Prospecting multi-family - start my list from scratch or buy data

[Michael Kundrat]

Hi All - trying to find deals in Salt Lake City. Like everywhere else, the market is white hot and cash flow is non-existent in the MLS/retail listings as everyone is cashing in and inventory is low at the moment. My goal is to leverage my cold-calling skills to find off-market deals with the hope of locating deals that cash flow.

I am curious what the group consensus is here on buying a list (ex: corelogic, or another real estate data company) for starting to prospect to duplex, triplex, and fourplexes versus just building a list from public records. Curious the pros/cons experienced.

Through public records, I am able to run a report for all the 2-4 unit zoned/permitted residential multi-family (although I live in a duplex but the records show that it is a single family, guessing it was converted maybe without city permits/approval).

I have played around with the tool and its easy to find the list and the owners of the property (be it a corporation or an individual). The challenge here is me figuring out how to contact the right person at a corporation owned property if you are cold calling - even if the corporation is an individual.

So while I can run the list and extract the data, is the better usage of time buying a list for my target area? In the groups experience, is there phone contact information with these lists - are some better than others? Would a good strategy be to first get a list of absentee owners of my target property and reach out to these owners who are out of state?

My strength is in cold-calling so that will be my strategy - If I need to skip-trace phone numbers regardless of where the property information comes from.

Otherwise, if it is all the same, why would I spend money on a list where I would have to then skip trace the contact information as well too.

Thanks and I will elaborate and share any other information I think of - my goal is to put in the sweat equity to find a deal to get my first one under my belt. Starting local to where I am now :)