Facebook Marketplace FSBO leads are a legitimate acquisitions channel, not a beginner’s substitute for real marketing — but only if you filter the listings before you message anyone. Josh Moore, who runs West Michigan Property Solutions out of the Grand Rapids and Muskegon markets and has built a wholesale operation doing between $250,000 and $300,000 a year, uses Marketplace as the exact channel he’d start with if he had to rebuild from zero capital tomorrow.
This guide covers the disqualifiers that tell you a listing isn’t the actual owner, the two opening messages Moore uses depending on the condition of the house, how to price the spread without stripping the seller’s equity, and the specific instructions to give a title company so your first assignment doesn’t cost them money or fall apart mid-escrow.
It also covers the pro forma mistake Moore sees creative-finance buyers make when they take over an existing mortgage — the one that shows up six months later as an escrow shortage.
Key takeaways
- Skip any FSBO listing whose description reads like marketing copy — mentions of an agent, an assignment, an "investment opportunity," or the word "cozy" usually means you’re looking at another wholesaler or a licensee, not the owner.
- Your first message should ask one thing: why they’re selling. Moore’s scripts differ for a distressed versus a clean house, but both end in the same question.
- Price the assignment by pricing the seller’s problem: what it costs to solve it, plus roughly $5,000, then test whether that number still works for an end buyer.
- Get the contract sitting with a title agency before you approach investors, confirm they can do an assignment closing, and tell them not to run abstracting or underwriting until you give the go-ahead.
- On subject-to acquisitions, build a tax and insurance buffer into the PITI line — escrow audits hit, and you generally can’t call the bank about a loan that isn’t in your name.
From the Real Estate Pros Show
This article draws on an interview with Josh Moore of West Michigan Property Solutions on the Real Estate Pros Show, hosted by Scott Bursey.
Why Marketplace FSBO Listings Are a Real Lead Channel, Not a Beginner Crutch
Acquisitions worked before list-pulling software existed. As Moore puts it, the job was once done with county records, a phone, pen and paper, and a notary. Paid tools and data platforms are for scaling a machine that already works, not for starting one.
That matters because most investors treat free channels as a step below paid ones. Marketplace deserves a place alongside PPC and cold calling for one structural reason: the people listing there have already raised their hand. They’ve decided to sell, they’ve decided not to hire an agent, and they’ve written a public description of why the house exists in its current state. That’s a self-selecting pool of motivated owners you can access at zero acquisition cost.
Moore’s own stack is broad — Google and Facebook ads, bandit signs, flyers, a local referral network, agent outreach, yard signs, and VAs cold calling pulled lists, running $7,000 to $15,000 a month in marketing spend. None of that is a prerequisite for closing a deal off Marketplace. It’s what you build after you’ve proven you can find a problem and solve it.
The catch is that Marketplace is public, which means every other wholesaler in your market is looking at the same listings. The edge isn’t access. It’s what you do in the ninety seconds before you type a message.
The Filter: Which Listings to Skip Before You Type a Word
Read the description first. Moore’s disqualifiers are specific and they’re all visible without contacting anyone:
- The poster is a real estate agent
- The poster is another wholesaler
- The description mentions “assignment”
- The description mentions “investment opportunity”
- The description uses the word “cozy”
The last one is the useful one. “If it says the word cozy, skip it,” Moore says — not because the word is disqualifying in itself, but because it’s marketing language. Actual owners describe their houses the way they’d describe them to a neighbor. People writing copy describe them the way a listing sheet does. The word is a proxy for anything that flags the poster isn’t the person who owns the house.
Why this matters more than it sounds: messaging another wholesaler’s listing puts you on the wrong side of the table. You’re now a potential end buyer being pitched a deal at retail-for-investors pricing, with someone else’s spread already baked in. You can’t negotiate on problem-solving because the person you’re talking to doesn’t have the problem. You burn time on a conversation that was never going to produce an assignable contract.
Filtering also protects your credibility. If you send the same opening message to twenty listings and half of them are operators, you’ve announced to your local competition exactly what you’re doing and how you sound doing it.
The work of finding sellers online is mostly subtraction. You are looking for the small number of posts written by a person who owns a house and has a reason to be rid of it.
You see how much it costs to solve their problem. You see if, after you add five thousand on top of that, it makes sense for another investor to buy it — and it truly solves their problem. Because if not, you’re doing something called equity stripping. You’re taking advantage of people, and that’s not cool.
— Josh Moore, West Michigan Property Solutions
The Opening Message: Two Versions, One Question
Moore runs two openers depending on what the photos show, and both land on the same question.
For a distressed property: “Hey, looks like this could be really cool when it’s all done. Why don’t you do it? What makes you want to sell it?”
For a clean, well-kept property: “This is a beautiful house, this is great. What makes you want to get rid of it?”
Neither message makes an offer, asks for a price, or mentions that you’re an investor. Both compliment the asset and then ask why the owner is separating from it. The compliment matters on a distressed house because the seller expects to be criticised — leading with “this could be really cool when it’s done” flips the frame and makes the follow-up question feel curious instead of predatory.
“Figure out why,” Moore says. “That’s the essence of all of this — why. How can you help them? Figure out their problem.”
Move to the phone as fast as the conversation allows. Text threads don’t surface the real reason someone is selling; a five-minute call usually does. Once you know the problem, close the call honestly rather than pretending you can price it on the spot:
“I need to run some numbers. Let me just see what I could do. I can’t promise anything, but I’m interested.”
That line does two jobs. It buys you the time you need to actually underwrite, and it sets the expectation that you might come back with nothing — which means a low number later isn’t a betrayal of something you promised.
Running the Numbers: MAO, the Spread, and the Equity-Stripping Line
Moore’s sequence is short:
- Figure out what the seller’s actual problem is.
- Figure out what it costs to solve that problem.
- Add roughly $5,000 on top.
- Test whether that total still works for an end buyer.
If step four fails, there’s no deal. If it passes, you have a contract worth writing. The calculation to learn is maximum allowable offer — MAO — and Moore’s advice on that is unsentimental: go find free instruction on YouTube, run the math, then put it under contract using a purchase and sale agreement you’ve gotten from a mentor or a local investor.
The condition that makes this ethical is step one, and Moore is blunt about it. The deal has to genuinely solve the seller’s problem. “If not, you’re doing something called equity stripping. You’re taking advantage of people, and that’s not cool.”
Practically, that means most leads die — and should. Moore describes the volume as “a billion houses, opportunities, foreclosures, divorces, nah, nah, nah.” Your job is to take all of it in and filter down to the problems you can actually solve at a price that leaves the seller better off. Someone who needs $40,000 and a two-week close has a problem you can solve. Someone who just wants top dollar and has six months to wait does not.
The $5,000 figure is a starting spread for a first deal, not a ceiling. Moore’s own first three assignments ran roughly $7,500, $6,500, and $46,000 — inside about 60 days. Spread scales with the size of the problem you solved, not with how hard you pushed.
Setting Up the Title Company Before You Talk to Buyers
This is the step almost nobody teaches, and it’s the one that determines whether your first assignment closes or embarrasses you.
Get the contract sitting with a title agency before you approach a single investor. Then do three things in the same conversation:
- Ask directly whether they can do an assignment closing. Not every agency will. Finding out after you have a buyer under contract is a scramble you don’t want.
- Tell them not to run abstracting or underwriting yet. Those cost the agency real money. If your buyer never materialises, they’ve spent it on nothing, and your relationship with them starts in the red.
- Tell them it’s your first one. Moore’s framing: “Please just wait for my go-ahead before you start abstracting and underwriting, because I’d hate for us to start off with me losing your money because I don’t have this figured out yet.”
Then take the same transparency to the buyer side. Go to a local real estate meetup, find someone who actively invests, and say it plainly: you’re just starting, you want to do this, you don’t know everything, and you have an opportunity that’s already under contract. Give them the number — $5,000 on it — and ask whether the math works for them.
“Already under contract” is the part that changes the conversation. You’re not asking an experienced investor to mentor you through a maybe. You’re bringing them a controlled asset with a price on it. Being new is not a liability at that point; it’s just context.
If You Keep the Deal: The Escrow-Audit Trap in Subject-To Pro Formas
If your exit is keeping the property on a subject-to rather than assigning it, there’s a specific underwriting hole Moore watches for. Property taxes and insurance are climbing faster than most pro formas assume, and when the escrow audit hits, the shortage lands on the PITI payment you modelled.
The complication with a mortgage you took over rather than originated: “You can’t just go to the bank when you’re taking over a mortgage that’s not yours and talk about it in most cases.” You don’t have the standing to renegotiate escrow, dispute an assessment through the servicer, or shop the force-placed insurance. You absorb the increase.
The fix is a buffer. When you write the PITI line, price in what taxes and insurance could reasonably do over your hold period rather than what they cost today, and stress the deal against that number. A property that cash flows $150 a month on current escrow is not a deal if the next audit moves the payment $200.
This connects to how Moore argues deals should be judged generally. Early on, investors ask how much they made — $20,000 or $30,000 on a flip. The more useful question is what it cost to produce that. “If it took you $500,000 to do that, who cares?” Cash-on-cash and marginal return are what let you compare a Midwest deal to a coastal one honestly.
Perception lags those numbers. Moore points to Flint, Michigan: the water crisis was real, and most of it has been addressed over the better part of a decade, but the reputational damage still suppresses investment sentiment. The opportunity sits in the gap between what the market believes and what the settlement statement says.
Frequently asked questions
How do I tell whether a Facebook Marketplace listing is the actual owner or another wholesaler?
Read the description before you message. Skip it if the poster identifies as a real estate agent, if it mentions the word “assignment,” or if it’s framed as an “investment opportunity” — those are all signals you’re looking at someone else’s deal, not an owner’s house.
The subtler tell is marketing language. Josh Moore’s shorthand is that if the description uses the word “cozy,” skip it. Owners describe their houses conversationally; anyone writing listing copy is probably not the person on title.
What do I say to a for-sale-by-owner seller in the first message?
Compliment the property and ask why they’re selling. On a distressed house: “Looks like this could be really cool when it’s all done — why don’t you do it? What makes you want to sell it?” On a clean house: “This is a beautiful house. What makes you want to get rid of it?”
Don’t make an offer or ask for a price in the first message. The only thing you need from that exchange is the reason they’re selling, and then a phone call where you can find out what the real problem is.
How much should I mark up a wholesale assignment on a first deal?
Start with roughly $5,000 on top of what it costs to solve the seller’s problem, then check whether that total price still makes sense for an end buyer. If it doesn’t, the deal isn’t there — don’t close the gap by squeezing the seller.
Spread grows with the complexity of the problem you solved, not with how aggressively you negotiated. Moore’s early assignments ran around $7,500 and $6,500 before one hit $46,000, all within about 60 days.
What do I need to tell a title company before I bring them an assignment contract?
Three things, before you contact any buyers. Confirm the agency can actually handle an assignment closing. Tell them the contract is in your name and you’re working on finding an end buyer. And explicitly ask them not to run abstracting or underwriting until you give the go-ahead.
That last instruction protects them from spending money on a file that may never close, which is the fastest way to ruin a title relationship on your first deal. Be straightforward that it’s your first one — most agencies will work with you on that basis if you’re not costing them money.
What should I add to my pro forma when I take over an existing mortgage subject-to?
Build a buffer into the PITI line for rising property taxes and insurance. Escrow audits adjust the payment on the underlying loan, and those increases have been running higher than most investors forecast.
The reason it bites harder on a subject-to is that the loan isn’t in your name, so in most cases you can’t call the servicer to discuss the escrow account or the adjustment. You absorb it. Stress the deal against a higher escrow figure than today’s before you commit.
The bottom line
Pick ten Marketplace FSBO listings in your market this week, throw out every one written by an agent or a wholesaler, and send the two-line message to whatever survives — then line up a title agency that does assignment closings before you have anything to bring them, so the first contract you sign has somewhere to go.
