isn't real is the idea that the houses don't exist. They're standing right there. Somebody lives in them. The difference between a house that's "for sale" and a house that isn't is a decision the owner made. Decisions change when someone gives the owner a reason to reconsider.

Owners rarely wake up and call a brokerage out of nowhere. Something happens, and then someone asks. The asking part is the part you control. A note arrives saying a real buyer wants to live on this exact street. Some owners on that street have been half-thinking about it for a year.

Here's the part that makes this worth your Saturday. You're barely competing with other agents for these houses, because most of them aren't doing this. They're refreshing the MLS. A handwritten note, a call to a listing agent, and a call to a tired landlord are three things most agents don't run at once.

Move 1: the three-street letter

Start by texting your buyer one question. What are your three favorite streets? Not neighborhoods, streets. People always know. They've walked them, they've driven them, they've said "I love this block" out loud.

Now you have a finite universe. Pull the addresses on those three streets and handwrite fifty notes. Here's the note:

I have a qualified buyer who wants to live on [street]. If you've ever thought about selling, I'd like ten minutes. No listing required. The three-street note

Handwritten. Stamped. Not a postcard, not a mail merge, not a flyer with your headshot on it. The handwriting carries it, because it's the only thing in that mailbox a human made on purpose.

"No listing required" is the clause that gets the calls. You've told them a conversation isn't a listing agreement, which removes the thing they're actually avoiding. Most owners assume that talking to an agent starts a process they can't stop.

Two rules, and both matter more than the wording. First, never describe your buyer beyond "qualified." Not their family, not their jobs, not their story, not why they want the block. Details about a buyer's family status or background are a fair-housing line you don't cross, even in a handwritten note, even with good intentions. "Qualified" is also stronger copy, because it's the only fact the owner cares about.

Second, your brokerage name goes on the note. Illinois requires the brokerage name in advertising, and a note soliciting business is advertising. Check the exact format your office wants, because how you identify yourself in mailed pieces varies by brokerage.

Fifty notes takes a couple of hours if you put on a podcast. Do all fifty before you evaluate whether it works. Fifteen notes is a warm-up.

Move 2: call the agents who own the neighborhood

This is the highest-yield hour on this page, and it's the one agents skip. Calling another agent feels like admitting you don't know something.

Go into connectMLS, or whatever your MLS is. Search closed listings, that neighborhood, last twenty-four months. Sort by listing agent. You're looking for the handful of names that keep appearing. Those are the people who get the coming-soon call when a neighbor is thinking about it.

Call the top ten. Not email. Call.

I've got a [price range] buyer who wants [neighborhood]. Anything coming soon or an office exclusive you haven't put out yet? The agent-to-agent call

Twenty seconds, no small talk required, no pitch. You've given them a price range and a neighborhood, with no names attached, which is exactly the information they need to check their own head for a match.

Agents tell each other what's coming all the time. They just don't tell agents who never call them. A listing agent sitting on a seller who's mostly decided would love a clean buyer who shows up before the photos are done. It saves them a marketing cycle. You're not asking for a favor. You're offering the thing they need.

Two practical notes. Write down what every one of the ten says, even the noes, because "nothing right now" often becomes something later, and you want to be the call they remember. And whether you can pursue an office exclusive or a coming-soon at all depends on your MLS rules and your brokerage's policy. Check both before you write offers on them.

Move 3: the tired landlord

Here's a seller most agents skip, sitting in plain view in the same MLS you already pay for.

Pull rental listings in your buyer's area that have been on the market thirty days or more. A rental that won't rent is a monthly bill with no income attached. The owner is watching money leave and doing math they didn't plan to do.

Scrub your list against the Do Not Call registry before you dial. Do not skip this, and don't assume your office does it for you. Ask your managing broker how your brokerage handles DNC compliance, and follow that documented process. The rules around calling a number you got off a listing are not a place to improvise.

Then the call, which is unusual enough that people stay on the line:

Your unit's been sitting. I'm not calling about the rental. I have a buyer. Would you look at an offer? The tired landlord call

Naming that it's been sitting proves you looked. "I'm not calling about the rental" kills the assumption that you're a leasing agent hunting a co-broke. "I have a buyer" is the reason to keep listening. And "would you look at an offer" is the smallest possible yes, because looking isn't selling.

The landlords who say yes to this are usually accidental landlords. They moved, they couldn't sell it the year they left, and they've been managing a unit they never wanted from another state. Your call might be the first time anyone offered them a way out.

Expect most of the calls to be short. That's fine. A tired-landlord list of thirty units is a one-hour project and one yes puts your buyer in a house.

Do this today

The house exists. Go ask.

Run all three on one buyer. Sometimes the payoff is one you didn't expect: a note turns into a listing, or an agent call turns up a different house than the one you asked about.

It works because most agents don't do it. Refreshing the MLS feels like working, and writing fifty notes feels like a chore.

Who this works for, and who should read something else

Frequently asked questions

Still stuck on this one? Book 10 minutes with D.J. I'll call you, and I won't bring up Kale unless you do.