Hi Awahee123,
The theory goes (anyway) that the website is part of a marketing arsenal that includes local newspaper (or radio) advertising, and heavy leafletting to attract motivated sellers to you rather than you having to do the running around. Though I know a few people who are very successful in this business, I also know starters who have failed spectacularly (perhaps because their leafletting strategy did not pre-filter prospective areas. here's just one example. I spoke to a lady last week who had distributed 100,000 leaflets over the space of three months, at a cost in excess of £5,000, had four enquiries and did not convert any of them into no money down deals.
So for me, I'm happy to continue doing what I do (which is not very clever, and uses capital funds) but when people talk about buying "below market value", they really mean buying below what a RICS valuer will determine is the maximum market price. Therefore, there may be little difference between buying BMV and just offering a cheeky discount to those properties already on the market via conventional estate agents.
