Would like some feedback on productive work

[Bryan Davis]

I've been focusing on wholesaling to build cash reserves and I wanted some feedback on what I'm doing as well as ideas from others on ways that they have found success.

My basic strategy goes as follows. I drive neighborhoods looking for vacant houses that are not listed with an agent (no sign in the yard); I do take note of FSBO houses as well and call them to identify go/no-go sellers. After gathering 20 or so potential properties, I head back to the house, hop onto the online county tax rolls and start finding out who the owners are and where they live. If the owner is an absentee owner, I mail them a yellow letter. If the owner shows to live in the house (which we know not to be true) than I go ahead and mail them a letter in case a forwarding address is on file. While waiting on results from the letter I go to the online official public records to research property documents for other clues as to the owners' whereabouts. If that search comes up dry and the letter comes back as "undeliverable / no forwarding address", I send everything I know to my skip tracer and have them work on it. If I haven't heard from the seller within a month of sending a letter and the letter hasn't been returned, I send them another one.

With all that being said, is there something else I should do or could do in addition? I choose not to use bandit signs as they are against ordinance here and I made the decision to do everything by the books. I have used mass post card mailings in the past but the response is pathetic and really only serve to locate vacant houses for you when they bounce back as undeliverable. I've picked up a couple of houses from flyering parking lots but after being chased off enough lots, I've come to the conclusion that this is not a stable way to market as it again is not "legal" and I don't feel right doing it.

My biggest concern is that I'm not doing enough and I wonder if I should be dropping by absentee owners' residence, trying to call them, or just letting the motivated ones call me. I have just re-launched my yellow letter service so that's eating some hours but I still feel like I could be doing more to be successful. Any thoughts and/or feedback would be appreciated.