You’ll probably get a lot of different answers to “the best” list to mail or to call. I have bought a number of probates, and a number of pre-foreclosures. And when people need to move. Or when there is a divorce and the person left in the home can’t afford the property. And another from a relocation company, where the seller needed to move for a job. So..Motivated sellers come in all shapes and sizes and situations.
Keep your day job. Set your own parameters. Take action.
When I did mailings, I targeted an area so we got all kinds of deals. They weren't all targeted to a method. I wanted to buy in a certain area, and I mailed houses with equity in that area. You could target a type, obviously.
1. Glean the probate filings from your local county, or from the legal paper. Write a professional letter, rather than a yellow letter, and mail those leads every other month for the next two years.
2. Search the records for rehabbers, who might want to buy houses from you directly. Or find a local lender, and aim to rehab them yourself.
There is a lot of data in the public records, so you can glean and mail.
There are also leads from having a website and SEO. I am between websites right now...I used VistaPrint, the place where you can order business cards, and their website (where I bought my domain and used their "easy" template) was not working for me. I divorced VistaPrint and am working on another site.
In Florida, it is preferred to close on deals that we find, so I am set up with HMLs and a savvy title company. I prefer mailing to acquire my own renovations, and then sell off deals that don't work for me, or when I have too much going on. I have never been a pure wholesaler. But I have done direct mail, door-knocking, handed out flyers, put flyers on doorknobs of houses in pre-foreclosure. I hated bandit signs, so never put them out.
My last State had a fast foreclosure period of 3 months, so we had to hit pre-foreclosures hard and fast. But they were motivated sellers. In my current State, it is a slow process, and people have been hanging on to foreclosed properties for a very long time. But, probate is a real thing with the aging. Use what is available in your area.