Driving for Dollars

Well here I am, about 2 months into to the initial RE absorption phase, and I keep reading about how important action is in making this endeavor successful. So action I shall take! It's a good weather Sunday down here in the panhandle, my significant other is at work till late, and my son just pooped so I have a few hours before the next diaper is due. I grab a folder, some printer paper, a pen, and off we go.

My goal for the day is to maybe spend an hour or two jotting down notes and taking pictures of abandoned properties in the whole city (HA! Three hours later and I've only covered a .5 x .5 area). So I decide to start close to home. A mere 2 blocks from where I live, in a sort of sectioned off area you have to deliberately drive through, I start my slow, 5 MPH prowl, looking for 3 categories of homes...

1) For Sale by Realtor: Just to get a feel for the area and comps, current market rents, maybe get lucky.

2) FSBO Signs: The possible motivated owner who is stubborn and frustrated with his realtor who may be subject to a quick wholesale. Perhaps his online listing is expired, or maybe it's been months since someone talked to him about his overpriced home.

3) Abandoned homes: The main goal!  I'm going take notes, a picture, and reverse lookup the owner in the county appraiser's site, and relieve them of their burden.  How hard could it be??

First off, I will say that this was quite a way to spend a day. Talking to neighbors, realtors, owners, even policemen... Incredible sources of information just from coming up and asking "what do you know about this empty house?"

And then coming home and doing the online homework. Bouncing between the appraiser's website and the county records database, I found out so much about these owner's lives that was public knowledge. Flippers with dozens of deed transfers, estate inheritances, divorces, liens, refinances, and of course, the lis pendens and final judgment foreclosures. Each home I was painted a picture of what their situation might be, simply from their publicly documented information. Valuable? Maybe not, but perhaps some empathy toward a divorcee who now lives across the country and a $15,000 lien might be the leverage to tip the deal, or finding the heirs of a probate that the public record hadn't been updated on (even after a year), and maybe hadnt yet been contacted.

I'd say the day was successful. Took much too long, almost 6 hours for come up with 5 solid "leads", but it was fun and informative, and I got to be social and creative in my sleuthing.  Many of the "address unknown" owners had addresses hiding inside of other court judgments or public records.   Now time to create some custom mailers.