Posted by Nate on March 21, 2001 at 09:50:02:
Bill,
That’s a neat trick. I’ll have to remember that one.
But what if someone calls on your sign and wants to buy the property? 
Nate
Locating Owner of Abandoned Prop. - Posted by Bryan
Posted by Bryan on March 20, 2001 at 22:04:08:
Hi all,
There is an abandoned house(small single family) that I drive by every once in awhile, in a low income (but not slummy) neighborhood. The house needs major, major rehabbing.
I’ve tried the basic approaches to finding the owner. I have a name from the public records, but the trail goes cold there.
I was looking for creative approaches to finding owners of abandoned properties that have worked for any of you. I’ve tried the local white pages, internet directories, etc. There are a lot of others in the phone book with the same last name, I was trying to avoid cold calling to look for relatives. Can anyone give advice?
Thanks in Advance
Bryan
Re: Locating Owner of Abandoned Prop. - Posted by BillW.
Posted by BillW. on March 20, 2001 at 23:14:16:
Bryan, There are lots of ways to look. Here’s a few.
Go to county recorders office and pull file on the property. Read the whole thing and see if there’s more info about the owner. Sometimes the papers will reveal a full name, a social sec. number or other persons. If you can get any of that, you now have a new trail to follow.
Have you tried mail forwarding at the local post office?
Also, talk to neighbors. Find out info. If the owner got old, see if he/she’s in a home. Check death records.
One I’ve used in the past is to put a for sale sign on the lawn. I did this and the owner called within 2 days. Mad as heck. I said, "Sorry, I was selling a house on the next block and my helper put the sign on the wrong house. I’ll move it right away. By the way, do you want to sell?
If none of these gets results, e-mail me and we can go further and try more ways to find them.
BillW.