Help Center · Finding Buyers

Search Filters and Radius

Running an investor search in Deal Run returns every active investor within a defined area around your deal address. But raw, unfiltered results are not always what you need. A search with a 5-mile radius in a dense urban market might return 200+ investors. A search in a rural area might return 5. The filters and radius controls let you calibrate your results to find the right number of the right kind of investors for each specific deal.

This guide covers every filter available in the investor search interface, explains when and why to adjust each one, and provides practical guidance for common scenarios.

Radius

The radius defines the geographic area around your search address. Only investors who have purchased property within this circle are included in results. Deal Run offers six radius options:

0.25 miles (default) -- approximately 2 city blocks in each direction
0.5 miles -- a small neighborhood
1 mile -- a typical subdivision or neighborhood cluster
2 miles -- a broader area covering multiple subdivisions
5 miles -- a submarket or district
10 miles -- a wide regional search

The default radius of 0.25 miles is intentionally tight. Deal Run starts narrow because the closest investors are almost always the best matches -- they know the specific street, the specific neighborhood, and the specific micro-market dynamics. Expanding from there is easy; narrowing a flood of results is harder.

When to keep the radius tight (0.25 - 1 mile)

Use a tight radius in dense urban and suburban areas where investor activity is concentrated. If your deal is in a well-established subdivision in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, or any major metro area, a 0.25 to 1-mile radius will typically return 20 to 60 investors. That is plenty to work with, and these investors are the most likely to buy because they already operate in the exact area.

Tight radius also works well when you have a property in a neighborhood with distinct characteristics that do not translate to nearby areas. For example, if your deal is in a waterfront subdivision, investors 5 miles inland may have no experience with flood insurance requirements, waterfront pricing dynamics, or the specific buyer pool for those properties. Keeping the radius tight ensures your results contain investors who actually understand the micro-market.

When to expand the radius (2 - 10 miles)

Expand your radius when the default search returns fewer than 10-15 investors. This happens most often in:

Rural areas: Less investor activity per square mile means you need a wider net. A 10-mile radius in a rural county might return the same number of investors as a 0.5-mile radius in a metro area.
New development areas: Subdivisions on the urban fringe may not have much resale investor activity yet because the housing stock is newer. Expand to capture investors who are active in adjacent, more established areas.
Higher price points: The $400,000+ investor pool is naturally smaller than the $150,000 pool. Expanding the radius compensates for the lower density of luxury market investors.
Niche property types: If you have a small multifamily property (duplex, triplex), the pool of multifamily investors within 0.25 miles is small. Expand to 2-5 miles to find multifamily specialists who operate across a broader area.

There is a tradeoff: wider radius returns more results but with lower average relevance. An investor 8 miles away may not know your specific neighborhood and may not be interested in expanding to an area they have not operated in before. Use wider radius results as a secondary outreach tier after you have exhausted your tight-radius prospects.

Date range (lookback period)

The date range filter controls how far back in time Deal Run looks for investor transactions. Available options are:

2 years -- most recent and active investors only
3 years -- moderate lookback, balances recency with volume
5 years (default) -- comprehensive view of investor activity

The date range interacts directly with the Investor Score recency factor. Investors with recent purchases score higher regardless of the lookback period. The lookback period determines the pool size -- a 5-year lookback captures more investors, some of whom may no longer be active, while a 2-year lookback gives you a smaller but more current set.

When to use a shorter lookback (2 years)

Use a 2-year lookback when you want to focus exclusively on investors who are demonstrably active right now. In fast-moving markets where investor behavior changes quickly (hot markets that cool off, or emerging markets that attract new investors), a shorter lookback prevents stale results. If you have plenty of investors within the default 5-year window, tightening to 2 years filters out the ones who may have stopped buying.

When to use a longer lookback (5 years)

Keep the 5-year default when you need a larger pool of prospects. Investor Score naturally ranks recent buyers higher, so the 5-year window gives you the recency-sorted results of a 2-year search plus additional older investors as backup. In markets with lower activity or for deals where you want maximum outreach, the wider window is valuable.

The 5-year lookback also captures investors who may have been active 3-4 years ago, paused, and are now looking to re-enter the market. These investors have experience in the area even if their last transaction is not recent.

Property type filter

The property type filter narrows results to investors who buy specific types of properties. Available property types include:

Single Family Residential (SFR): Standalone houses. This is the most common property type for wholesaling and the default selection.
Multi-family: Duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes (2-4 units). Investors who buy multifamily are a distinct group from SFR investors and typically evaluate deals on rental income metrics rather than ARV.
Townhouse / Condo: Attached housing with HOA considerations. Fewer investors specialize in this category, but those who do are often very active.
All types: No property type filter applied. Returns investors across all property categories.

Use the property type filter when your deal's property type is important to the buyer selection. If you are wholesaling a duplex, you want investors who have bought duplexes before -- they understand the rent roll analysis, the property management complexity, and the valuation methodology. A flipper who exclusively buys single-family homes is unlikely to be interested in a multifamily property even if it is in their target area.

Institutional filter

The institutional filter is a toggle (checkbox) that controls whether large-scale institutional buyers appear in your results. On desktop, the checkbox label reads "Institutional". On mobile screens (under 768px width), the label shortens to "Inst." to save space.

Institutional buyers are defined as entities that have purchased 10 or more properties within the lookback period. These are typically:

Single-family rental (SFR) companies that accumulate large portfolios
Private equity-backed acquisition firms
Large-scale flip operations with in-house construction teams
National homebuying companies (e.g., "We Buy Houses" franchise operators)

Including institutional buyers

Enable the institutional toggle when you want access to the full market of potential buyers, including large operators. Institutional buyers can be excellent prospects because they buy at high volume, close with cash, and make decisions quickly. If your deal fits their criteria, they are among the fastest paths to closing.

Excluding institutional buyers

Disable the toggle when you want to focus on small-to-medium investors -- the local landlord with 5 rentals, the husband-and-wife flip team, the part-time investor building a portfolio. These investors are often more flexible on price, more willing to negotiate, and more likely to build a long-term relationship where they buy multiple deals from you over time. Institutional buyers tend to be transactional -- they buy when the deal fits their box and move on.

Combining filters for optimal results

Filters work together to narrow your results progressively. Here are some effective combinations for common scenarios:

Scenario: Distressed SFR in a Houston suburb

Radius: 1 mile. Date range: 5 years. Property type: SFR. Investor type: Flipper. Institutional: Off. This gives you local flippers who specialize in single-family homes and have bought in the area within the last 5 years.

Scenario: Turnkey rental in a B-class neighborhood

Radius: 2 miles. Date range: 3 years. Property type: SFR. Investor type: Landlord. Institutional: On. This captures both individual landlords and SFR companies who accumulate rentals in the area.

Scenario: Duplex in a rural Texas market

Radius: 10 miles. Date range: 5 years. Property type: Multi-family. Investor type: All. Institutional: On. Wide radius and all-inclusive filters because multifamily investors in rural areas are sparse and you need the largest possible pool.

Scenario: Luxury flip in a gated community

Radius: 5 miles. Date range: 3 years. Property type: SFR. Investor type: Flipper. Institutional: Off. Expanded radius because luxury flippers are rare, but institutional toggle off because corporate buyers rarely operate in luxury-flip territory.

How filters affect result count and quality

Every filter you apply reduces the number of results but increases the average relevance. A search with no filters might return 150 investors; adding "Flipper only" plus a 1-mile radius might narrow that to 25. Those 25 are significantly better matches than the unfiltered 150.

If your filtered search returns fewer than 5 investors, loosen your filters before concluding that there are no buyers for your deal. Start by expanding the radius, then widening the date range, then broadening the investor type from specific (Flipper) to general (All). The goal is to find 15-30 well-matched investors for outreach, which is typically enough to generate 2-5 interested buyers and at least one offer.

Changing filters does not consume additional search credits. Once you have run a search, you can adjust filters freely to explore different segments of the same result set.