All Forum Posts by: Joshua Martin

@Shane Baganz

A new system just dawned on me this morning and you can actually eliminate my Step 1 altogether. Just pick a county and search the case numbers sequentially, really the case file is what you need.

For example, Milwaukee County, 16PR1038, and keep going up. See how far you get and you can see the most recent case posted. Additionally, this seems better because I think the case if filed at the courthouse about a week before it gets printed. 

Do the same for any county on circuit court access, but you'll have to find where the numbers are at. For example, Waukesha County is at around 16PR345. 

Best of luck, and I'll catch you around the way,

JTM

@Brendan H.

Good thinking. I'm going to try and meet with one or two if they'll share their time, and then send letters to the other big players around here telling them what we do. 

JTM

@Varma Adduri

 Thanks for the input. I think 1500 is good, if you factor in a 2-4% response rate across the span of a month, plus my partner has a lot of experience on the negotiation / deal closing end, so I think we can handle it. I'll be putting systems in place before we actually send out the marketing to help with volume (if and when it comes) too.

One question though: to who would you source the mailing pieces? Please throw out any and all sources you're aware of as I'd like to do a little research before settling on one. 

Thanks.

JTM

@Rick H.

Thanks again for your input, and that's what I'm thinking. Why design pieces when there are vendors that have been fine tuning marketing pieces for years.

JTM

@Rick H.

 Thanks for the advice, Rick, and I agree with you. As I've been figuring it out I've felt like the more road blocks the better - fewer people will be doing it. Much easier to acquire an absentee owner list.

I have a few follow up question though, if you would permit: do you confirm equity in the property when you do your data mining? I was just listening to a Michael Quarles podcast where he said you should cross reference it with an equity list (another one my partner and I plan to market to), because if they owe 100% of a house going through probate it's not worth pursuing. My take is that this information is much harder to get, or I should say more expensive to get, if you're not marketing the same areas to begin with.

 For your list building, are you satisfied to see that the person's name is on the tax assessor's website? And just mail it without knowing that additional information? And what if there is a living spouse that is still listed on the house?

I'm going through and just adding these names with a little box for 'ownership verified,' yes or no. If there are tons of these later on I imagine they're worth taking out, but at this point I figure you never know and just mail them anyways.

Thanks in advance.

JTM

@Michael Quarles

Just found your podcast and listening to episode 001 right now. Thanks for all the great info.

JTM

@Michael Quarles

Thanks for your input boss, haha, I didn't think you'd be here on the thread helping out.

And pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean 'my markets algorithm'?

On the podcast you talked about 'knowing your numbers,' i.e. how many SFRs are there in your locale, but I'm still trying to dig this up. Or at least the numbers from list source seem overwhelming. Is that what you mean?

Thanks again.

JTM

Hey gang,

 Hoping I could get a little feedback about which lists people mail and which have worked well for people. My partner and I plan to start mailing about 1500 names a month come September 1. So, we obviously need to decide on which list to mail.

 I gather that absentee owner is really overworked. I hear a lot of people work it in Milwaukee, and everyone on the podcast basically says they don't use it. It seems to be the easiest and cheapest list to mail, hence a lot of people are probably doing it.

I like the podcast with Michael Quarles where he talks about equity lists. I'll probably perform some variation on this, but I just thought I'd ask what criteria has worked well for people as I'm brainstorming which we'll use.

Thanks in advance.

JTM

@Shane Baganz

 Hey Shane, here's what I've learned researching the topic for the last two weeks in Wisconsin (because I am going to start marketing probate).

 There is no list server for probate, as every municipality performs the process somewhat differently and my guess is that there are certain 'firewalls' on city records that don't allow automated data mining (this is speculative, but Milwaukee uses the 'captcha' enter the number thing). The preceding means that the data mining needs to be performed manually - a somewhat time consuming process, but really not that difficult. I'm now compiling a list that takes me about 30 mins a morning to update and search what I need.

 For Milwaukee County, the process runs approximately as follows:

1. Check the daily reporter online and search for probate postings. This is public record and has to be posted somewhere for every county. Waukesha County on the other hand, seems to want you to pay for the Waukesha Freeman for this information. All you really need from this is the case number.

2. Go to Wisconsin circuit court access (ccap) and enter the case number, all probates run sequentially starting at 01 of the new year, e.g. 16PR1084 (that's almost the most recent, I believe).

3. Then with the case file you'll have to log this information in a spreadsheet, but you'll also want to make sure your probate 'lead' owns property. 

4. For the property search you'll have to check each municipality. Milwaukee city is different from Greenfield and West Allis and so on, but the process is approximately the same, i.e. check the tax assessor's website and see if they own the home that is listed in the case file. Although, be aware, there is some ambiguity here. It seems many of them do, but not all, and some of the properties are listed to the PR (personal representative) already, but you can't determine for certain there is any property to sell. Whether or not you will spend marketing dollars mailing these uncertainties is a question you'll have to answer for yourself.

5. Build your list and mail the leads. I've read on bigger pockets and elsewhere that 4 letters over 6 months is pretty standard for probate mailing - I'll probably send more.

Some things to keep in mind:

 The probate process is slow, and often doesn't formally start for a few months after the person has passed, or even longer in the event that they can't find the heirs that have to sign waivers.

 As far as I can tell (and this has been corroborated by the dailyreporter and the court house) the first notice that appears in Milwaukee County is a 'Notice to Creditors,' and is often times the only notice that appears publicly for the entire process. 

The PR is who you want to market to, obviously, because only they have the authority to sell property should there be any.

Marketing time, IMHO, as soon as possible, because there are people out there doing this and whose letter do you want arriving first (and last)?

An earlier poster mentioned reviewing files. I believe what he's referring to is the probate 'inventory,' but I'v gathered that for Milwaukee county this is a waste of time as the inventory is often not due until 18 months to two years after probate has begun. In my case, the closest I can get to knowing what's in that file is the tax assessors website. 

@Rick H. How's that for a training course? ;)

Hey gang,

  I wanted to ask the people in the community what they thought about sourcing marketing to a site like yellow letters or open letter, or if people took the time to design the pieces themselves and maybe have them printed locally.

Just looking for tips and tricks as my partner and I are getting ready to start marketing Sep. 1st.

 And to be clear, we want to market probate which I'm putting together right now. I might have to source this locally, or see what one of these online vendors could do for me as soon as I have all of the letters written.

 And also, we want to work a larger list. Starting with about 1500 names. Probably not absentee, but we're undecided about the equity/geographic/demographic criteria as of yet. It is really this larger list I'm asking about, but help is appreciated with any of it.

 And are there other vendors for direct mail with pre-made pieces?

Thanks in advance,

JTM