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Vacant boarded up houses are ideal for real estate investors looking for quick turnaround flips. You’re talking about people who likely care very little about the property that they’ve left to decay. The owner of that house would be thrilled if an investor contacted them to take the house off of their hands. Except, the only problem is, the owner has completely vanished without a trace – or so it may appear!
In these times of computers and the Internet, it’s a very rare occasion when someone can’t be tracked down. Every homeowner leaves little clues, and it’s your job to piece them together. If you want to be successful at this, you need to have a system and follow it carefully. If you only do one or two things, you may get lucky… but if you do them all, you’ll almost always get your “Mark.” You might want to print up the following Ten Step Plan, developed by an accomplished wholesaler and flipper, and follow the process when you are seeking to track down a seller.
The Ten Step Plan To Finding Homeowners “Bloodhound Style”
1. Place A Flier in the Door
Place a flyer or personalized note in the door stating that you buy houses in any condition & stick one of your “I Buy Houses” bandit signs right in the front yard.
2. Ask The Neighbors
Not just immediate neighbors. I always go four houses out on each side and across the street. You should be able to get bits and pieces of information from each person. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Leave your card and offer money (if you buy the property) for any information that they may “remember” after you leave.
3. Whitepages.com
I go to Whitepages.com or you could call 411 – You’ll find about half of them right here!
4. Tax Assessor’s Office
Visit your local Tax Assessor’s Office. Check the “Mailing Address” to see where the tax statements are headed. ALSO, I ALWAYS run that person’s name to see if they own other property in hopes that there are more abandoned junkers that we can cut a deal on. Sometimes a new mailing address will be on other properties as well.
5. Check Court Records
Run the name through the clerks office and look at all the recorded docs and court indexes for that person. You can often get a good picture of what’s going on, and sometimes even some other addresses or addresses of relatives, etc. This is where your detective skills kick in. You want to scour through and see if you can find anything…divorce filings, new loans, liens, law suits. If their salary is being garnished, the employer’s name and address will be their for you. Many times you’ll see that the individual is in jail or just got out of jail. You can usually find their attorney or a new address off of the arrest info. If they’re in jail, you can call the prison and set up a visit with the inmate.
6. “Address Service Requested” Letter
Send out a letter and put “Address Service Requested” on the envelope. Make sure that the address is hand written on the envelope and regular stamp is used (NO BULK RATE).
7. Hire a Skip Tracer
Hire a skip tracer through services like FindtheSeller.com or Fiverr.com because they’re pretty inexpensive and they’re pretty good at finding people that I can’t with very limited info. It usually takes 24 – 48 hours to get a match but you can be trying the other methods while you’re waiting.
8. Shot Gun Approach
If it’s a unique last name, I’ll start calling everyone in the phone book within the area… hoping to get a relative. I’ve been surprisingly successful with this “Shot Gun” approach. If the name is something like, “Johnson” or “Jones”I wouldn’t even attempt it. 🙂
9. Voter Registry
Through the Voter Registry you can also get updated addresses.
10. Follow-Up File
Place the lead in a “follow-up” file in case another clue arises in the near future (property goes into foreclosure, neighbors call you, someone calls on the sign, etc).
Bill Manassero is the founder/top dog at “The Old Dawg’s REI Network,” a real estate investing blog, newsletter and podcast for seniors and retirees. His personal real estate investing goal, which is being chronicled at olddawgsreinetwork.com, is to own/control 1,000 units/doors in 6 years. Prior to real estate, Bill and his family lived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as missionaries, serving orphaned, abandoned and at risk children for their nonprofit organization Child Hope International.
