Vacant Property Leads - Have You Tried Them Before?

[Alvin Grier]

I've been thinking about adding vacant property leads to our marketing campaigns.

One of my concerns, is that it seems like you'd need to keep buying these frequently, as a house that's vacant this month could very well be occupied this time next month.

With that said...

1. Have you had any success with vacant property leads?

2. What's the best source for vacant property leads, in your opinion?

3. If you've used these leads before, do you have any tips to offer for getting the most out of them?

[Todd Plambeck]

Go to the city water department and ask them to give you a list of all the properties in the city that have the water turned off.  That's your best and cheapest source for vacant leads.  You might need to cross reference some with the county assessor's website.

[Avery Gilmer]

Most of my vacant leads come from driving for dollars. Most of those owners are motivated to sell!! You just have to track down the homeowners, I start by talking to the neighbors than the assessor. Todd Plambeck great idea! I ddn't know the city would provide that type of list

[Marvin McTaw]

Hey @Alvin Grier vacant properties are a great way to find deals. You can use bird dogs to find vacant properties for you. Just post ads on Craigslist, Ebay Classifieds, Oodle, and Backpage that you're looking for bird dogs. You might even be able to find some in the "Real Estate Services Offered section". That being said, I really like @Todd Plambeck's idea as that is a one shot stop to get loads of leads quickly.

@Avery Gilmer is definitely right that driving for dollars works but I still prefer to use bird dogs who you can either pay per lead, based on the information they submit and/or upon closing a deal. There are a lot of people interested in real estate investing and this is a way for them to get their feet on the ground. 

There is also software out there that can find these vacant houses as well. It's not 100% perfect but works pretty well. Depending on your state, mailing list companies have lists of vacant houses too in some cases. 

[Todd Plambeck]

Originally posted by @Avery Gilmer:
Most of my vacant leads come from driving for dollars. Most of those owners are motivated to sell!! You just have to track down the homeowners, I start by talking to the neighbors than the assessor.

Todd Plambeck great idea! I ddn't know the city would provide that type of list

These are a great addition to driving for dollars.  When I used to drive for dollars, I always went on trash day.  No trash cans on the curb is another confirmation of the property being vacant.

Sometimes they can be difficult at first but it is public information.  You may need to file your state's equivalent of a freedom of information act request.  Mostly this is just ignorance on their part that it is public information  Some will charge a couple bucks to make hard copies others email a spreadsheet to me.

[Steve Vaughan]

I'm always writing down addresses of the vacant places with high grass and such.  I then look them up and mail them a postcard.  No deals yet, but have had a referral from someone calling back that turned into a different deal.

I would think neighbors.  Yourself or a bird dog on the ground yacking it up with them.  They want that place fixed up!  Have a flyer to put on the door of the vacant, then another one for the neighbors.  Robert Lowry had one that basically said 'Reward!  Information leading to my buying your neighbor's ratty property and fixing it up will put cash in your pocket. Call me at....."

Good luck @Alvin Grier! 

[Alvin Grier]

@Todd Plambeck when you got lists like this from the water department, did they require you to do an FOIA request?  

[Todd Plambeck]

One did make me do it, two others had to "check on it" for a couple days and then gave me the data, and the other 3 cities I have done this with handed it right over, no questions asked.

[Todd Plambeck]

@Alvin Grier  take a look at this:

http://www.dwsd.org/downloads_n/announcements/general_announcements/DWSD_FOIA_Summary_2015-07-08.pdf

[Ron Hansen]

What's a FOIA request? Thanks.

[Daria B.]

Freedom Of Information Act....

[Daria B.]

@Ron Hansen

[Alvin Grier]

@Todd Plambeck I submitted an FOIA request for residential properties where the water's shut off; to say the list is huge is an understatement.

Did you do any additional discovery to sort through the list, or did you just proceed to assume everything on that list is vacant?

[Todd Plambeck]

Very cool!  Target a few neighborhoods or zip codes where properties or rents are going up.  One thing to consider, those should be all the meters.  That doesn't me there is a house there.  It could have burnt down, metered and never built, bulldozed by the city, etc.  I'd suggest culling out anything owned by the city, county, state, etc., and then all the ones owned by banks and corporations.  Good luck!

[Alvin Grier]

@Todd Plambeck do you make a campaign out of these leads, or do you just mail them once or twice?  

With probate and other leads (like absentees) you can keep mailing 'till the property sells or something, but with this type of lead source, it seems to be a little more challenging to know when to stop.

[Don Cuffy]

@todd 

@Todd Plambeck....awesome idea. I am about to try to get a list from my city.

[Todd Plambeck]

I do 6 month campaigns and refresh the list every 2 months.  Bounce new list against the old one and drop those that are back on and have changed account holder.  I have a database I created from the county assessor's office I can bounce my list off of to check for the property being sold.  Around here that seems to take about three months for the tax office to get things updated.  If it's off for a couple months and comes back on and the owner hasn't changed, I'm going mail that one until the ask me to stop.  To me that's a landlord who had a vacant property for and extended period of time and may be ready to call it quits.

[Elijah Glenn]

@Todd Plambeck This is valuable information. Are you saying I can just ask the water company for the homes who have their water turn off. How do I know which homes are legitimately vacant? What do I scrub the list against?