I have a very nice vacant home in my area and I would like to contact the owner. However, when I do a property and records search, the mailing address is the same as the property address. My question, is there a way to find out what the owner’s current mailing address is, considering they are clearly not living in the home?
Hi,
It sounds like this is a foreclosure and may not have been foreclosed on yet or had title change to a lender's name!
Keep an eye on it and you will see it change at some point!
GR
Have you tried talking with the neighbors? They may keep in contact and/or have a forwarding address.
Sean Terry has a whole podcast episode dedicated to what to do with vacant houses. It’s episode #30 in his Flip2Freedom podcast. You can find it in iTunes.
Hope this helps!
“Sneaky” Tip
Go and get a For Sale By Owner sign and write your telephone number on it. Put it in front of the house. Guarantee someone who knows the owner will contact them to let them know about the sign or the owner himself will see it and call wanting to know who is trying to sell their house. You make up something about kids switching your signs around and now you have the owner on the phone to talk to!!!
If it doesn’t work that way you will probably get some calls from someone wanting a house and now you have another buyer!!!
Let us know if it works!!!
This is an example of why this forum needs a like button.
What a great idea!
Genius. You must be a fan of Sean.
HAHAHAHA. That is a great tip!!
Perhaps the owner suspects a scam and calls the local District Attorney.
What exit plan do you have if the Local Distict Attorney calls and asks his legal questions and says he is going tp press charges.
In today’s volatile real estate scam ridden market, I’d be very careful as I do not think the District Attorney or his prosecuting staff will accept “Some kids moved my sign…from where?”
That is why I use not only a Google Voice number as well as a throw away phone for my real estate transactions so its much more trouble to track me down then its actually worth. Also with all the other legit real estate scams going on, I doubt I will be prosecuted for a for sale sign in a yard. I have been doing it for awhile with much success and no problems. Remember if a property is vacant either someone doesn’t want it or they can’t/don’t know what to do with it. Most people are happy to speak with someone who can help.
Almost exactly what I was going to say but you beat me to the punch!
Yo Laveau! What you need is a Skip Trace subscription, or at least a vendor who will provide one-offs. go to the tax rolls to get the name of the current owner (s/b able to find this online). find a skip trace report vendor ( i use findtheseller dot com) - the report will cost you $20-25. the skip trace report will provide all possible/likely addresses and phone numbers of the owner and even relatives, from which you should make persistent phone calls and send out some yellow-paper, handwritten letters about wanting to the buy the house with cash!
Peace.
Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t but its worth $20 bucks to make a few thousand. :beer
I too have just recently venturing into finding owners to vacant houses. It has been really hard for me. I had someone suggest to me to write a letter to the homeowner explaining what you do and how you are willing to help them. Make a copy of the letter and mail both of them to the house. On one envelope you will need to write “please forward” This will get sent to the owners new address. The other envelope write “Do NOT forward” this will stay in their mail box and hopefully the owner will come by and check their mail.
And of course, you can always use door hangers. I am working on my first one. We’ll see if it works.
Dee Dee
[font=Verdana]If the home is vacant and county records don’t show foreclosure yet why not see who the servicer is and see if they do note sales? While you still may have to take thru the foreclosure process it may be an avenue when a homeowner isn’t available. Or who knows maybe since they’ve vacated they will do a deed in lieu of u having to foreclose.
Sometimes zabasearch.com comes in handy as well in locating people. Sometimes the post office may help if they actually did a forwarding address. The neat thing about zabasearch is that it may help find a previous address and a relative or friend that knows how to reach. Sometimes it even gives the middle initial and date of birth so maybe you can be more solid in your search as well.
Maybe check court records in their local county to see if there’s a more current address that service was given at. Do a neighbor search sometimes neighbors are the most helpful and whitepages makes it to where u don’t even have to do in person. If they talk they do if they don’t maybe the next one will. Don’t know if you don’t try!