All Forum Posts by: Pablo Avila

I'd identify if Ivelo has Open API's (If you're unfamiliar, ask their sales tech team), and see if other D4D applications will allow for that integration. That may be the easiest way to find other D4D apps. If you need help with "Virtually Driving For Dollars" let us know! 

 interesting, most of my customers swear by batch skip trace, so this is surprising to me. I'm also building a skip-trace platform soon so check with us :) 

I've seen a few posts recently on seller-finance. In my opinion seller finance is one the best way to go, specially if you can do 0% interest. If you're interested, you could structure better deals when it comes to land.

Since most people typically target single family, multi-family, land is a great opportunity to get started as well, this applies specifically to Texas as there's hundreds of thousands of land parcels ( Specifically Vacant Land). 

From experience, here's what I'd suggest you look for: (You can easily pull these types of lists from your county appraisal district or 3rd party services)

Property Types:
Vacant Land
Agricultural
Commercial

Broken down into Specific Property Types:
Mobile home lot
Agricultural (NEC)
Residential Acreage
Residential Lot
Multifamily Acreage
Multifamily Lot
Agricultural Land
Industrial Acreage
Industrial Lot
Commercial Acreage

I'd look for properties that have been owned for at least 10+ years, and large acreage (this depends on you, I'd say more than 40+). I'd also look for places that are about an hour away from Major cities (for example in Texas: Brazoria, Galveston, Bexar, Denton, Montgomery, Nueces, Waller, Fort Bend, Travis,  etc.), there's plenty of land. If you can find something near the highway (i.e. I-10 in San Antonio) that would be fantastic. 

Additionally, something that no one ever mentions is that many of these parcels have a 0 address, such as "0 Road", so many commercial real-estate software may not have these which is a competitive advantage that you'll have. The only thing to note about these is to ensure that the property has road access and is not locked between other properties. 

I'd exclude:
-Trustee-owned properties
-Corporate-Owned Properties

Here's the best part, you can work out a seller-finance deal with the owner, specifically to get a 0% interest. You can explain the tax hit they'll be taking if they get all the money up-front, and instead offer a payment plan in which they'll get what they want (or more), while at the same time allowing you to market the land and sell it to a developer or a buyer that may be interested in your area.

This is taking seller finance to another level in which you get a 0% loan while at the same time sell the land for a high market value!.

In my opinion it's probably the best way to go, specially if you can do 0% interest. If you're interested, you could structure better deals when it comes to land. 

Since most people typically target single family, multi-family, land is a great opportunity to get started as well. Specifically Vacant Land. From experience, here's what I'd suggest you look for.
You can easily pull these types of lists from your county appraisal district or 3rd party services.

Property Types:
Vacant Land
Agricultural
Commercial

Broken down into Specific Property Types:
Mobile home lot
Agricultural (NEC)
Residential Acreage
Residential Lot
Multifamily Acreage
Multifamily Lot
Agricultural Land
Industrial Acreage
Industrial Lot
Commercial Acreage

I'd look for properties that have been owned for at least 10+ years, and large acreage (this depends on you, I'd say more than 40+). I'd also look for places that are about an hour away from Major cities (for example in Texas: Brazoria, Galveston, Bexar, Fort Bend, etc.), there's plenty of land.

Additionally, something that no one ever mentions is that many of these parcels have a 0 address, such as "0 Road", so many commercial real-estate software may not have these which is a competitive advantage that you'll have.

I'd exclude:
-Trustee-owned properties
-Corporate-Owned Properties

Here's the best part, you can work out a seller-finance deal with the owner, specifically to get a 0% interest. You can explain the tax hit they'll be taking if they get all the money up-front, and instead offer a payment plan in which they'll get what they want (or more), while at the same time allowing you to market the land and sell it to a developer or a buyer that may be interested in your area. 

This is taking seller finance to another level in which you get a 0% loan while at the same time sell the land for a high market value!.  

Follow up every 3-6 months! That's what we typically do which has some level of success. 
Most people move out of their home every 12 years or so; therefore, even if you have an older list, you should definitely get some percentage of people in a specific year that is interested in selling. 

Facebook groups is where it's at. I'd also suggest to setup a Chrome extension, the one I used is called "Email Extract", as you're browsing through Facebook Wholesale groups, many of them like to add their email address. With these type of extensions it'll capture them automatically which will make it easier for you to build a solid contact list. 

Here's some based on what my clients have best success (Applies to big counties like Harris County TX)
Best properties to target are those with:

1. High Equity Absentee Owners
2. Potential Absentees
3. 20 Year Owner Occupants
4. Potential Vacant List
5. Age 55+ 6. Vacant Houses
6. Empty Nesters
7. Tax Delinquent
8. Code Violations & Others (Probates, Pre-Foreclosures, water shut-off etc.)

I hope this helps in your Wholesale journey, or at least to get started!

I'm also curious about this, have not found a 100% method to see DNC lists. 
Depending on where you're getting your data (TLXop, or other marketing companies), some of these have built-in ways to exclude these numbers, but again, not 100% accurate. 

Be careful as there's individuals who's side hustle is to sue and they love to go after real-estate wholesalers. 

A recommendation would also be to get an 1-800 # to avoid some of these issues. 

Unfortunately, most people getting into Wholesale are all starting with their favorite Guru's 101 advise (get propstream, pull x list, etc..) and by the time you reach these individuals, someone has already called them 10 times before.

I'd start with my local area, focusing on a competitive Niche. For example, in the Harris county (TX) area, it's taking us about 300+ calls to reach an individual person; however, we're shifting to focus on niche data such as 311 service requests, code violations, etc.. (Driving for dollars continues to be the best route). 

I run a real-estate data company and have many insights if you have any questions!

Everything boils down to a numbers game, also consider that majority of people are using commercial software such as Propstream (watching their favorite Gurus on Youtube which will continue recommending this). 

Here's a competitive advantage that you can use when finding distressed/vacant properties in your area or as a virtual investor in other states.Using your city's 311 service & Code violations you can "Virtually D4D" to find off market deals that WILL NOT be in commercial real-estate software such as batchleads, propstream, and listsource. Look at your city's 311 service, it's public data and will have hundreds of reports such as abandoned lots, homeless activity, high grass, etc.. all reported by other neighbors.

Majority of the time this is what cities utilize to determine code violations/enforcement, so if you request that list, you'll be ahead. Additionally, these are updated daily and typically have the "incident opened date" which you can easily sort by.

1. 1. Find the website (Google 311 service request your city name) - I'm sharing a google sheets document we put together (weeks worth of research) for you to easily find your city's 311/code violation service (If you have more, please share and help the community!).
2. 2. Locate the full data list (This will be raw data, you will need to open it with excel or a text editor (Notepad ++ works great). For many of these, you can click on "visualize" on these sites, or just download as .csv. (Note: some of these files are huge!)
3. 3. Format the data (Depending on the city, this might already be categorized such as Vacant/Overgrown Property, or it might have a full description. If it does have a description:
   1. Here's some of the keywords you can look for: ABANDONDED,unoccupied,homeless,squatting, prostitution,uninhabitable,disconnected,destroyed,water leaks, ,damage,rodent,utilities,,moved out,not secure,maintain property,Encampment.
4. 4. Determine the full address and now tie this information together to your county appraisal data which should have the owner name/mail address.
5. 5. Once you tie these determine the parcel # and identify if there's any tax delinquencies, or whatever other indicators you typically use to increase the likelihood of a motivated seller (i.e. tax liens, evictions, etc..)
6. 6. Take action and call them

This is a great way to find vacant properties as neighbors or people that have an intimate knowledge of those neighborhoods are the ones that report these properties which tend to be eyesores for their communities.

Again here's the document!

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Another option is to setup a good inbound marketing channel. If you're serious about finding motivated sellers then have them come to you. Invest some money in registering a website (example: webuyhousesinyourcity.com), make it easy to navigate and SEO friendly. We used to get 4-5 solid leads per week and 99% of the times these were motivated to sell.