All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Garland

@Account Closed I always put a return address on my mailers and send my batches via first class. I need to know how many leads on my list have incorrect addresses, and the only way to know this is to get the bad ones returned to me. I used my home address for a while when I got started, but this isn't advisable. If you can, open up a PO Box with street addressing so it'll look like a normal address.

If you don't have a PO Box, just use your home address. You're only going to be sending this to a handful of leads since this is a driving for dollars list. No need to wait to send the letters out and delay taking action. I would just work on getting a non-residential mailing address in the near future so you won't have any crazy people showing up to your doorstep!

@Account Closed I highly doubt that an attorney will give you this information unless you received the probate leads from the attorney. You really want to find out who the next-of-kin is and give them a phone call or send them a letter. If you can't find out who the administrator is, then try and contact their spouse if they had one. You need to use a skip tracer or service online to locate their address if you're not having luck with public records.

PR in this instance likely means Personal Representative. Essentially, this is the same thing as an administrator of the estate. 

@Jonathan C. I mainly market to SFRs; however, I did inadvertently generate several apartment complex leads when I marketed to the tax delinquent list in my area last year. I wouldn't say that this is the best list to generate these deals, but it definitely is a start and you won't have be bidding on properties that are listed on Loopnet. Just a thought, and I hope someone with more experience can chime in to help you out.

@Aaron Phillips I definitely understand your frustration, and you sound extremely motivated to get your first deal under contract. Based on the issues you indicated in your post, it seems like you have a marketing issue. You are not contacting the amount of sellers you need to in order to land a deal. I started out driving for dollars and looking at abandoned properties; however, I quickly realized I wasn't marketing to the amount of sellers I needed to in order to close a deal. You need to get a list and either mail or cold call it. Driving for dollars shouldn't be the backbone of your marketing unless you have a ton of leads coming your way every day. It's an extremely manual process and scaling by just locating abandoned properties is not scalable.

My guidance to you is to go on List Source and get a list of properties you want to actively target in your desired zip codes. After you do this, I would mail this list or either find the phone numbers and cold call. There are a few direct mail vendors on BP that can print your letters for you. I suggest having a marketing budget of at least $1,000 per month. This may seem like a lot when you haven't conducted a marketing campaign, but please trust the BP community when they tell you it works. You just need to make sure your list is solid from the start. Please let me know if you have any questions. I will gladly assist! Don't get discouraged because you only need to tweak a few things to get your first deal. 

@Kyle Lopez Probate deals can be extremely profitable but also can waste you a lot of time if you aren't knowledgable of the laws in your state. I know in my state, a property can be stuck in probate for several years before a decision is made by the court if there are relatives feuding over their interest in a property. The downside of probate investing is that you can not buy the property immediately. You need to wait for it to be deeded in the relative's or beneficiary's name before you can purchase the home. If you have relatives that are not motivated to deed the property, then you can be waiting for a while before you can buy the home. You can have 10 relatives on board to sell but one that is just dragging their feet, and this can hold up the whole process. It can be quite frustrating. I suggest focusing on the ones that have a spouse that is still living. 99% of the time, it will be deeded to the widow or widower with few complications. If there is not a spouse and only children then prepare yourself for some potential setbacks. 

Due to how messy these deals can get in my state, I typically focus on inherited leads. These are much cleaner because the property has already gone through probate or the deceased property owner had a Will. I suggest checking out all of Rick H's posts if you seriously want to pursue this investment route. Also, a real estate attorney that deals with these issues will help out tremendously and can potentially save you a ton of time. Best of luck!

@Account Closed There aren't a lot of reliable lists that come with phone numbers. You'll most likely need to pull your list initially then use a skip tracer to add phone numbers to your list. You need to be careful about where you get the phone numbers from because some of it is public data so your numbers won't be good. I can help out if needed so shoot me a PM if you get stuck.

@Fady Fareed Hello! A lot of the tools you need to get actual verified phone numbers require you to go through several steps to get access to them. I may be able to help you out with this because I already have access to the best ones on the market. The only thing I do is cold call my list. I rarely send out direct mail, and it's been working out extremely well. I land deals every month doing this. Shoot me a PM if you need assistance.

@Dwayne Burksgreen I landed my first couple of deals from skip tracing the returned letters from my mail campaigns. So if you used first class postage and received any back, please track down these owners because nobody else is likely targeting them. However, I would caution you to not get hung up on a couple of properties. You want to skip trace your lists in large quantities so you can better your chances of landing a deal. I made the mistake of only getting fixated on a handful of boarded up properties when I first started investing. Best of luck.

@Jay Lalik Your best bet is to do a skip trace on the owner. If you can't do it yourself, you will have to eventually give out the address so a professional can locate the owner's contact information. However, before going that route, I would ensure that the property has enough equity to work with. You may want to go on the tax assessor's site and see when it was bought. If it was bought around 2006-2008, most likely it's upside down. You could spend all of your time searching for the owner and then it not even being a deal. I always do some due diligence before I track down an owner.

@DeNorvious Pickett I agree with the poster above me. If you do want to go the foreclosure route, I would aim to get a pre-foreclosure list. It's extremely important to make sure the homeowner still owns the property, not the bank. The bank will want you to have cash upfront to purchase, but you'll likely have to compete with others when they open it up for auction. If the owner is a local bank or credit union, they may allow you to purchase the property before the auction date if you have a solid offer.

Your best bet is most likely the absentee/vacant property list. The pre-foreclosure list can be tricky, especially if you're just starting out. Best of luck in your endeavors.