I had this grand plan of getting all my new leads prepped and mailed out by Sunday. It was not to happen. Work decided to call me every half hour to hour from 10pm till 2am Saturday night and call me in for a full work day on Sunday starting at 6am. Reason #342 to keep at it and take massive action.
I got everything copied into my tracking sheets. Its just a matter of looking of the decedents and determining whether they have real property. The number of letters per probate filing is smaller then I expected. Around 30-50% of all the cases I look up own real property. I decided to make an adjustment to who I send letters to this week.
One big problem I have is determining whether they have real property. Both my county records searches are done by property address and not name. I have resorted to looking up the name on www.zabasearch.com and then checking the property address through each county. If the names match, I determine if the PR is the spouse by comparing addresses. If yes, then no letter. If no, then they get a letter.
Unfortunately this system is sketchy at best. Zabasearch has no way of helping me determine which John Smith is the correct one. I end up having to leave a ? on that filing. That is as a good as a no. Also, it does not help me determine if they have any rental property. To solve this problem, I will be sending out generic letters to the PR’s address. It will be a simple we buy properties type letter. I don’t want to even associate with probate. I want it to seem somewhat random they got the letter. If they have property they want to sell me, then great If not it will likely be ignored and thrown away. This way I am not insulting the PR by asking about probate real estate that may not exist.
This will increase my overhead a bit in the form of stamps and letters, but that will easily be offset if I pick up just one property. No new calls yet, but I suspect when I get this list out I will likely get a few. I have more to add on other items, but in the interest of posting more, I will refrain from adding that tonight.
Sheesh! What type of work do you do, Jason? Are you in the IT field?
Will look forward to hearing about your responses from the letters. How many are you sending out?
I’m a chemist at a power plant. We run 24/7 365. Unfortunately tonight looks like another one of those nights I’ll be heading back to work. I love it, days like this make me push even harder towards my goals.
Not sure how many letter yet. I’m hoping for at least 50. Not counting the generic ones.