Absentee Owner Marketing
Bandit signs and letters to your wheeling and dealing prospects aren't enough?
Let me tell you another market to throw your mass mailings to. Absentee owners! Owners of houses in your city, who live somewhere else. These are the most obvious, yet a lot of the time most overlooked motivated sellers on the planet.
If you want to get your phone ringing, you definately need to focus on these owners right here. Who else would be more motivated to sell a vacant ugly house in Florida, than the owner who lives in California? My very first wholesale deal was this exact situation.
I purchased a list of absentee owners from my city tax collector. It had about 7,000 names, mailing addresses, and property addresses. I sent out about 350 letters the first week, and about 15 letters a day for the rest of the month. 3 weeks after I started I recieved my first call...which in turn became my first deal.
It was a junker property, the owner lived in California, and he had totally forgotten about the property in Florida, recieved my letter and saw the opportunity to put some cash in his pocket. I asked him what the least he would accept for it, but he wouldn't say. I knew I would pay him $20,000, but since he was trying to play hard ball I threw $14,000 at him and he took it ! Now I am upset at this because I could have probably gotten it for less, but back then I was EXCITED!
To make a long story short I made $7,300 on my first wholesale deal. Once I learned how to systemize my business and employed absentee owners into my marketing campaign I am currently doing 1 deal a month off absentee owners alone.
This is a great market, especially for those who have very little time to work on real estate. Sending out 15 to 20 letter a day 5 days a week (300-400 a month), could easily bring you 1 wholesale deal a month.
Some of them have forgotten about the properties, some gave up on maintaining them years ago, some never thought anyone would ever want to buy them, and most of them are happy to hear from you!
You can get a list from your city (some won't sell it) or there are some good databases out there you can create your own list with.
For those with very little time... at the very least you need to taget these owners. For those who are exhausting all other means, you need to start implementing this marketing method yesterday!
Good Luck!
Jason Bradley
I totally agree. You say go to your county recorders office and see if you can get a lists. To you know of any for profit places that compose these lists.
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the great article. Regarding your comment
"You can get a list from your city (some won't sell it) or there are some good databases out there you can create your own list with."
Can you share some great resources to search if your town will not sell you the list? Can you PM me or post it here? Thanks