Best Way to Find Vacant Homeowners?

Question

What's the best way to find vacant property homeowners?  I talked to a background credit service and they said I can't use their service for marketing purposes.  So what methods work best?

Adrien C. · Answer

@Austin Faux  Yes - I am talking about when the post office returns the mail. If these are addresses I get from driving, I don't care one way or the other if it's absentee owned. I'll mail the address 3x once every 30 days with 3 different types of mail. If I'm 85% certain the house is vacant- I'll leave a note at the house also. Also if I have a high expectancy the house is vacant, I'll search for a new location or phone number. If I can find it- I mail to that address. The last driving one I closed I mailed her 4 times over a 6 month period (after mail to property was returned and I found her else where) before she called. She had just received a summons from the city regarding the condition of her property so the motivation exceeded her tendency to procrastinate the problem. Like you, I get tired waiting for calls so I try to find phone numbers and just make the call. I'd rather have a no and move on vs mailing and waiting. But it's a numbers game. I've mailed 450+ to ugly/vacant/POS homes this year to close 4. I have a 10% response on my mail but most responded on the 2nd mailing.

Adrien C. · Answer

Read his question again folks; you're not answering his question.

Finding vacant owners can be a challenge without the right tools. I first look at the tax records for the house. This is public info that the treasure has available and hopefully the county has the records available online. I'll mail to the address listed. If the mail is returned, I get excited because that's where the $$$ is. First I'll goggle the name to see if they kicked the bucket. If so- great because an obituary usually has surviving kids and the city they live in. You can search for an address on the tax site for the surviving family. If they are not dead, I'll use a special site to track them down. Also search just the name in the taxes (vs just address) and maybe you'll see that they own other properties and have updated the tax mailing address for them. Initially I used Intellius ($20/m) and that was a decent site. It usually gave me some good info with different addresses to try and other relatives to try. Occasionally a phone number they listed worked. Talk to neighbors, leave a letter taped on door, try to track them down on Facebook. A realtor isn't going to be much help for tracking down vacant owners.

Austin Faux · Answer

@Adrien S. Perfect.  As far as what you said about, "If the mail is returned, I get excited because that's where the $$$ is."  Are you talking about if the actual homeowner returns your letter, or are you talking about the post office kicks back your mail to you?  Tax Records & Talk to Kids....cool I'll get on and try that out.  So far what I've been doing is:

1) Look at county website for homeowner info, hoping for non-owner occupied address

2) Talk to neighbors

3) Mail the address to see if a new address gets kicked back to me

4) Leave something at the property for owner to call me backSo far none of those options have really worked too well.

Best Way to Find Vacant Homeowners?

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