Vacant Home Riches, How to find any owner
Vacant House Riches, How to find any owner.
Real estate investors, both those who buy and hold or buy and
flip, make money when they buy. One of the best methods of
getting good deals is through vacant homes. You may have little
or no competition.
If you have a systematic method of driving neighborhoods,
finding vacant houses is easy. What is not so easy sometimes is
finding the owner.
What I like to do is record into my Palm Pilot every vacant
address I come across and once or twice a week do my detective
work.
Where to start? In Florida, the place to start is the local
property appraisers web site.
http://www.myflorida.com/dor/property/appraisers.html ) In
almost all cases, you just put in the address and the site will
give you the owners name and address. You should then do two
things. First, you should write them a letter telling them that
you are interested in buying their home. Second, you should try
and call them.
Some web sites to get phone numbers are as follows:
www.switchboard.com www.whitepages.com www.yahoo.com people
search function
One thing I always do is just put in the last name. Husbands may
have died and the wife does not want to be listed. Also, they
could have gone to live with a relative of the same last name
but the phone is not listed in their name. If the last name is
the same as that listed on the property appraisers site just
call and ask.
An invaluable tool is an old phone book to look up numbers the
old fashioned way. Your goal should be to try and have one phone
book for each five-year increment for the last 25 years. Stop at
estate and garage sales and ask if they have any old phone books
you can have.
These are the easy ones. What if this does not work?
First, I check to see if the tax bill is being sent to a
different address than recorded on the property appraisers web
site. Many times it is. You start over.
Second, you call the local utility company and find out where
the bill was last sent.
Third, you put the persons name in the Clerk of the Courts look
up page to find out if there have been any recent legal actions.
Is there a recent probate or foreclosure action? If so, there
will be addresses and names of other people for you to contact.
This is where most people stop. And this is where if you
continue to see the same vacant place you can find gold.
The easiest place to start is to knock on all the neighbors'
doors and take one of two approaches. One, just say "what is the
story with that house?" and point to the house. You can usually
find a neighbor who will give you clues or answers. If you get a
nice person who you think was friendly with the owner just ask
for the number. If the house happens to be vacant because the
owner is in foreclosure, you might want to say "I have some
money for Joe Owner, do you know how I can get in contact with
them?" You want to use this approach if you think they are
protecting friends from bill collectors.
You can also use a couple more web sites in your search. Use
www.people-finders.ws to get a history of where people have
lived and birthdays. You can use find.intelius.com to get spouse
and children names.
In Florida, you can also get a Social Security Number off of the
older mortgages recorded in public records. It was printed right
on the mortgages. If you have this you can almost always find a
person using a paid service like findtheseller.com.
If all else fails do something very crazy. Put a FOR SALE sign
in the yard. If the owner or any relative lives anywhere near
they will call. You just say you are sorry, your sign person
must have put it up in the wrong yard. You then say, " I buy
homes, are you interested in selling?"