Everyone always says that direct marketing to absentee’s are the best way to go. I’m finding these property owners to be other investors who are too savvy to accept the low offers we need to wholesale a deal.
Is anybody finding desperate motivated absentee owners?
Absentee owners list gets lots of low quality leads. It’s a generic and broad list. Not really that targeted. There are deals in this list you just have to go through more leads to get to the deals. It’s kind of like zip code list. Lots of leads but lots of upfront screening of prospects to get to the deals. The high quality list are short and hard to get list but have high quality leads such as bankruptcy, probate, foreclosure list of low loan balances, and especially ugly house list. These list get few calls but good calls. But just like anything else you should always be mailing to various lists at once because you never know what your going to get. They all work. It’s marketing.
In today’s market, marketing to absentee owners can be profitable if you can find them and they are behind on their mortgages for a shortsale. You just have to be willing to do the work required to find them and to do the shortsale.
Take a look at the properties in your area for those that have obviously been vacant for quite awhile and do some research to find the owners (you have to ride around burning gas for this step). Look at county tax assessor websites to see who they are and what the mailing addresses listed are, eliminate all those with banks as owners (different tactics needed). Then use a couple of free or paid services like 411 to fid the owners and start your process. Make sure to invest in a good wholesaling or retailing program so that you’ll know and be comfortable the rest of the process.