All Forum Posts by: Sharon Vornholt

Way to go Jonny! I have gotten houses time and time again just because I was the one that kept following up and didn't give up.

I'm sorry not everyone has had good results with their local REIA.

In my area, Louisville, KY, our local REIA (KREIA) has been invaluable to my success. We have a lot of national speakers come to your meetings as well as local experts that are willing to share their knowledge. They are great mentors and have been a big part of my success. We probably have 400-500 members. They even have a formal mentoring group which has classes for new investors.

I would agree with the others that have posted. You shouldn't buy anything until you know what a good deal is. Decide on and area where you want to work, and spend every Sunday looking at houses. Go to open houses. You have to learn what they will sell for after they are fixed up.

Also, we have a table at our REIA meeting that has deals that are for sale. Look at what experienced investors are selling. They will typically tell you what they are asking, the amount of work ($) needed, and the after repaired value. You will slowly begin to know what a good deal looks like. Focus on one or two areas at first. I have a lot of information on my blog for investors if you want to check it out. Good luck!

I have been buying probate property for about 3 years now, and it has been my most profitable source of leads. Absentee owners are also very good for me.

I work in Louisville, KY and the probates are published in the local newspaper. Also, they are published at the same time; on a Friday, on or before the 15th of the month.

For instance, last month it was Friday the 10th. (The next Friday was the 17th which was after the 15th). This month they will be published this week which will be Friday January 14th (once agian on a Friday on or before the 15th of the month). They will typically be found in the classified section somewhere.

I found out when they are published by calling the courthouse. I would be really surprised if they are not published in every city. The folks at my courthouse told me they were required to do this by law so that creditors would know when someone had died. They also told me it costs them tens of thousands of dollars every month to publish them in the news paper, so they are hoping to have the information on line in 2011 or 2012 which would be much easier for them and for me.

I would encourage everyone to call their probate court for this information.

Once I have the list, I then check the PVA to see if there is property. Where I live, you can actually look up the wills online if you know the decendent's name. There really is no need to do this and it's very time consuming. I hope this is helpful.

Hey guys - there is actually one of those for sale that works quite well.

I have printed signs for buying. I haven't had as much luck with them in the past, but I am going to try them again.

Investors selling houses are using these a lot more thanks to forums like this one. They work great for selling!

I had an (elderly) absentee owner call me about buying her house last year. She had hired someone to do some work in the house and he had moved in without her permission.

This man had apparently been there for 6-8 months. The neighbors all knew about it, but he told them he was living there to "protect" the house while he did the work. In reality he really didn't do any work. Now you're going to love this.

A local attorney told her since he had been there for an extended period of time, she actually had to go through eviction court to get him out of the house. She couldn't just lock him out of the house. Can you believe that?

After he was "found out" he stole cabinets, copper and anything else he could while she was evicting him. He also continued to live in the house until he had everything out.

Boy Steve, that is a great idea!

@ Michael.

I have no intention of spending my days at the courhouse either. If that's the way you have to get the names, then you need to outsource that job. Almost all big cities have them in some other form.

I'm still looking into STL and their services.

I have been doing direct mail for a long time now, and the biggest problem has always been keeping an updated list. My lists have over 3000 people on them.

I am trying to weigh my time, + a 44 cent stamp, paper and toner plus the cost of continually purchasing updated lists against the per letter cost of a company like STL. If the business owner is sending out 1500 letters or more a month, I'm not sure that is the best use of your time.

There is an upfront cost with STL although it has come way down. When I checked last time, it was something like $999.00 you got that money back when you bought your first house as a result of using their service. All you had to do was send them a video testimonial.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone that used them to do larger mailings for an extended period of time. You really can't gauge the results from just a month or two of using this type of service..

@ Jason. I agree that relationship marketing is always the best. However, if you are marketing to absentee owners for instance that type of marketing won't work. You have to use direct mail.