How to Find and Buy Distressed Properties (Part 2)
What to Look for at the Property Assessor’s Office?
This is the place to look for reference numbers, account numbers, location of the properties, detailed information about the owners of those properties, information about the prior owner of the properties, and tax information
During the process of researching properties, you might meet some investors who create a bridge between you and the landlords, unavailable owners, the people who inherited properties and owner-occupied homes better known as personal residences. To identify whether a property is owner-occupied or that of an absentee owner you need to check the address for owner and property. If both the addresses are same, it means the property is owner occupied. On its contrary, different addresses of owner and property give an indication of an absent owner, revealing whether the homes are on rent or not occupied.
Market to Your Leads
After finalizing the property list, you need to choose your marketing approach. It could be a direct mail through postcard or yellow letter. You may also write the address in your writing to achieve the same result. Make sure to mail at the owner's address. Be consistent and persistent and continue to mail every 2 to 3 months to get noticed.
What If You Are Unable to Find the Owner?
Sometimes you may find it difficult to locate the owner of the property. This is beneficial as the more difficult it is to find the owner, the less the competition will be. Since the owner's address is not easily available, less people would approach him. This means more chances for you to get the property but for this purpose you need to do an additional research. You may look for the red flags that would give you a hint that you need to do additional research. These red flags include:
i) Vacant property listed as owner occupied, which represents that assessor's records are not up to date and would require an additional 3 to 4 months to get updated, depending on the jurisdiction.
ii) Mail is returned, which represents that the delivery was not successful indicating that the owner has moved to another place. iii) No data, which means that the accessor's address information is not available.
Despite of this, there is nothing to worry about, these assessors can still be located.
Some ways to find the unavailable accessor's address are as follows:
Use Deeds of Trust and Public Records
You may seek help from deeds of trust and public records in order to find the address of the property owner. In order to find an assessor in your country's public records you need to Google search: [your country name] public records.
The deed of trust will give you a detailed information about all the parties that are involved in transaction with the power of attorney. This process is very significant while locating the property owner.
Mine Google for Data
You can use google to search on the deed of trust and attempt to find their name. If you can find their name, place their local area code, you might be able to find contact numbers, present addresses, personal websites, company contact sheets and social media accounts.
Leave a Note on the Property
You may even leave a note on the property of the owner so whenever they visit their property, they would find it and read it. Make sure to add your contact details, email address, and website so the assessor can contact you easily.
Talk to the Neighbors
Talking to the neighbors is also a very easy way of locating the owner of the property. Most neighbors find it a pleasure to help locate the owner as they would not like to have an empty property among them. Leave your contact details with the neighbors so they could contact you and give you information about the unavailable owner. The list is exhaustive but these are some of the best tips we could come up with help you with your distressed property search.