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