All Forum Posts by: Jerry Gurley

I am under contract to purchase an investment property in Houston, Tx. However to complete the transaction I need to find an heir that left Houston 5 years ago to return to their birth county in the UK. No one has had any contact with him in the past 5 years. Anyone have any suggestion for international skip tracing?

Thank you

@Kevin Brown

I just filed it yesterday. They assigned it a docket number and are processing it. So, I don't know yet, but at least they did not say no. I will update once I receive it and let you know.

We are all looking for motivated sellers. Is there a common denominator among them to help us identify them? A motivated seller is someone who has a problem in their life greater than maximizing the value of their real estate. It seems like those problems come in 3 primary forms,

1. Financial

2. Physical

3. Emotional

Financial problems can come from either the property or their personal life. Property problems would include past due taxes, past due mortgage, property repairs, any property generated by the property itself. Personal financial problems that can be solved by selling the house include past due child support, medical expenses, life itself.

Physical problems of the house usually come in form of expensive repairs vandalism, or city/county code violations. An abusive tenant is always fun.

Emotional problems associated with the property such as divorce or death (inheritance).

Did I miss anything? I am sure I did but I suspect this covers 75% of it.

I have only done a dozen deals over the past year, but everyone was a vacant house. Of the 12 deals, 9 were estates, 2 were owners that had moved on from the property, 1 was a lienholder whose loan had defaulted. When I bought them they were all vacant.

So is a vacant house the first step towards finding a motivated seller? I suspect that 75% of the time it is. Toward that end I filed a freedom of information request with my city for a list of addresses that currently do not have water service and have not had water service in at least 90 days.

Now how to market to the owners of those vacant houses is another matter all together.

Thank you for your time and views. I appreciate the opportunity to learn.

Scott;

I am unsure how it would work in Arizona. Here in Texas all delinquent tax cases are filed in the local district court. Our district clerk is pretty sophisticated when it comes to technology. So everything is online. Every day they have on their website all of the cases that have had a change in status that day. It is often upwards of 3,000 but fairly easy to sort through and find the tax cases. Then it is just a matter of reading the files on line to find out what happened.

Hi Eric;

Thanks for your thoughts. I would be curious to know what you view as the most efficient marketing ideas. Do you see a difference between efficient and effective? I would really appreciate your thoughts.

We closed on a deal last week that would not have been possible without door knocking. I monitor delinquent tax cases and when a judgment is rendered the taxing authority is about 2 months away from a sale but it is not published yet. I often go see the property owners to make them an offer. So, I knocked on the guys door and when he answered I told him I wanted to talk to him about the house of X street. He said, "man that is my uncles house you need to talk to him, he is in a nursing home, but he is still alive." I said, "Sir, I don't know how to tell you this but your uncle died October 1, 2010." So he invited me in and we worked out a deal on the house. I have it on the market now. He would have never responded to a mailer or any other kind of marketing other than a face to face conversation. Sometimes I guess you just have to go old school.

I would pay $100 to $150 for a good service.