Posted by Lee on March 26, 1999 at 12:09:52:
Nearly all REALTOR offices (that I have seen) have the RL Polk and or the Cole books, also call your library to see if they have them.
Lee
Problems! I Can’t Find a Good Flipping Deal - Posted by Erich
Posted by Erich on March 25, 1999 at 09:14:12:
I’m just starting out and have been looking for a good deal to flip or to buy. The problem is that I live in Monterey/Seaside California and the market is hot as a pistol. There is literaly no inventory left in real estate. As of yesterday, There were five active listings in my City, all extremely over priced. I have made offers but no replys. The entire area is being scoured by contractors and agents looking for motivated sellers. Can any one suggest a new plan for me?
Re: Problems! I Can’t Find a Good Flipping Deal - Posted by Rob FL
Posted by Rob FL on March 26, 1999 at 16:36:49:
The 3 main methods I use to find motivated sellers are:
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Realtor MLS (which has by far the most competition)
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Pre-foreclosure Lis Pendens Reports which you can buy from most title insurance companies. These give you a weekly list of all the lis pendens or notices of defaults filed in your county that week.
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Drive neighborhoods looking for signs of motivation. FSBO, vacant houses, high weeds, no curtains in windows, run down.
Another approach - Posted by Jim IL
Posted by Jim IL on March 25, 1999 at 15:15:43:
Well, you said that your looking at the “listed” properties". Perhaps that is the problem.
In my area, there are many homes “listed” and even more that are not.
Check out your “pre-foreclosures” and vacant run down homes.
Often times you’ll find that these people want to sell, but don’t list because they feel no one would want to buy “thier problems”.
So, go out, and drive around, find the vacant homes, and then locate the owners thru tax records and neighbors. The neighbors of these homes will help, because nobody wants a run down vacant home next door.
When one thing doesn’t work, try another. That is the name if the game in “creative Real Estate”.
Good luck,
Jim
Re: Problems! I Can’t Find a Good Flipping Deal - Posted by mike
Posted by mike on March 25, 1999 at 12:00:47:
move
Re: Problems! I Can’t Find a Good Flipping Deal - Posted by Lee
Posted by Lee on March 25, 1999 at 10:03:11:
Find out which office in your area processes foreclosures.
In my state, the civil sherriff’s office handles them.
I had the same problem as you are having when I started, now I’m finding “distressed” owners who are motovated to sell.
I presently have 33 files that I’m working on with LTV (loan to value) anywhere from 10 to 70%.
If you don’t have time to go to get the information from the courthouse, subscribe to (what is known here as) “The Daily Legal News” for aprox. $1.00 per weekday. Also, it will benifit you to get a REALTOR on your side who has the tax assessor’s records and the MLS on computer. You may also want to get telephone numbers on CD, I use “Pro CD” aka “Select Phone”.
Good luck
Lee
Select Phone CD - Posted by Bob (MD)
Posted by Bob (MD) on March 25, 1999 at 20:32:30:
I just bought a CD program that is supposed to have 104 million phone numbers. I ran it tonight for the first time and tried using my own phone number and it gave me the right city but wrong zip code and no street address. I’m taking the program back! How does the "Select Phone " work? Any other ideas for phone number CD’s?
Bob (MD)
Re: Select Phone CD - Posted by John (TX)
Posted by John (TX) on March 25, 1999 at 21:44:44:
Bob,
There are dozens of Web sites that will allow you to look up phone numbers for free. Some even offer reverse lookups, that is, if you already have a number you can find the associated name and address or if you have only an address you can get the associated name and number.
The advantage is that the information is usually more current than the CD’s available on store shelves. Imagine this, the company that makes the CD’s has to compile the data, burn or press the CD’s and get them shipped to stores where the consumer buys maybe weeks or months later. By then the data is already old. The online versions sometimes use the same CD’s but access to them is free and they update them whenever a new CD is available.
The down side to these free services is that they don’t allow the advanced sorting features like the CD’s such as Select Phone. Also, most will only display 5-10 listings at a time. So you have to keep clicking more to see all the listings, each time you have to wait for the page to load. It can be slow if there are a lot of listings.
Here’s a site to get you started:
It’s a list of about 40 sites that provide number, address and zip code lookups as well as reverse lookups.
The ones I’ve found to be best are 555-1212.com, switchboard.com and anywho.com.
Good luck.
John
Re: Finding Information - Posted by Lee
Posted by Lee on March 26, 1999 at 08:54:44:
The thing I like about the phone numbers on CD is that the information is beginning to become out of date. I type in an address and the CD gives me the name of the RESIDENT at that address it will also give me the names and addresses and phone numbers of (almost) everyone on that street. If you can learn how the owner’s name WAS listed you can then look them up in the current (paper) phone book. If they are not in your local phonebook they may have moved out of town, you may be able to find them on the net.
I also use the “RL POLK” book (city directory) and the “COLE” book. RL Polk (most of the time) lists the home address, telephone, spouse and their place of employment.
Lee
Re: Finding Information - Posted by Alex Gurevich, TX
Posted by Alex Gurevich, TX on March 26, 1999 at 09:37:04:
Lee,
Where does one find COLE and RL POLK books ?
Thanks.