When you’ve been in real estate for more than six months, you gain a superpower. There’s no fanfare, no announcement or email from your local superhero association. You may not even realize it at first. It’s not X-ray vision or time travel or super strength. It’s a boring ability to see a seemingly abandoned house just by driving by.
This ain’t the last house on the left, some dark empty haunted house, or the house that falls off the end it’s a Wonderful Life, These are subtle clues that tell your brain, “This house is empty and no one has lived there for a while.”
Case in point, my neighbors moved in while I was away from home last week. When I drove to his house, I could tell right away that his house was empty. Their personal belongings were removed from the porch, the planters emptied. It just felt different from every other house in the neighborhood. they were gone; They had already moved out that day.
From the signs above to the more obvious: an overgrown yard, piles of mail or newspapers, no furniture or decorations with blinds left open, or everything closed with no light on.
But what is important is less about finding abandoned properties and more what do you do now as an investor? How do you find the owners of that abandoned property so that you can help them by buying the now-vacant and abandoned home?
I have five strategies you can use to find those bosses.
1. Tax Records
Have you ever wished someone entered the owner’s mailing address for every property in your area in one central location or website? If yes, then I have some great news for you! One of the easiest ways to look up the owner of a property is to look on your city or county’s website for tax records or property records.
Most counties have this available online, but some more rural counties may require you to visit in person for this data. A quick search of the property address can lead you to the name of the owner and tell you if their mailing address is different from the property address.
Keep in mind, there are some counties where this information is hard to find or not available to the general public, but the extra work is well worth the rewards. Also, this information may be out of date or may not be updated at all; If the owner never notified the county of their new address, you are working with old or bad data.
2. Leave Trace
What does a dollar buy you these days? A gas station coffee? One third of an energy drink? A pack of gum?
Not much, it seems. What if I told you that it can buy a scary amount of data on a person?
Skip tracing lets you pay for a service to get information on a person, which usually runs around $1-$5, depending on the service and the amount of information you need. Some of the larger skip tracing services are actually run by credit bureaus.
In the Skip Trace report, you’ll find the absentee owner’s most recent address, their phone numbers (seriously, some have 20+ phone numbers associated with their names), email addresses, names of relatives, and sometimes those relatives’ contact information. Will get If you want a surefire way to get up to date on a person’s contact information, this is it.
Connected: 3 Reasons To Always Buy Distressed Assets (And How To Find It)
3. Door to Door
While this method may seem too old school to work, it is very effective. Often, the owner of an abandoned home had some kind of relationship with the neighbors before they were gone for good.
I’ve knocked on the door to say, “Jim went to live with her sister in South Dakota and asked me to keep an eye on her place,” or, “Ginney moved to a senior living care center across town. , and the kids aren’t sure what to do with the place.
These are just two direct examples of the few dozen I’ve experienced over the years. Neighbors are aware of their neighborhood, and most want to help and protect the area. Some get tired of seeing the 6-foot tall weed next door. Some don’t want the value of their home to be affected by the smog down the road.
The goal is to find neighbors who have had contact with the owners. In the above two visits, I was able to get the phone numbers and names of the owners or their children. If you really are there to help and are genuine, neighbors will still want to help their neighbors even if the neighbor’s house is falling in half.
4. Internet Research
Once you have the name of the owner of the abandoned property, you can plug it into your favorite search engine and see what you can find. I usually enter their full name followed by the city and state for more relevant search results.
I’ve found Facebook accounts, Instagrams, white pages, company websites, LinkedIn profiles, mentions in the local newspaper, awards at 4-H club meetings, online reviews written by him, and occasionally, obituaries from the owner. I have found absolutely nothing at some vendors; These are usually old sellers who have never been online and have no social media presence.
Once you have a few leads, poke around with what you’ve got to move on to the next step: messaging on social media, finding their siblings and messaging them, etc. Don’t be afraid to dig for information that you can use to contact the seller to help them with their abandoned property. The harder it is to find them, the less competition you have.
Connected: 6 ways to locate distressed properties online
5. Physical Notes
Not all abandoned property is forgotten, as I have found many times by leaving a note on the door. Either a neighbor or sometimes a family member who still lives in town and is checking on the property will find it.
I like to leave the note slightly open, so their curiosity is piqued and they call me. Something like, “Bob, I need to talk to you urgently! Please call me as soon as you receive this. 555-555-5555. I’ll come back in a week to see if the note is still there.” If it’s still not there, someone got the message.
Whether it’s there or not, I leave another note, this time larger so it can be easily seen from the street, usually on a 1-foot x 2-foot red poster board. Sometimes a curious neighbor calls; Sometimes owners, close relatives or lawyers call. Either way, you get a response and are one step closer to your goal of buying a property.
So, your superpowers helped you find abandoned property, and these five methods will help you find the owners’ contact information. What you do with that information from there is entirely up to you and your target marketing strategy.
I have brought you to the water. Now is the time to drink up, take action and help some people out.
Have you ever tried to find the owner of a vacant property? How did this happened?
Tell us about your experience in the comments.
Note by BiggerPockets: These are the views expressed by the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BigPockets.
