Adivse on Marketing ot Obit Leads

[Kyle B.]

I have collected a nice amount of leads from obituaries and plan on marketing to them. My process for this was to first determine that there was not a surviving spouse and then to see if the deceased had owned any property through the county's tax assessors site.

To those who have done this type of marketing before, my questions is this: is it more effective to send letters to the deceased's address (addressed generically to "Owner", not a specific name) and hope it gets forwarded to the heirs or should I research who the children are and send letters to them?

I have already cross referenced my list with the county probate files, so this is only pertaining to estates not in probate (which happens to be the majority of my list). Furthermore, I am waiting 2 months after passing to send out letters.

I have searched older forums but didn't find much info on this subject (non-probate inheritance leads). Some of what I did find was negative about this type of marketing but I don't see why it is drastically different than direct probate.

Thanks! Interesting in hearing anyone's insight.

Kyle