Real Estate Broker · Yakima, WA · Member since 2018 · 66 posts · 42 votes
After you drive for dollars and have a list of dilapidated/vacant properties, what website or source do you use to find owners' addresses (preferably at a low cost or free)?
Good to meet you... I use a service from First American Title called Fastweb. its free, although difficult to get connected to.. however very much worth the wait and struggle...
If it s only a couple of address I can give you the results if you give me the addresses...
Good to meet you... I use a service from First American Title called Fastweb. its free, although difficult to get connected to.. however very much worth the wait and struggle...
If it s only a couple of address I can give you the results if you give me the addresses...
You can find them for free on the county assessors website. Look up the address one by one to find the owners name and proper mailing address, as it may be different than the subject property address. Once you get the hang of it and know how it all works, you can then hire someone, such as a VA, to do this for you as it is a time consuming task.
Hey @Jennifer Soelberg. I have never heard of that before, and I know investors from all over the country. That is very strange. I wonder why they do that!? Maybe you could get the info from the courthouse records, or you could use a skiptracing company that does batch processing. You can also get a programmer to create a scraping program if the data is available online.
Braden Smith I thought the same thing. When I lived in Bellingham, WA it was very easy to get owner addresses through the county website, but they just don’t have that info on the Yakima website. Thank you for your suggestions!
Next time you see a vacant property, or any distressed property for that matter, get out of your car and knock on the door. Then, knock on all the neighbor's doors until someone has some info for you. Usually at least one of the neighbors will know how long the home has been vacant, who it belonged to, and what their number is.
Next time you see a vacant property, or any distressed property for that matter, get out of your car and knock on the door. Then, knock on all the neighbor's doors until someone has some info for you. Usually at least one of the neighbors will know how long the home has been vacant, who it belonged to, and what their number is.
Seriously, do it!
Hope that helps!
This is a great suggestion because it gives you more information and improves your chances of landing a deal. You may even get a cell phone number to call the person, rather hoping they will respond to a letter. I think many people are scared to knock on doors or even to scared to use the phone.
@Jennifer Soelberg Try the tax records. If the homes are vacant, there should be a mailing address going to whoever pays the taxes. You could also try talking to the neighbors to see if there's a way to contact the owners. Good luck!!