What to do with Probate Leads

[Jeremy Rotert]

I am active in the Indianapolis market. As a franchise owner specific to the investing world, I'm working diligently every day to locate new ways to identify properties to buy, either as wholesale transactions or to possibly flip, occasionally I may hold a rental if it's low-hanging fruit. One avenue I've not intentionally explored as a lead source is probate leads. That changes tonight. I've been given a rather robust list of "fresh" probate leads covering July-September 2019 for my local areas. My acquisition manager and I feel as though we are pros at cold-calling and generating buy appointments, given our combined 40+ years in all manner of competitive sales, but we don't like going into something new without some advice and direction from those smarter than us in specific arenas. I would appreciate some relevant feedback specific to how best to approach these.

1. Who exactly am I contacting? These leads have names, numbers, addresses, etc. Is it the court, the executor of an estate, etc.?

2. What is the most appropriate way to approach these folks by phone? We love proven scripts, and use them in our current practices.

3. Once the ball is rolling on an appointment to make offers, are these "deals" more complicated to usher to the closing table? Do they take longer to close (like short sales as an example)?

4. What exactly is the role of the probate court in relation to me making offers and placing properties under contract?

5. What pitfalls/mistakes do I need to be aware of specifically for probate leads?

6. Are there specific pieces of information I need to be asking for on these calls that I wouldn't normally on any other type of seller lead?

Thanks to all of you in advance for any help and advice you can provide!

Cheers!