[Hugh Hill]

Hugh Hill

I was watching the video from Aaron Mazzrillo which was filmed in Vegas. He mentioned they were marketing to inherited property list and were having great response. Where do you go about inherited list like that? Would that be something your find at the probate office?

[Jackie Lange]

Jackie Lange

An inherited list is the same as a probate list. But keep in mind that if you only mail to probates, you are missing a large percentage of properties that never go to probate when the owner dies. An estate can also be resolved with an heirship affidavit, it does not have to go to probate.

Most people who mail to probate do not have success. The reason is most likely that their message is not right.

The list is only half the battle, you need a really good message to match the market.

You can go to the court house to get a fresh list of probate filings every day. There are probably people there who will send you the daily list for a fee.

I also know some people who have success following obituaries, cross referencing to tax records to see if the person who died owned any real estate, then doing a letter mailing. This mailing will get to the people who inherited the property LONG before the probate filing. (beat the competition) But it does feel like you are an ambulance chaser!! I know we have a coaching call about doing this.

At this years Panama Retreat, we did some discussion about marketing to probates. Some have done split testing with marketing to see what works best. One marketing piece was a professional “we solve real estate problems and buy houses letter ( with no mention of the death of a family member) AND the other was a colorful note card that said “I’m so sorry for your loss, we can buy your house this week message.

50/50 response. Sometimes the same seller would call both.

We also discussed that some sellers prefer to talk to a woman and others prefer to talk to a man. If the same seller got a letter from a man and a different letter from a woman, there is a slight edge for women getting the call!

The biggest mistake when mailing to probates is a bad message in your marketing. So you spend a fortune on marketing then get zero response.

You need to do research about the property before you just send out a marketing piece to everyone on a probate list.

If the house was purchased 5 years ago, it does not have much equity so your we pay cash message is the wrong message to send out.

If the house is in perfect condition, there is no need in sending out a message that you buy houses in any condition.

Instead, focus on the solutions you can provide like:

Close in 7 days
We pay all closing costs
no real estate commission
take what you want, leave everything else

Some cashflowdepot members have had success working with an estate sale company to help liquidate the things in the house. (BTW – estate sale companies are a great source for leads too)

The more ways you can reduce the burden of things to do for the person who inherited the house, the more likely you will get the deal.

[Hugh Hill]

Hugh Hill

Is estate sales companies and real estate auction companies the same thing? I googled estate sales and most are auction companies.

Thanks for answering my question.

[Jackie Lange]

Jackie Lange

No. An estate sale company only sells the contents of a house. They do not sell real estate.

[Dave Harper]

Dave Harper

How would an estate sale company be a good lead source?

[Jackie Lange]

Jackie Lange

Dave, when someone inherits a house and all the stuff in it, they often call an estate sale company to come organize and price all tht things in the house to get rid of the contents before the house is sold. So, an estate sale company is a good way to find out about inherited properties.

[Hugh Hill]

Hugh Hill

Jackie,
How do you compensate the estate sale company for the referral (lead)? Good Idea, never would have thought about approaching them.