All Forum Posts by: Jerry Holt

@Derrion Ausby   I've sourced 1000's of probates from that county.  Everything you need will be on the probate petitions, including the decedent's last address. But, make sure after you source the probate data that you verify that the decedent actually owned the property. You will find that in about 30% of these that the decedent didn't even own real property. You can narrow these down by running the addresses through the Gwinnett county assessors website. Good Luck!

@Brian Alterman   Many of the commercial lists are competitive and many are filled with aged data.  I consider data 3 or 4 weeks old as aged. If you want to pace yourself ahead of your competition you could consider fresh data. One key to sourcing fresh data is keeping in mind the word "pending" in your researching efforts. These are homeowners that are currently going through events that might make them become potentially motivated sellers. Not to be confused with an event that happened weeks or months ago. Pending evictions, pending divorces and open housing code violations are good examples. And, there are others. Some of these folks might have a need for your services. In the case of pending evictions and housing code violations you will also find a very substantial number of absentee owners. Hope that helps.

@Rick H. Thanks for the mention Rick.

@Brian Alterman  As Rick mentioned, there are situations other than probates that you could look into. As far as sourcing probates it's probably going to be bit of trial and error in the beginning. Going back in dates about a month is a good start as you mentioned. Regarding your last question, if the property isn't under the decedent's name then I doubt you would want to pursue it anyway. Happy hunting!

@Brian Alterman    When researching probates on each case you will want to locate the "petition to probate" document. It might also be called "petition for administration" or other variations.  This document is one of the first filed and will generally have the address of the decedent, the names and addresses of the executor/PR and also the attorney's info as well. And you bring up a good point regarding verifying the ownership of the property. Many probates don't involve real property. Once you have located the decedent's address go to the Orange county appraisal website and plug in the address to verify the deceased owned it. 

Before you go to the probate court call them first and ask if you are allowed to take pictures of the documents.  Most courthouses I've worked in will let you do this. I take 100's of pics of docs and then later upload and sort through them and add the data to a spreadsheet. This will save you a ton of time. Good luck!

I just wanted everyone to know it appears that Travis county has just released it's most current delinquent tax list. If you are interested in back tax leads you can access it for FREE by clicking on the link to their website: https://tax-office.traviscountytx.gov/reports-data. You can download it in a couple of Excel spreadsheet formats. Happy hunting!!  

Buy small mobile home park.

@Fillipe Silvas  I think your question was how do you source probate leads for your area? 

You are located in Galveston county. You are very fortunate that you live in an area that you can access probate case files online at http://www.galvestoncountytx.gov/cc/Pages/CourtRecordsSearch.aspx. Search by date and it will pull all of the probate filings for that date range. You will be looking for the "Application to Probate" documents. Once you open it you'll be able to locate the executor/PR's address and the attorney's contact information. Good luck! 

@Luke Petrozza  I've seen many techniques used by investors, everything from using actual robots to hand write yellow letters to having letters hand delivered via UPS or FedEx to ensure the mail will be open and read. But none of that matters unless you have a good mailing piece.

If you got a 5% response rate off the first batch of mailings that's not bad. The overall response rate should increase with repeat mailers. I don't have any templates to offer but I would suggest using the same theme you did in your original mailing. If you did it on your letterhead or had your logo on the mailing piece I would continue using it as it helps build a brand recognition over time. Just my two cents worth. Good luck!

@Marques Johnson  Some probate courts do have online access to the necessary information you will need, as he stated above.  Dekalb and Clayton counties are not one of them and it will require you to visit the courthouse.  Wish there was online access. 

@Margaret B. Thank you for your kind words. 

@Marques Johnson

If you are looking for probates in Clayton county you will need to go to the probate court. They may have the documents scanned and available on a computer terminal. If not, you will need to research the actual paper files. I would start with the most recent probate filings and work backwards in dates. 

In Georgia the document you are looking for is the "Petition to Probate". On this document you will find the executor and attorney mailing addresses. Many times you can also get the executor's phone number on the page where the executor signs the petition. The document will generally also list the address of the decedent when he/she passed. Keep in mind that not all probates have real property attached to them so you will need to run the address through the Clayton county assessor to make sure the decedent owned the property. On mine I also run my own current owner title search to make sure the property hasn't been recently sold. 

What I do to save a whole heap of time bring a camera with me and I take pictures of the documents. When I work Fulton or Gwinnett counties in Georgia I might take 500 pictures during the course of a day. Afterwards I sort them out, verify property ownership and then enter the probate data into a spreadsheet.

So, in a nutshell, that's the basics. Not an easy process, but with time and trial and error you'll get it figured out. Good luck!