All Forum Posts by: Sharon Vornholt

Andrew - you need to mail everyone, every month as long as the house is available.  Why quit at 7?  A lot of people don't sell until around he year mark.

Send me an email. 

One you have those critical 4 pieces of information, the name and address of the deceased and the PR, then what I do is have someone look up every property to see if it's a property I might be interested in.  That will eliminate some of the less desirable areas and lower your mailing costs.

@Christopher Reid - one other thing I do is group my probates by month.  You will need a  way to go back and scrub your list from time to time. 400 names is a huge group.  Remember you will be adding new names each month so it will be important for you to scrub your list and remove "solds" periodically.

@Christopher Reid - You might try contacting a local attorney to see where you can find a list of probates filed. They may be able to direct you to a service or publication.  There should be a notice to creditors published somewhere.  That list is published once a month in the newspaper where I live.

You can also search here in the online records.

Taneka - You will need to do a little detective work to find out how to get them in your area.  There are more than 3300 counties in the US ad each one of them is different. Start by Googling probate + your county. They could be online, in the newspaper, in a legal publication, etc. No two areas are exactly the same.

In my area, not so much. (Attorneys)  If you do, mail quarterly.  Bear in mind you will only get a 1%-2% response. So that is 9 to 18 calls on a list of 900.  You need about 20 calls to get a deal. At a minimum you will need about 1000 on that list to get results over time. Some will come off, and more will go on the list.  You never quit adding people.

With any direct mail campaign, you have to mail everyone EVERY month until you buy the house, someone else buys the house or they are removed from your list.  You're just wasting money if you don't do that.

You can use something like Podio or plain old pen and paper (and a calendar) to keep track of your mailings. I would print the white computer generated letters in house (they need to be mail merged and customized for best results). You can print them all in less than an hour with a laser printer. Then hire a mom or a student to fold, stuff and hand address the letters.  Don't give anyone stamps.  Get them back and do that yourself. 

You don't want to cold call these folks. Think about this for a minute; your mom or dad dies and some stranger calls you up about buying the house they spent their life in.  How would you feel about it?  Don't do that.  You won't have their email either. You need to mail to the executor. They have the authority to sell the house. 

There is no shortcut to probates.  You just have to follow the process. The reason this is such as good niche is most people simply won't do the work. Rick Harmon has a much different process in CA than we do where I am.  We can just put the house under contract.

Google "probate + you county". Also do call an attorney.  It needs to be a probate or real estate attorney.   I really don't know the laws of your state.  

How long depends on if they have done all the steps in the correct order.  That will need to be looked at (by your closing attorney) every time. 

Be sure to stop by my blog too. 

Hi @Leah Bonner and @Account Closed-

You need to research the laws in your state and the procedure for your county to answer this question.  There are over 3300 counties in the US and each one of them is a little bit different. A real estate attorney or a probate attorney for your state can tell you exactly how this works in your particular area; your state.

In my area (Kentucky), it's a pretty straight forward process.  You can buy the house so long as the steps of the probate have been followed. My closing attorney checks all of that when he does a title search.  I just write the contract and send it over to him before I even start looking for a wholesale buyer. 

In California it's a whole different ballgame; a whole different procedure  You can Google the "probate process" for your state, but you really need to talk to an attorney. That's who you need to take advice from.

I would recommend that you put this clause in your contract:  "Closing will be held no longer than ___ days (you decide) after court/ attorney approval to close.  This way you don't have to keep getting an extension on your contract.  I can usually close in the normal time frame (a couple of weeks), but every now and then there is a long delay due to the probate situation.

I wish there was an easier answer but there's not.  -Sharon

I agree.  Success is a big "convincer".  I would focus on doing one profitable deal.  Money is a big motivator.  Like @Karen Margrave said, maybe there is a role in the business for her that would compliment what you do. What does she like to do?  Decorate, stage, design?

Maybe she would be interested in the business side of the business and one of the many facets of that.  I don't know what that is, but she has to like whatever that role is.  She needs to find her place in the business if that's going to happen for the two of you.

I have found that you can rarely convince someone.  It either happens naturally over time or ... take a deep breath ... it doesn't.  Sometimes that's the answer.  They just don't share your love of this business.  Just enjoy the ride and give her time.

Sharon