Doing the research Charleston South Carolina

[Chris Armstrong]

Greetings to all,

I have a pretty general question about how to and where to start the research on potential deals. 

I drove around the area in Charleston today and saw a ton of what I thought were potential projects. Most were vacant or appeared to be vacant and so I wrote down these addresses. Pretty exhaustive list actually hopefully one of these is worth a shot. 

My question is where is the best place to start digging for information about the properties that I have found? I know I need to do a title search, tax liens if any. I know there are many active investors in this area who have gone "driving for dollars," and I wanted to ask what you all did. I am digging through forums and books and there are so many different approaches so any advice would be much appreciated. 

Thanks in advance!! 

Chris Armstrong 

[Russ Scheider]

Hi Chris,

We drive for dollars at least once a week and have made some great deals this way.  We don't worry too much about liens until we have spoken with the owner of record to make sure He/She is motivated to sell.  (Motivated = low price).   If the seller is motivated to make a quick sale, THEN we verify the title status.  If the owner wants retail price or does not want to sell at all, the title search is a waste of time and money, IMHO.  We pay a pro for title searches.  We got burned a couple of times when we used online tools to do research.  I put a lot of value on my time, and I would rather pay a pro to do a thorough search.  I find that we can't do it as efficiently as a title abstractor can.

I see no reason to research the title status if the owner is not motivated.  Am I missing something?

In order to contact the seller to gauge motivation,  we look up the owner of vacant properties on the county website and then use online tools to find a phone number and mailing address.  We typically call the owner repeatedly until we speak to them and/or send direct mail asking him/her to call me.  In my experience, contacting the owner is the hard part.  The address on the county website is usually correct, but phone numbers can be difficult to find.  we use several paid "People Search" services to track down phone numbers.  My favorite site is "PeopleSmart.com" for this service.  We pay $19.95 per month, as I recall.  As always, call me anytime you need help putting a deal together.