BiggerPockets

I think most seasoned investors will agree that you need SOME money starting out. Most of those 'get rich quick w/ none of your own money' crap is easily bought into but no real substance. As a few days ago I've started doing Probates and stopped marketing for pre-foreclosures. An individuals blog post was forwarded to me for something else, but reading through he mentioned of a way to make some extra capital that made sense to me, I'd like to share that here for new guys/gals that have no money and would like an 'actual' way to make at least a few bucks ( you won't get rich, but it will help with initial marketing costs, or a way to pay for a course/program/book etc...)

Selling probate leads!

Most investors/Realtors will pay for leads, think about it, we do it all the time, I pay bird dogs for leads that pan out and Realtors will pay for listing leads all the time, why not use that?

So I decided to do it myself and see if was applicable before I decided to post here to help with the newbies.

So I had contacted a few agents that I know and told them I'll be getting some probate leads and selling them for $20 a piece. They all said, "I'll buy a few". One of them told me he'll buy every one of them for $20 (this got me thinking, I should be charging more since he was so eager to pay $20)

I decided this, $20 a piece with a minimum order of 10, that equals $200 for you math guys :mrgreen: . Think about that guys/gals, you can actually make $200 just going down to the courthouse and pulling recent probate files and selling those to Investors/Realtors.

That got me thinking of more step, which I haven't been able to exercise just yet, but I'll be sure to update as soon as I do. Now as an investor I or we obviously want a significant discount right? but what about those that don't want to sell for a discount?................I understand Mr./Mrs. seller (the estate rep) I know a really good Realtor that I can refer to you, why don't I just have him/her give you a call to help you with that?

Now thats a hot lead and it's worth at least $100 or even $200 to a Realtor. This will be a way to generate income in ways that you might not thought possible before, and instead of losing the lead b/c they don't want to sell for a big discount, at least you can make a few bucks that will cover more marketing costs for yourself.

now your market will obviously be a little different, but the point is for those of you that do not have any money at all and could use a few extra bucks to get your own marketing going, this is a very real and very viable source of some extra income.

I hope this helps

Go down to the courthouse yourself, it's worth the time and money if your just getting started.

not all probates will be in the newspaper, not all obituaries are published and as far as the legal paper, You'll get the 'Notice to Creditors' from those, but if you get what you need to get from the representatives petition before anything is published, then your 1 step ahead of everyone else who does it the same way you just described.

So you contact a Realtor and tell them you have probate leads for sale and they will buy them?

I know there hasn't been a huge response here and thats fine. It's simply a helping tool for the newbies that complain of lack of capital. I would like to report that I came to an agreement with an agent I've worked with in the past. He and his wife have agreed to pay me $200 for a referral (hot lead) and then pay me 1/2 of the commission minus the original $200 he paid me.

If you ask me thats a great deal for both of us, and more importantly proves that you can generate extra income.

You might be asking why would I even be selling the leads to begin with. Well it's simple, 6months, 1 year or however long down the road I can honestly say I got started in probate using NONE of my own money. Why? b/c I sold leads to pay for my own marketing on the leads I didn't sell covering the cost of my marketing that will in return result in deals that I wholesale, that will result in cash reserves to buy/rehab/re-sell................I'll have gotten to that point and be able to say that it was all b/c I sold a few leads when I got started in Probates.

Again, I hope my travels in the probate world will be of some help to others

The new avatar was simply b/c I was rummaging around the garage and found an old computer I had from when I owned a 4x4 shop for a few years ago. I plugged it in and found a bunch of really cool pics of myself and the jeep club I used to roll with, brought back memories. I even found the t.v. commercial I had done and some of my other jeeps/buggies that I had built. I liked the kool-aid man, but when I found these I decided this will be my only avatar from now on.

Thanks for your advice on probate and other helpful info, Nick. I just started getting into probate about a month ago after signing up for a program that's teaching me how to find the deals and then negotiate with the heirs once I know there's real estate involved. It's still new to me but I've made a good bit of headway since beginning, learning how to get the info from legal publications and court records

This technique works PERIOD.

Nick,

Interesting info and definitely worth a try. A few questions:

1) How often should we check? Daily?
2) Where are probate files generally located at the courthouse? Public Records?
3) If we are starting from scratch who would you recommend we contact first to attempt to sell them?

If anyone's doing this in the Los Angeles area, please feel free and contact me. I'm an agent and active investor. So if for some reason you can't do the probate deal, I'd gladly compensate for the lead... You all have a great day!

Edward

Got me Steve! I couldn't help myself. I was shopping around for a Scarface poster with my boy and I came across this one, what can I say, I'm indecisive. Maybe next week it will be something different, like my mugshot