All Forum Posts by: Kieron Osullivan

Quote from @Travis Gutting:

I am new to property investment and am currently looking into getting my first property. I have been looking on the MLS for a while now and have not had any luck. What are the best methods for finding potential properties outside of the MLS?

 Hi and welcome, Are you willing to market directly to motivated sellers? 

Quote from @Ian James:

Thank you Luis!

I'll search for the Miami investor club

Hi,
The above responses give insight into finding wholesalers to bring deals to you but not if you want to find and market to potential sellers yourself which seemed to me to be the underlying question wanted answered

Are you interested in marketing drectly to motivated sellers yourself with your own team?

Quote from @Lincoln Bartlett:

Hello! I am trying to find more properties that are good flip or BRRRR candidates. Everything my realtor sends me is already on Zillow and has many eyes/bids. Therefore, I'm trying to use technology to get an edge.

Aside from grass roots networking, what technology can help me find pre-market deals? For example, houses where the homeowner needs help and may consider selling to me. 

I have seen services like Likely.ai, PropertyRadar, PropStream etc.

I'm also open to coding via Python based on publicly available APIs. 

Any tips on where to focus my time is greatly appreciated!

Do not make the same mistake you did in the on market world, in the off market world. You used a source of data (zillow) which is extremely saturated and found you couldnt compete.

Propstream, Propwire, Propshark, PropRadar etc are the zillow, realtor, redfin of the off market world, the leads are also extremely saturated. I have shown this via a study i have done which shows data from propstream and propwire are at least 2 weeks behind county/court/noitce records which are the source of 90% of off market motivated seller leads Take a look at my home page for more thorough explanation of what youare NOT getting when you use Propstream, Propwire, Propshark, PropRadar and the like.

Also, propstream and propwire only provide, for at least FL, TX, CA, a third of the preforeclosure leads wich are available from  county/court/noitce records, so, if you want to be ahead of the pack in the off market world go to the source and you will save yourself a lot of time, money and aggrevation.

How do you get the data from the county websites?

1). The current way is hire cheap foreig VAs to manually do it which involves finding, hiring, training, monitoring, managing, paying, keeping teams of people which is time consuming, expensive compared to automation and to some extent stressful. Also you need to know the databases inside out and know how to show the VAs how to get what you want from the records/documents on those sites.

2). Hire data scrapers to get or build something so you can get it. This will be expensive because tech workers want tech pay. Even in asia your looking at starter $15 an hour build it then more for maintaining it.

3). Do it yourself if you have skills and are prepared to make a new tool for every county you want to access the data for and, there are no APIs that I am aware of. Low/no code options work on some websites (I'd say 15%) and they are never cheap/free in the mid to long term.

I have built tools for over 400 county records, courts, notice websites to get this data if you have questions about approaching 3 feel free to ask.

Quote from @Maj Mahmood:

@Kieron Osullivan New York, Florida and Miami

 I will continue via DM. Thanks

Hi, the best quality data comes from 

1). Learning the relevant statutes which define the legal process which created the motivated seller. In your case (TX), and assuming you want preforeclosure leads, the rough process is 

a). the borrower is sent a notice of default after missing several months payments (usually 3m). This is a private document between the borrower and lender. The public has no way of knowing this is occurring until later notices document and prove it.

b) Once thats up  the borrower sends a Notice of Default and Intent to Accelerate giving 20 days for the borrower to pay the entire amount owed (cure the default). This, also, is not a public document.

c) Once thats up a notice of  sale is sent which outlines the up coming auction and must be filed with the recorders office for the foreclosure to be legal.

Another document which isnt mentioned a lot but is critical if you want to be in front of the competition who focus there marketing on motivated sellers from c onwards is the appointment of substitute trustee. This document is the lender changing the trustee in preparation for the upcoming auction. At this point its extremely likely the individual will default and the foreclosure process will happen and it gives a person who can access the documents a heads up that this is coming putting you in front of the people in C above.

Where do you get these documents from? If you want relaiable access to them as soon as  they are filed then you must get them (or more cheaply the information within them) from county recorder databases.

Propstream provides access to 20% of these preforeclosure documents and they are only made available 2weeks after the county publishes them. Propwire doesnt make it clear they even offer this document but if they do there data is also at least 12 days behind the county records and provides only a fraction of what is available from the county. Property Radar offers daily data on the trustee Sale but not the Appointment of Sub trustee documents so even with them you are behind anyone accessing the Appointment of Sub trustee documents. The best data which is what gives you the opportunity to reach out before anyone else is getting the data/documents direct feom county records when you need them.

Hope this provides some useful insight

Quote from @Maj Mahmood:

@Kieron Osullivan Thank you for this information. How do they ensure the data is updated daily or weekly if they get from county websites and the bulk data they get from these county/notices and court websites is it like a web scraper?

To guarantee you are getting the best/newest data you must get it yourself or pay someone else too. Web scraping is an effective way to do this which is cheaper and faster than hiring VA's or doing it yourself. What markets are you interested in investing in, your target market?

for off market leads it is always county records/courts/notices. That is because practically all motivated sller leads are people in the process of being forced to sell a home due to legal pressure. Foreclosures force the owner to sell because missed payments, probate forces heirs to sell a family members home, liens ultimately force a person to sell there homes to pay what they owe in tax/fines etc. For these lead types at least even the big brokers and prominent software platforms are buying either directly or indirectly from the gov department creating the records. Get in front of them buy getting the records yourself/paying someone else to do it and you greatly enhanced your ability find and close deals.

Quote from @Ryan Rabbitt:

Has anyone used the FuelPoint lead generation platform? I just sat in on a demo and am curious if anyone has experience working with them. It seems like a lot more of these lead-gen groups are popping up. 

Michael Dumler nailed it when he stated they are all getting the same data and from the same places.

It is critical that you know where and when the data has come from. The highest quality is drect from county records/courts/notices as soon as possible to the initiation of whatever lead it is(probate, pref, liens etc). Which of the 3 record types to target is dictated by the relevant statutes which define the legal process for the leads you are interested in purchasing/pursuing. Find that out and collect your data from there and you will immediately put yourself in front of any PS, Propwire, Batchleads and in most cases Property Radar customer.

What are your target markets?

Quote from @Adrian Lammersdorf-Scioll:

Quote from @David Atis:

Hey Adrian, Here are a few strategies I’ve seen people use:

Targeting motivated sellers with direct mail, cold calling, or text campaigns. Absentee owners, pre-foreclosures, and tired landlords. Wholesaler relationships, or using tools like PropStream while driving neighborhoods to identify distressed properties, and REI meetups as deals can come from relationships.

What strategies have worked best for you so far?

 Networking/Wholesale relationships has worked best for me so far, or just talking to my sphere of influence.  I've had direct mail, or cold calling get me closer to deals, but nothing converted yet.  I just invested in batch leads (wasn't happy with prop stream) and am using a virtual assistant to help cold call some absentee leads from there.  

I have a terrible fear of cold calling that I need to get over, and get really down on myself when I get a few ********, or hang ups haha.  That's why I finally decided to use a va for it.  I know I will get better with time.

How about you?  Which of those strategies are working best for you, and how are you getting your texting campaigns out?  Do you use google ads, or something similar, or do you just text motivated leads?

Good day Adrian, I am intrigued to know why you stopped using propstream and was it from there data you got the Fk you's from? If so, do not feel down as many people report this. Its because there data is at least 2 weeks old, only covers around a third of the leads available from county records and is made available to every subscriber at the same time via the data update they receive from the data brokers and records departments.

Keep in mind that any service that is receiving data is at the behest of the provider and this is certainly the ecase with propstream, propwire and most likely batchleads. Using these sources guarantees you will be accessing leads which everyone is accessing which is the complete opposite to what  investors/wholesalers should be targeting. Make sure you find out from whoever you want to use data from how often they update there data and where they source it from.

Where is your market?

Quote from @Lymarie Cervoni:

Looking on using Direct-Mail Marketing for Off-market properties, any recommendations on which real estate investor list to buy to target the Tampa Bay area? I have couple of lists but not sure which one to start with. 

You probably know the below info but you might not and it may give insight to others who come across this info in the future so ill post it.

What are the lists you currently have? If they are pre forecloure/foreclosure, probate, or lists that require fast access to the lead to gain an advantage how new is the list and are the leads already on the prominant platforms like Propstream and Propwire? Old lists which are on the mentioned platforms practically guarantees saturation and others already having reached out and made offers/solutions because all your competitors are getting the same leads and at the same time.

Also, these platforms do not provide all the available leads which are available from the county records department within each county for each state. In FL PS only provides about 37% of the leads/oppertunities going through the county records offices (I have  study I have done comparing the 2 to back this up if you want me to post it/send it) recorder offices

Florida and Hilsborough are obviously competitive but if your getting information before everyone else and using it fast in the market where it matters its not so competititve.

If your leads are for say absentee owner, tired  landlord then you want the owner to have had the property for longer to hopefully increase motivation. Up to date absentee owner lists are easy to acces if your market has good bulk owner data like many of floridas counties has.
I hope this provides some insight