Starting my first motivated seller marketing & need advice :)

[Cheyenne Davis]

I've been quietly reading in the background here on Biggerpockets and learning a lot. I'm going to "jump into the game" and start trying to

locate motivated sellers in my area. My strategy is to buy houses creatively, either with lease options or subject to (depending on the situation).

What I plan on doing is skiptracing a couple of different types of prospects to start with.  I'm thinking about hiring someone to cold call leads and skiptracing prospective sellers who have either had their houses listed for 60+ with low equity or pre-foreclosures, probably with low equity as well.

My question is, to all of you experienced investors, is do you think this is the best way for me to target and generate seller leads for lease option purchases and sub to? 

Would I be better off to skip the cold caller entirely and just set up texts to the prospects? I'm good on the phone, but I just don't want to spend all my time cold calling people.

I'm coming out of a rough divorce and starting over on a limited budget, so I'm trying to do this in the smartest way possible, but I'm a little scared to "dive in". I just don't want to waste my limited budget in the wrong way. I've considered direct mail to the same lists too, but it seems more expensive and I'm guessing I'd get a lower response rate.

Any advice and suggestions are appreciated, even if you think I'm using the wrong marketing platform or lists entirely.