All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Garland

@Jay Statzer You're already ahead of the curve because you use the SSDM File; a lot of people don't know about it. Also, I have done a ton of door knocking (and fence hopping) in my day to find sellers. Every additional step I took to secure a deal put me in a better position than my competition. It looks like you're on the correct path by door knocking and going the extra mile.

I haven't used Intelius or any of their products before. I know a lot of law enforcement personnel use it so the data must be solid. However, they may just be using it for the background checks opposed to finding updated phone numbers and addresses. I'm unsure where they're gathering it from, but I have to believe some of it is watered down since they are a data reseller. They might be receiving credit header data, but are required to dilute the information before reselling it to consumers.

@Jay Statzer It's going to be very difficult to find accurate contact information without spending money on it. If you're not allocating sufficient funds to locate property owners and choose to go a cheaper route, you'll continuously receive subpar results. Tools like Spokeo and Beenverified are inexpensive because the data is unreliable. For instance, if you type in your name in one of these tools, I highly doubt it'll have your most recent address and phone number. Imagine if you had a list of 1,000 leads and used Beenverfied or Spokeo to verify if your addresses were current. You'll likely receive a ton of returned letters and waste a lot of money in the process. The companies that charge a premium are pulling directly from the creditors, who in return are getting their data from department stores, phone providers, and various other reliable sources. They require an on-site inspection of your home or office and charge a lot for their services, but this barrier keeps anyone with a computer from accessing extremely sensitive data.

To verify death, I suggest you get access to the Social Security Death Master File. You'll be able to run a social and see if the individual is alive. I have this file feeding straight into my database, and it's extremely useful. I found that TLO and similar tools are extremely inaccurate when reporting dates of death and the Master File is really the only way to independently verify this. I hope this post assisted you in your search!

I realize this thread is a bit old, but it's highly visited and needs updating since it's almost 5 years old! The original poster indicated he wanted an economical and efficient way to skip trace abandoned or vacant property owners. There are efficient ways to track down these individuals; however, you'll likely need to pay more to receive accurate information. One major issue with the inexpensive tools like Spokeo, Beenverified, White Pages, etc is that the data is coming from unreliable sources. Most of these free or paid tools that don't require an on-site inspection are getting their information from old phone book records. All of these companies are essentially the same; they just have slightly different interfaces. Ideally, you want a tool that can pull directly from the creditors if you want the most up-to-date contact information on a seller. Unfortunately, a lot of these companies don't work with real estate companies because they prohibit their data from being used for marketing. The only tool that real estate investors can get access to that has semi-reliable data is TLO. However, you need to be cautious how you approach them because they are opposed to investors using their data for cold marketing. I've since moved away from using TLO, but it's a good option for novice investors who don't have high volume. The big downside with them is that they're getting their information from an old Tux file, which is only updated once every 6 months. When I was skip tracing my lists with them, I found that I was only able to find a good phone number for one out of every 20 property owners. As a result, my lists were very incomplete. I did find that the addresses are more updated than the phone so if you want to use this to find updated addresses for your returned yellow letters, then this is a good option.

One thing to keep in mind is that Not all skip tracing tools are created equally. If the company doesn't require a physical on-site inspection, it is likely not a good one. This may seem inconvenient, but it is a good thing and protects everybody. If anybody with a credit card and computer can get access to sensitive data, then it can potentially fall into the wrong hands. 

@John Boring Hello John, the main thing that I do is skip trace absentee lists and cold call the leads on it. Unfortunately, list vendors won't have phone numbers attached to it. However, I have access to a lot of tools that allow me to skip trace quickly and get accurate results. I can definitely help you out and you can PM me if you're interested. I help a lot of people out on BP because I know how difficult it is to find phone numbers when you're getting started.

@Jay Statzer Honestly, if you're looking for property owners, you'll have a better chance of getting a deal if you have a large number of individuals verses a handful. I've made that mistake in the past and have gotten so fixated on a property owner that I wasn't generating any additional leads. If you just have a handful of property owners then I may be able to help you out. I just prefer doing them in bulk, but I don't mind doing one-off searches. Message me and I can get you what you need. 

@Jay Statzer $18 a search is a ripoff if you ask me. Most investors just want a phone number and a couple of relatives for the lead if a number can't be found. We found that $1.00-1.50 is a sweet spot and we like to do them in bulk, like 1,000 records at once. Keeps my team busy and it's much more affordable and practical for investors. I'm not a huge fan of batch searching, either. I make my team to do it all manually. Good luck on your search!

@Dana Nay Hello! I know it can be overwhelming trying to find a skip tracing company to work with. Really, your best bet will probably be TLO if your volume is low. You can get a $250 monthly plan with them and get 3,600 searches annually. This is great if you're just starting off and you may be able to qualify with a home office. You just need to be very careful because you can't use their data for "cold" marketing purposes. Instead, tell them that you're looking to update the addresses for people that are already on your mailing list.

Please let me know if you have any questions about skip tracing and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

@Christopher Reid Absolutely! I love lead generation and it's my specialty so I like talking about it. I can clarify how my business works without pitching since you asked :) Hopefully the BP mods will be nice and won't remove this post.lol. Essentially, Blip Leads is my company that I use to manage other investors' marketing campaigns. We pull all of our lists through List Source, use proprietary databases to find phone numbers for all of the individuals on the list, then we cold call everyone on the list. As we go call the list, we send our clients motivated leads. This is a huge benefit to investors who are still working 9-5 jobs or cash buyers who are primarily focused on rehabbing properties. What I found is that cash buyers are half-doing their marketing campaigns because they are inundated with rehabbing properties. After they finish one project, they typically scramble to find another deal. We mitigate this by providing them with consistent leads so they always have a deal in the pipeline. We also work with buy-and-hold landlords, agents, brokers, and wholesalers.

I'm not knocking direct mail, but I feel like it's just so antiquated. On BP, it's generally accepted that a 2% response rate is the norm. This is acceptable when you're only sending out 1,000 letters. However, I eventually scaled up to 10,000 mailings per month and well over a quarter of those were returned letters! That's roughly $3,000 wasted in returned letters. Additionally, there were thousands of other people that threw away my letter immediately. At least if I don't find a hit for a phone number, I'm not charged; nor do I charge my clients for non-hits. Once you send mail, you get charged whether it delivers or not because you're paying for the postage. As others mentioned, the market is saturated with investors and yellow letters aren't seen as unique anymore. The gentleman above me, @Justin Silverio has a great idea with creating unique mailers to increase the response rate. This is so necessary in order to standout among the competition. I'll still incorporate direct mail sometimes but it's by no means the foundation of my marketing.

Hello @Christopher Reid and @Chris Low. I use List Source to pull all of my lists, and there is an equity percentage filter in List Source. I like to start at 70%-100% equity and lower it if I need more leads. You can also include owner-occupied individuals because they may want to sell too. Oftentimes, I found that people that are listed as owner-occupants actually moved out of the property several years back. They're only listed as an owner-occupant because the mailing address in List Source matches the Property address they have on file.

@Pratik P. While I agree with you, I found that targeting niche lists isn't very scalable. I was targeting all of the aforementioned lists initially. However, this required my team to go to the court house several times a month to receive only a handful of leads. I eventually scaled up to roughly 10,000 leads in multiple counties, and it would have been difficult to target those lists if we physically needed to go in the court house since a lot those records aren't available online. I have had success with the code enforcement list in my area and used that when I first started out because I was on a tighter budget.

@Candice Brown I've been where you were and I understand the frustration. However, persistence is key!