Rental agents like yourself are constantly looking for homes that they can market. Without vacant properties, you won’t earn as an agent. It’s the same with a vendor who has no product or service to sell.
The longer you are in the rental industry, the more chances you acquire “the eye” when it comes to evaluating properties. It’s almost second nature for you that whenever you pass by a property, you ponder about how much it’s worth or what selling points you will use if ever you market it to tenants. You may even pass by properties that you can automatically sense is unoccupied and see their earning potential.
When you come across a seemingly vacant home, your residential rental agent instinct would want to reach out to the owner for a potential business partnership. But since you clearly can’t come to the front door and expect the owner to be there, given that it looks uninhabited, you have to find different ways to know who owns it.
Tax Records
Check the tax records and property records on your city or county’s website. That is one of the easiest ways to discover the property owner’s identity and his mailing address.
However, there are still plenty of places that can’t offer this level of ease in accessing such information. You may ask agencies that deal with property taxes on how you may access such information. If you can’t obtain tax records, then you can try these other steps.
Visit Neighboring Houses
Ordinary members of a community sometimes have more valuable information compared to agencies and online search engines. In this case, there’s a higher chance that the neighboring houses can give you better information about the uninhabited home and its owners. Chances are, they have a direct relationship with the owner because they may have lived next to each other at one point.
Try to go door-to-door and ask where the owner of the abandoned home is, why they left, and how to reach them. It’s not uncommon for homeowners to request neighbors to keep an eye on their property before they vacate it. That means they may also have exchanged contact details.
Social media and Search Engines
Sometimes all you can find from asking around is just a name of the owner or a name of their close kin. That won’t be enough since you need their contact details or current address.
Since most of us have an online presence, try to search for the names you have on online search engines and on social media. If you put in the effort, you can often find leads and once you do, message them on social media, or contact the closest kin you were able to find. The harder they are to find, the fewer chances for other agents to compete with you.
Leave Notes
Yes, physical notes. It might sound old school, but it still works, believe it or not. Although clearly unoccupied, these houses still have owners who visit and check the place once in a while. Some request relatives, friends, or lawyers to do it for them. Either way, the note may reach the owner one way or another. Stick the note on the door or somewhere where it can’t be easily overlooked.
Drive past the property after some time to see if the note is still there.
When you find the owner and he is interested in renting out his property, let him make sure that the property is habitable; make the necessary renovations (or sometimes just a thorough clean-up).
You will open them up to a great opportunity to earn so they will most likely make an effort to do the necessary preparations. Once the property is ready for occupancy, publish a listing on Padleads complete with high-quality photographs of the property. Syndicate the listing to popular rental websites and start finding the best tenant! It’s definitely a win for all parties: the owner gets to utilize the property to generate income, you get to earn as the rental agent, the tenant gets a place to live, and the property gets taken care of. And it all started by driving by a seemingly vacant property.