Driving for Dollars: How to Find Off-Market Real Estate Deals in 2026

Jesop Gale (00:00)

I would say part of it’s the outreach, but doing driving for dollars and concentrating on those lists, I used a couple of apps and was building larger lists and doing large volume calling. And I found that doing the smaller volume calling and more of a targeted list on things you can get your eyes on actually brings in more deals closer because a lot of the time when you’re at those properties and you’re driving for dollars, you can just go knock on their door and see if you can talk.

person. And yes, it is a little bit more use of a time, but in the same respect, it’s what are you getting out of that time versus what you’re putting in. what I mean? It’s like if I’m putting in five hours of calling for two months to get a deal. Is that really worth more of my time than putting in a week’s worth of driving and getting a deal out of that?

Scott Bursey (02:17)

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel I’m your host, Scott Bursey Glad you’re with us. Today we’re thrilled to have Jesop Gale with us. Jesop has been grinding in the off-market real estate space for just under four years now, showing true grit by staying the course for over a year before closing his first deal. Listeners, you can expect sound insight today on persistence.

Learning the ropes in the Washington market and scaling from that first victory to building a pipeline of deals. Jesop, welcome to the show.

Jesop Gale (02:52)

How are you doing today, Scott?

Scott Bursey (02:53)

Excellent, And thank you for joining us today, Jesop. And to help our listeners get up to speed, please give us the ninety second highlight reel, if you will, of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Jesop Gale (03:06)

Absolutely. Well, so my journey began a little over three years ago. won a contest with Springboard to Wealth, and ended up getting in the group and ended up paying for the rest of my membership there.

Scott Bursey (03:18)

And

Jesop Gale (03:18)

kind of just grinded it out for about a year and four months before I closed my first wholesale deal. And ended up kind of closing five deals total, four last year and then the fifth one at the beginning of this year. And market’s been pretty tough, so just been grinding it out. got my broker’s license at the beginning of this year too. So within that, just kind of learning the ropes on market stuff too and trying to get my footing there as well with doing off market and

Yeah, just working on getting this deal I have currently sold right now. So

Scott Bursey (03:47)

thank you for sharing that. And what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to maintain focus for over sixteen months before landing that first wholesale deal. Most people would have thrown in the towel, but you clearly had the discipline to keep hunting. And really building off that, what do you consider your biggest strength when it comes to locking up off market deals?

Jesop Gale (04:12)

Well, I would say my biggest strength for locking up off market deals is my ability to build relationships with sellers and people in general. And not just in building rapport, but building a genuine relationship and getting to know this person because as selling your house, it’s one of the biggest life decisions most people make. And especially with off market properties, a lot of people are in kind of touchy situations. So you have to be very delicate within how you handle them.

And how you treat these people to make sure that everybody’s happy in the end and they feel like everything was done right by them and for them. So

Scott Bursey (04:44)

Love that. And Jesop, interested in hearing about a weakness you identified in your early days that you’ve since turned into a learning experience.

Jesop Gale (04:53)

well, cold calling actually was a weakness. I hated it. I’m not gonna lie. it’s not fun getting told where to go and how to F off and other things like that, but I leaned into it and the more people started doing that, the more I had fun with it. And I just realized the last couple of times that somebody told me to go F off.

I just kind of left and I was like, hey, sounds like you’re having a bad day. I’ll give you guys a call back, in about a week. That sounds good to you. And they were just like, Y yeah. I’ve like, all right, cool, have a great day. And so it’s just it’s nice to be able to kind of flip the script and, turn that person’s bad day 180 because I had to realize I can’t take that personally. I don’t know what’s going on in their life or what their situation is. And if I treat it like that.

And I don’t take offence to it and it’s been great and helped me in a lot of other manners and ways in life too as well.

Scott Bursey (05:43)

It’s all about being in the right mindset. And wondering about the opportunities you see right now in the Washington market that others might be missing.

Jesop Gale (06:39)

there’s a lot of off market off opportunities actually. Just people are there’s a couple of things I’ve noticed. People are really scared to pull the trigger on buying, even with off-market deals. it’s a very heavy buyer’s market. And within that, you’re having for one house or sorry, flip that over. For one buyer has like 20 houses to look at. So they have the pick of the litter. The sellers have to make concessions and

People are kind of realizing that, but a lot of people are scared about, the points raising on interest rates and things like that. And as an investor, it’s not something we truly worry about because we can always refinance later. And as long as the numbers work, we make the how we say it in Springboard and my mentor Thatch says we make our money on the buy, not the sell. Because buying and holding is where you end up making your money. You gain your equity and you’re able to get paid off and you end up setting yourself up really nice for retirement when you have

a few houses, cheap, even at the bare minimum. So

Scott Bursey (07:33)

Jesop, that is a sharp observation. And eager to understand from your point of view. What’s the biggest threat to your lead generation efforts and how are you staying ahead of the competition?

Jesop Gale (07:45)

Well, I mean, for example, with the market being so tough, I’ve noticed people are I wouldn’t say being underhanded, but had another person that was working with my seller kind of try and go behind us or behind me to get the deal back. And it’s just funny to see that. I don’t do that. I let my n seller know that I’m like essentially if we were in a different relationship, that’s act that would be illegal. But since we’re not, it’s technically not. But

I don’t operate that way. I look out for the people I work with and I take care of because like I said, usually dealing with a lot of delicate situations and I gotta make sure I take care of these people and treat them right. Because at the end of the day, this is a people, kind of business. And people don’t think about it as being customer service, but it’s like I’ve been told by other people in my group that I’m not transactional. And that’s what they see with a lot of other people in the business and

one of my colleagues actually told me he’s like, I wanna see your story going from zero dollar realtor to be like million dollar realtor. He’s like, You’re different than all everybody else I’ve met. So

Scott Bursey (08:43)

Thinking about your long term vision, what one specific goal are you testing right now to see if it’s a viable path for your business in the next year?

Jesop Gale (08:52)

didn’t want to let on too much about this publicly, but I’m working on some ideas on lead generation and had somebody build me something currently that I’m getting ready to test out to see how that works for my lead generation. And if it does, I’m gonna kinda keep going further with it to develop it into something hopefully bigger and long term that can help a lot of people. So

Scott Bursey (09:15)

Are you planning on doing it solo or with a partner?

Jesop Gale (09:18)

I’m kinda crazy. I do a lot of things well by myself. if a partner arose that wanted to work with me on it and that was viable that I could trust and it made sense for both of us, yeah, I’d be open to it. Absolutely.

Scott Bursey (09:30)

Jesop, if somebody’s listening right now and they’re thinking to themselves, Hey, this is somebody that I really like that would maybe I would like to partner with, what would you like them to know first about your wholesaling operation?

Jesop Gale (09:43)

Well, first and foremost, integrity is not just a word in my business. It has actual meaning. And I say that because I see a lot of people that, for instance, the seller I’m working with, the other person that came in offered them eighty thousand less. And because of their situation, they were kind of tugging at, their heart strings and what they’re dealing with. And that’s wrong. You I in my opinion, you do not do that to people.

You understand that situation, you work within that manner, and you do your best to find something that fits them, that benefits them in the end. And my whole thing is I don’t think about my assignment fees. I never think about what I’m gonna get. It’s I want a happy seller, I want a happy buyer. If they’re happy, I’m gonna get taken care of somewhere in the middle and I’ll be happy with that. So

Scott Bursey (10:25)

That’s a winning formula right there. And Jesop, if you could take us down the path of what does your professional network look like right now?

Jesop Gale (11:14)

pretty good actually. I’ve been expanding it lately. I’ve been working with another wholesale company recently for the past couple of months. And I would say I’ve learned probably more in the past two months from that person that I did working for another wholesaler for a year before that. And I mean that other experience was great. I did learn a lot, but like this has just been absolutely amazing. And they’ve actually been trying to help me dispo this deal and letting me work with their buyers too. So

it’s been great.

Scott Bursey (11:41)

That sounds like a solid foundation to be working from. And love your take on this. If you were starting your wholesaling career over from scratch today with the knowledge you have now, what is the one move you would make in your first, let’s say ninety days that would give you the best chance of securing a deal?

Jesop Gale (12:00)

Well

I would say part of it’s the outreach, but doing driving for dollars and concentrating on those lists, I used a couple of apps and was building larger lists and doing large volume calling. And I found that doing the smaller volume calling and more of a targeted list on things you can get your eyes on actually brings in more deals closer because a lot of the time when you’re at those properties and you’re driving for dollars, you can just go knock on their door and see if you can talk.

person. And yes, it is a little bit more use of a time, but in the same respect, it’s what are you getting out of that time versus what you’re putting in. what I mean? It’s like if I’m putting in five hours of calling for two months to get a deal. Is that really worth more of my time than putting in a week’s worth of driving and getting a deal out of that? So I think that yeah, I would go to doing the driving for dollars and doing specific lists would

Scott Bursey (12:52)

Jesop Thank you for dropping that wisdom for the listeners. Driving for dollars. Absolutely. And that’s some really good strategy. You’ve given us a lot of good strategic tips here today, but is there any additional words of wisdom that you could leave with our listeners specifically about your market in Washington?

Jesop Gale (13:11)

I would say don’t be afraid. This is the right time to buy actually as a buyer, as an investor. Yeah, if the rates do go up a little bit, it is what it is. But this is the perfect time of year to get in, get a remodel. And if you’re either gonna flip it, the market’s gonna change by next spring, I have a feeling. Or you’ll your burr, your buy re buy and hold property is gonna be ready to sit there and run out. So it makes sense to buy now. Get your project done during the winter. It’s ready to run out or list.

In the spring and just people stop being afraid. This is what we do for a living. We’re investors. We roll the dice every day in life. And if we’re not rolling the dice, then what are we doing out here, right?

Scott Bursey (13:50)

That is some high octane fuel right there. Thank you for that, Jesop. And I really want to thank you for being on the show here today. How can our listeners reach you if they would like to collaborate with you?

Jesop Gale (14:02)

a couple of ways. I have Instagram, also I have Facebook. it’s gonna be Jesop the broker, so it’s J E S O P underscore T H E underscore B R O K E R for both. happy to help anybody out that’s looking either to buy or sell a home in the Washington area or if you got anything off market, happy to work with you there too.

Scott Bursey (14:23)

Jesop, once again, thank you for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast.

Jesop Gale (14:27)

Thanks, I appreciate it. It’s been great, Scott.

Scott Bursey (14:29)

And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with a lineup of elite guest, just like Jesop Gale, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.