Financial Professional · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2013 · 92 posts · 7 votes
Where do you obtain lists of absentee owners, estates, pre-foreclosures, etc? As a wholesaler I'm starting a mailing campaign and looking for cheap and reliable lists to market to these sellers!
Yesterday I went to a resturant and ordered a filet and veggie with a couple glasses of nice chards.
Omg they charged 35 bucks plus 8 bucks for the asparagus . The wine was 14 a glass. Hell I could have bought all of it at the store for less than 25. Wtf how dare they charge that much.
For about $50 you can hire a programmer on Odesk.com to scour the tax records and create a list of owners who live at a different address than the situs property. An even better list are owners who live in a different state.
Your title company may be able to create this list for you if they have access to RealQuest or even MLS
If you are planning to wholesale these properties, they need EQUITY. So the deed date is also important. If the house was purchased in the last 10 years it probably does not have enough equity. Look for older deed dates.
The Odesk programmer can sort by Deed date too.
Just because someone lives out of town or out of state, does not mean they are a motivated seller. I live out of COUNTRY and still have rentals.
Most preforeclosures are not good deals. They are probably upside down on their mortgage and have not made payments in years. That won't work for wholesale deals. A short sale is a possibility but a lot of work and rarely wholesale.
You also need to be aware of the preforclosure laws in your state. Some states have strict rules for talking to or marketing to preforclosures.
Yesterday I went to a resturant and ordered a filet and veggie with a couple glasses of nice chards.
Omg they charged 35 bucks plus 8 bucks for the asparagus . The wine was 14 a glass. Hell I could have bought all of it at the store for less than 25. Wtf how dare they charge that much.
Jackie Lange I hear ya. And no just because they are out of state doesn't mean they are motivated, so where would you find a list of vacancies or is that mostly discovered by "driving for dollars" just searching the area for vacancies? Who in specific could find me a list of properties that break code violations? Thanks
Doug R., I am having the same issue. I have a list of absentee owners, with equity, both in state and out of state, but when I went to look at some of the properties, they were in pristine condition. I am particularly looking for distressed properties to flip. How do I know which ones are the best to target without driving for dollars? Or is this the most refined target list to come up with?
Doug, you can get a list of properties with code violations from your city. They are sometimes called RED TAGS
Benjamin- the best way to narrow down the list is to go by the DEED DATE. Only market to properties which were purchased 15 - 20 years ago. There's less chance they will be in pristine condition and more chance they will have equity. Also sort by price range. The less expensive houses are more likely to be your candidates. Market to houses that are at or below median price for your area
Benjamin Shapero I'm one step behind you but in the same race lol where did you get your list of absentee owners? And Jackie Lange I'm more interested in vacant properties I don't have any knowledge on code violations you said Odesk.com was reliable for finding these hotspots??
You can get that list (usually for free) from your city's code enforcement department. Some departments even have this list online.
With code violations, there is always a monthly hearing where there will be a room full of people with code violations. Go to the hearing. take contracts! It does not matter what price you put on the contract because you will write that it is subject to inspection and approval. You can negotiate later.
You can usually get 5-20 houses under contract in one night at these hearings!
an Odesk programmer is good for compiling a list of out of town owners. Where the tax bill is sent to a different address than the subject property.
Jackie Lange Great tips, thanks for the info, I will definitely be utilizing that! Do you know if there is a way to find out about the dead meters? I know most data for meters is stored in the cloud now, but I doubt any big public utility would give up that info without signed consent.
Doug R. I also got my list from listsource, but I am thinking about checking out Odesk in the future. I was going to have someone cross reference the adresses with google maps street view to see if the properties were distressed, but the pictures are 3 years old. I've read you need to do the best you can to target, in other words, get absentee owners, with equity, and then do a blanket approach. It sounds like that is as refined as you can get without driving the addresses yourself.
1) Most areas have Tree Trimmer Business Card Walkers, find one and pay them to give you a list of the abandoned property they find. Or Hire a Door Hanger and hang door hangers and also have them give you that list.
2) Send a low cost Post Card first class and ask the Post Office to send you back the vacant House post card rather then forwarding it.
Michael Quarles I see number 1) being very useful. Can you go more into depth about number 2) I don't exactly understand the process and what that does to help me discover information about the owner of the vacant property
Sorry. I thought you were looking for a way to find vacant houses.
After you find one heck that's where the work begins. Keep an eye at the marketplace. I'm interviewing a vacant investor next week. Detail will be there.
Yes I have 4 I'm looking to wholesale hopefully. And great I'll check it out. That isn't going to be a podcast right? just a regular link in the forums?