I pulled together a mailing list from information collected through public records for delinquent tax property owners. My question is what programs you guys are using for address verification. I would hate to handwrite 500 letters to have 10-15% returned because of undeliverable mail - when I can save the effort and run my list through an address verification programs? Any suggestions?
Address verification would not validate the current occupant, it would validate the house number only and if you are pulling the address from public records, then chances are the address exists but does not guarantee the current occupant. Is that what you are looking for?
My last mailing 20% was returned as “undeliverable” - without a valid reason. I want to verify the address can be mailed to before I try the handwritten yellow letters method. I read that some addressess are not accepted as delivery points therefore you can not mail to them. The target area is in a older depreciating neighborhood.
First you dont handwrite 500 letters, you handwrite one and copy it. As long as you have a tracking system you should be fine… returned mail is a bi-product of direct mail…
:shocked We’ll thats an relieve that I do not have to handwrite all 500 letters. lol I expect undelieverable mail however I just wanted a few suggestions on how to reduce my margin. thanks for the advice guys…
My question is somewhat along the same line. However the problem I’m running into are vacant homes. For example, I find a vacant home that I’m interested in. I go to the tax assessor’s office and the property owner’s mailing address is the same as vacant property address. How do I find the current address of the property owner? I’m willing to purchase any software anyone thinks can help. This has been frustrating. :banghead
why not pay a service such as findtheseller.com? if they moved and did not notify anyone, there is nothing you can do about it other than hire a PI to find them. you can always mail them and see if the mail will be forwarded to their new address, or like I said… pay for the service that will find them, or get you info on their family or friends who you can contact to get a hold of them.
I get about 15 letters a day back that say vacant on them… Here is what I do… Step by step…
Step 1) Sort mail
Step 2) Remove Prospect from drip system
Step 3) Remove “Mary” letters from envelopes to reuse
Step 4) Throw mail away
Step 5) I am done.
I dont chase sellers… There are too many of them… I mail a series of letters and create enough inbound calls that I dont worry about the left overs… If you want to waste a ton of time finding that one person go ahead… If you want an on purpose business then set systems in place and start prospecting…
Heck two days ago I bought a 3/2 for 15k in an area where the houses are selling for 170k… Unfortunately I was too weak and paid cash.
$Cash$ Always says that the sellers need to beg you to buy their house and chasing sellers seems to be the opposite.
For vacant homes, I would do a “skip trace” to find the owner. Just google the work “skip trace” and a number of services will pull up. You can pay on a per house basis or set up a monthly service fee if you come across a lot of vacant properties. Hope this helps.