1st driving for dollars now Yellow Letters

[Ceary Williams]

I took some action over the last couple of days and drove around my neighborhood looking for abandoned houses. I found 20. Yesterday I went to the tax assessors office to get a much info about the properties as possible. Today I'm writing letters to the properties that have the most potential. Wish me Luck.

[Cornelius Garland]

@Ceary Williams Great job taking action. Remember to be consistent with following up with the homeowners, and make sure you're talking to the decision-maker on the deed. One of the issues I encountered when I first started was speaking to a relative of the property owner. Another step I would take is to check the register of deeds to ensure the owner didn't take out an outrageous HELOC on the property between 2005-2009. I can guarantee that if they did during this time, then there is no equity in the home. This will largely explain its dilapidated condition due to it being upside down. Taking these steps prior to mailing the sellers will result in you saving time and encountering less unwanted "surprises" down the road. Also, I would aim to target a lot more sellers. I initially made the same mistake by only mailing 10-20 drive for dollars leads and thinking I would get a response. You're going to eventually need to invest in marketing to at least 1000 leads monthly to land consistent deals. If money is an issue, I suggest doing a tactic that I coined "Google Driving for Dollars". Google maps is fairly updated in most areas where investors are active. If your farm area is within a year updated on Google Maps, then this will work. Go on Google and type in any address in your investment location. You can start with the area you were driving for dollars in. Then from there, just click down the street until you locate an abandoned-looking property. As soon as you locate one, start up an excel spread sheet and write down the address. Go to you county tax assessor's site and locate the home owner's name and mailing address. You can probably compile a list of 500 solid leads doing this over the weekend. Once you have this list, you can either send yellow letters out or cold call the sellers. I absolutely love calling sellers because you know immediately if the individual is motivated. I think there are too many hoops for the seller to jump through when you mail. And I'm highly skeptical of direct mail deliverably rates. Just because the letter isn't returned doesn't mean it delivered.

Also, you don't have to physically go inside your county's assessor's office. Your county's online assessor is available here. You can look up any owner information at the website I linked. I hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any questions. I have extensive experience dealing with distressed properties.