Probate / Letters

[Saim Chaudhry]

Hello everyone,

Love this forums, I have been lurking on here for a while and reading as much as I can and listening to podcasts. I am completely new to the real estate biz. I feel like I have found my niche that I want to focus on, Wholesaling, and within that, probate wholesaling.

I live in Sacramento county, and through this website, have actually found and contacted a few investors in my area. I have started the networking process by calling them, and meeting them over coffee and learning a few things from them, surprisingly they have been very kind to offer me their time and knowledge. The 2 that I have met are rehabbers, and have wholesaled a few properties on the side, but mainly rehab as well as rent out properties. One of them told me that if I can lead him to a property, he would pay me a bird dog fee. I am very excited about this because I feel like I could learn a lot about real estate through these guys if I put in the time and effort to find them properties, while getting paid. Wholesaling is a bit more complicated and perhaps after bird dogging a few deals I may be competent enough to wholesale a property.

So far, I have been going through probate cases and have made an excel spreadsheet. I have been going through the documents, reading wills, sifting through probate notes and orders, filtering out cases where they have real property, that might be a good lead. I then, put all the info I need into the spreadsheet, all the way from the name of the decedent, to specifics of the property such as APN number, address, appraised value, executors name, contact info, phone or email of executor and address of residence of the executor.

I have spent a good 10 hours going through cases and only filtered 8 leads out of it. The ones with phone numbers of the executors, I called. I have left a few voicemails and was able to speak to one of the executors on the phone. I also have sent out emails to the executors if I found their email address in the documents. So far, no luck with any replies of emails or voicemails. I have yet to send out physical letters to executors.

I have found odesk.com and am trialing a virtual assistant who has experience in probate and real estate as well as data entry, to have him filter through the cases and fill out the excel spreadsheet for me. I find it may make me life easier and free up my time to do other things such as writing letters.

My question is, I have looked all around on how to write letters for probate cases. I havent found much info except for a few general tips such as be sensitive to their loss, etc. I am looking for specifics. I know you only get one shot at a first impression. My deal is I would like to come off as personable, not someone who is 'automated' or works for some company that buys up real estate in these situations. I want to show them that I am just an everyday guy with an interest in buying their property. I don't want to turn them off by saying the wrong thing and making them feel like it is just some letter sent by a we buy houses company. One of the executors I called specifically asked me how I got the number, if I was some sort of telemarketer or worked for a company. She was uncomfortable with the fact that I had gotten her number from public records. Should I address this in the letters I send out?

I was going to type the letters, do a hand written signature, and hand write the address on the envelope. I just get frozen up trying to make sure I write the right things on the letters. Also, I am not sending out 3-500 postcards or yellow letters. Since I am doing probate, out of 3-4 months worth of probate cases and after really filtering out the garbage I will probably be left with a max 25-30 decent leads.

Looking for feedback on what I have been doing, what I need to do. If I am headed in the right direction, what I can do to improve.

Thanks!

[Dave Savage]

@Saim Chaudhry sounds like you are really putting in the work. You may receive 10 different answers to this post, but always remember KISS. Handwrite a simple note stating that you are an investor looking to buy property in their neighborhood and would they be interested in selling?

There are longer version examples available from some of the yellow letter companies, but I don't think you need to go into too many details on why you are mailing them, or being compassionate for their loss(that should come during the phone call if they tell you why they are interested in selling).

If they are truly motivated they will contact you from a relatively basic letter, and that may be a better way to approach someone in this situation than an email or phone call if they are still grieving. Good Luck!