Can't Get a Hold of the Owner!

[Brittany Villamil]

Good Morning BP!

I have found an abandoned home. Actually, I have found 6. I cannot get a hold of any of the owners. I have looked up their info and sent letters...but nothing. What can I do next? 4 of them are foreclosed on...but the 2 I really want are  preforeclosure. I want to speak with the owners before the bank gets a hold of these. What else can I do?

[Rick H.]

I don't think "keep digging" is particularly helpful advice whether hunting for gold, oil or missing owners.

What I've found is that you have to combine art and science to prioritize your efforts to be effective.

As a new opportunity detective, I suggest you reorganize your efforts and eliminate any property you determine is bank owned. Also, eliminate those without lots of equity. I have a little report called 'What Makes a Deal?' for people who sign up for our free Hunting Club on our site. This may help you determine how much equity is enough.

Once you've created a list of 'suspects' you're now looking for people who either don't know that they are missing, or don't want to be found. Searching for them is called skip tracing. You can search other BP forums for threads on this topic for tips. However, the basics involve using free (or almost-free) resources like whitepages dot com and social media such as FACEBOOK as a first pass search. 

Additionally, you can send $1.00 to postmaster in office of zip code of owner's last address for forwarding address. Do this after checking tax collector's online site for the address they have on record. 

Btw, investors like me who regularly have to find missing people subscribe to expensive but easy to use online databases and employ skip tracing professionals as well as private investigators when the risk/reward ratio merits the exoense.