Vacant homes, no internet info, what next?

[Rob Grove]

I went driving for dollars, for the first time, in my farm area and surprisingly I found about 6 houses with notices on the door. One came up a for foreclosure, 3 have no data available with some quick web searches and like an idiot, I didn't make notes on which ones were vacant and which ones were in poor condition, so I'll figure what others were vacant later with google maps. 

Few questions:

1.) How do I find out who owns the home, their phone # and address for the vacant properties? 

2.) One house has been boarded up for atleast a year and a couple had notices for grass being to long back in July and one had no notice but a note saying a mgmt company was notified it was vacant and locked it up. Is this a good sign that the person owns the property out right?

3.) any tips and tricks to make a deal happen?

4.) being from Minnesota and winter time, any tips and tricks on what to look for when driving for dollars in the winter. A lot of people have wood siding and sometimes it's hard to tell if they just don't like to paint or if it's just not cared for. Obviously I used my best judgment but do you look for old windows or no updates? 

5.) any other advice is welcome! 

I had fun today driving around and writing down addresses of what looked like a potential lead. Man their are some ugly houses out there!! Thanks again BP for helping me as I take this journey one step at a time. 

[James Ehrig]

Hey @Rob Grove

The thing that is great about investing in real estate is it teaches you to be resourceful.  If you don't know the answer you have two options: 1.) find the answer or 2.) quit looking for the answer.  

I will share some Gold nuggets that I have come across for researching properties, addresses and owners of properties.  I can usually always find the owner, their address, and a phone number of a typical homeowner.  (investors on the other hand are a little more savvy if they do not want their information any where on the property) 

Zillow.com: ( I am sure you know) is Awesome.  However, people do not seem to know about the  trick  I am about to share with you. Click on the "more" tab under discription the description. There will be a link to the county website.  Then once at the county website (they're all similar but different) do a property search. It will ask for the parcel number. The parcel number is listed on Zillow.  This trick will give you the owner's name and most cases address too. 

Once you have the owners name, Google it, facebook it, whitepage it. Any thing you can think of.  Type it in to all search engines.  Often time you can find out everything about the owner, including a phone number, business and known associates and family.  There are a lot of paid websites that will find people for you and everything about them for a monthly fee.  (instantcheckmate.com) It is kind of scary, how easy all of  this information is to get. 

If you found this information useful let me know.