Using The Right Mailing Lists To Locate Motivated Sellers – Part 2

So what other lists can we use to locate highly motivated sellers? One of my favorite lists is people who are behind on taxes. You can get this list by getting a list of tax certificates available for sale in your county. In most counties this list comes out right before the tax certificate sale takes place. You would then mail them a neutral type of letter saying you are interested in buying properties in their neighborhood or subdivision.

When mailing these letters initially, I suggest that you do not refer to the seller’s specific problem. All you will accomplish is to alienate them so that they will not want to work with you. I personally do a mailing every year to folks whose tax bills have not been paid and I have purchased many properties this way. A lot of these folks are people who have a problem they need to solve, they just don’t know how until they are contacted by you. A lot of these people have inherited properties they neither want nor need and appreciate your offer to purchase it, especially if they have just received another big tax bill to pay. This is an extremely good lead source for really great deals. 

Another great list to get from the courthouse is the eviction notices. This is a great list to use to find “burned out” landlords who are just tired of dealing with rental properties. They don’t want to put another tenant in their property right after they have just evicted one. If the tenant has done damage to their property, this makes them even more motivated to sell and gives you the opportunity to create an even better deal. You will usually find that you end up buying multiple properties from these sellers.

I also like to create lists of people who are newly married. You can find this listing in your newspaper each week in most areas. In this scenario you will be looking for situations where the bride owns a home, or both the bride and groom own a home and perhaps they want to sell one or both and buy a home of their own. These can be very good leads for you that most of your competition simply won’t think about going after. Do that which your competition will not and you will have more motivated sellers contacting you than you can handle.

You can get lists of divorce notices, death notices, liens and judgments and notices of bankruptcy. Most of these lists are available in the newspaper or at your courthouse. These are all people with problems to solve who may have a home for sale. If you are using my Marketing Magic System I have all the letters in place for you to use for these mailings.

If you are working with the list of death notices, just make sure you send them a generic type of a “we buy houses” type of letter and don’t refer to the fact that you know someone has died. This is a good way to alienate a potential seller. I have done many deals from this particular mailing.

Another great list to mail to would be people who are in the military. These are people who own a home and end up getting transferred somewhere else. They now have a home and a mortgage payment they neither want nor need. These are excellent leads for “subject to’s”, or properties that the sellers will simply deed to you since generally there isn’t a lot of equity in these properties and not a lot of time for the seller to sell them.

This is a very easy list for you to obtain. You would obtain a list of everyone who has a VA loan and has purchased their home within a specific timeframe in the area surrounding the military base. This is a very good lead source for you and you are also doing a “public service” when purchasing these homes since you are solving a big problem for military personnel. In addition, once you have purchased a couple of these properties, you will get other leads strictly by word of mouth. I have had excellent results with military mailings.

 I also prefer mailing a letter to these folks as opposed to using post cards since they are more likely to open a personal looking letter and read it.

Check out my website for all the information and tools you need to create highly successful direct mail campaigns to find highly qualified motivated sellers.

I also provide information on my website for resources to locate list brokers who can provide you with the lists you need to find the motivated sellers you are looking for.

Once you find the lists you need that are current and targeted to the types of motivated sellers you want to find, you will have the beginnings of a machine that will provide you with all the motivated sellers you will ever need.