Finding owners info?

[Account Closed]

I'm very new to this, but taking action just need a little guidance, how can I find owners of vacant homes here in Houston. I have two vacant I found, I went to tax accessors site, but no luck. I read that Texas is a non disclosure state. Any advice in right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks...

[Aaron Foster]

I find owners of vacant homes all the time, and I'm a newbie. The main two ways that I do it are "driving for dollars", and direct mail marketing.

Driving for dollars means that I set aside an hour or so, and I drive around a neighborhood near my community. I look for signs that a home is vacant, such as high grass, excessive trash or disrepair, code violation signs, etc. When I see a house that fits the criteria, I go check out the house and verify that it's vacant, and I record the address. I may even take a couple snapshots. Then I proceed to find the owner. This can be a bit tricky, but it's worth the work. I use a combination of whitepages.com (reverse address lookup) and zabasearch.com. I won't go through how to skip trace, but I will say that if you can't find the owner directly, you can usually find someone related to them. When you tell them you are interested in buying their home, they are usually pretty forthcoming with contact info.

Direct mail marketing means that I purchase a list of absentee owners from listsource.com or a similar site, and I mail to them saying that I am interested in buying their home. Usually about half of my absentee owner callbacks are for vacant homes.

There are definitely more in depth discussions on direct mail marketing, purchasing mailing lists, driving for dollars, and skip tracing throughout this site, so keep searching! It is wisdom which seeks wisdom.