Finding Absentee Owner's

[Jerel Lyons]

Greetings folks, Recently I've been driving for Dollars, now that I've accumulated about a 100 vacant homes, how could I go about finding the owner's, and sending them a yellow letter?

[Troy Luster]

I've lived in states where this information is free, but we have to subscribe to the county records here.  Looks like they charge where you are: 

https://www.waynecountylandrecords.com/recorder/web/login.jsp?submit=Continue

[Erica M Chambers]

I was getting ready to post a similar question.  I'll just monitor this thread and hope to learn something from it.  Thanks @Jerel Lyons

[Lucas Machado]

@Jerel Lyons @Erica M Chambers 

This is very simple. You take the address and plug it into the local county appraiser website. For example, in my geography, it looks like this: http://www.miamidade.gov/propertysearch/#/

This will give you the owner's name and the owners address. You can then send a letter to whatever that address is.

Couple things to look out for: (1) type their name in the property appraiser to check if they own multiple properties - if they own 5+ properties it's not worth your time mailing, (2) many vacant or abandoned houses are REOs - make sure you aren't sending mail to banks, corporations, etc.

Lastly, if I was doing driving for dollars, I would not mail a yellow letter. Putting aside the fact I would never mail a yellow letter because of my model, you can do better than sending a mail piece since you are spending considerable energy building the list.

Sign up with BeenVerified or Intellius to find phone numbers, e-mails, social media pages. You can "lead" with one letter, but then call / email. Why spend hours and gas money driving around to build this "super hot" list and chance you don't make contact? Most likely they will get the mail piece, but not always. It's fairly common for owners to list the wrong mailing address (intentionally or unintentionally).

I've even seen vacant lands list vacant lands as the mailing address . . . About 25 to 50% of eviction filings I reviewed had a different mailing address in the appraiser site and on the court filing. My presumption is the appraiser was in correct because the owner had hand-written their personal address in the court filing.

Find those deals! "There is gold in the streets just waiting for someone to come and scoop it up."

[Erica M Chambers]

Thanks for the insight @Lucas Machado.  I have a question.  Once you compile a list of properties, how long do you work that list?  I guess what I'm trying to determine is do you ever re-visit you list of properties at a later date once you have exhausted the original set of opportunities from a list.

[Rosalyn Helton]

Yes, most sales come from follow ups sometimes after reaching out 7 times since their circumstances change over time. They usually wont even bother with the first letter. Be persistent, but dont waste time on something that just isnt going to be worth it. Good luck