Have you ever wondered how professional real estate investors always seem to land the best deals on properties? How do they do it?
You’re regularly checking a few real estate listing websites. You have your notifications on for when new residential real estate properties are listed. Maybe you’ve even enlisted the help of a seasoned real estate agent to track houses for sale on the MLS. So why haven’t you managed to find the same success when property hunting? While there could be a few different reasons for this, I will let you in on one of the secrets of successful real estate investors:
They are going after off market properties.
As you might know, there are different types of off market properties (pre-foreclosures, short sales, pocket listings, etc.) and even a few different ways to find them. So how do the pros go about it?
They conduct a property owner search in a promising real estate market and build lists based on this information. Once they find out who owns a property, they market to them (whether by telephone, email, or mail) to let them know they are interested in buying a house in the area. Once a property owner bites, the real estate investor will make an offer and close the deal!
Here’s why this can be a great real estate investment strategy:
- You won’t face any competition or find yourself in a bidding war
- You can get a good real estate deal as the property owner will not have tested the waters in the open market yet to know the real value or asking price of the property
- You have more time to inspect, negotiate, and analyze the investment property as there is no pressure of days on market for the seller or even the possibility of you losing out on the real estate deal to competitors
However, the success of finding off market properties in this way hinges on one thing: the property owner search.
Do you spend a lot of time searching through public property owner records? That could work, but how do you find out who owns a property without a house address? The pros aren’t really driving around, scribbling down addresses in order to conduct a property owner search by address. In fact, many of them don’t even invest in their local housing markets, yet are still able to find out who owns a house. And even if they were “Driving for Dollars” as it’s called, it’s not really a sustainable investment strategy to build an entire real estate portfolio on.
How to Find Out Who Owns a Property in 6 Easy Steps
If you want to be able to implement this strategy, what you need is access to a property ownership database- one that allows you to easily search for owners in any location in the US housing market, even if you have no information on hand about the property or its owner.
The best way to conduct an online property owner search is with Mashboard. Mashboard is an innovative tool from Mashvisor that allows you to set a few filters and easily find out who owns a property. With this tool, you can even build property owner lists like the pros so you always have a reliable source of off market deals to turn to time and time again.
Here is how it works, step by step.
Step #1: Determine Where You Want to Invest in Real Estate
Before you can get started looking up property owners, you have to choose a real estate market. With Mashboard, you can find out who owns a property in any:
State: If you don’t want to narrow down your search and prefer to invest anywhere in a US state (as long as it’s profitable), this is possible with Mashboard. If you still need help determining what the best state to invest in real estate is, you can turn to one of these helpful guides:
What Are the Best States to Buy Real Estate in 2019?
20 Cheapest States to Buy a House for Investment in 2019
Best Multifamily Investment Markets 2019: 5 US States
What Makes for the Best State to Invest in Real Estate?
City: You can choose to invest in your city if you have performed a thorough real estate market analysis and know that an investment property will perform well there. Alternatively, you can turn to these guides to help you decide where to invest in real estate and start your property owner search:
The Best Places to Invest in Real Estate
10 Best Places to Invest in Real Estate in 2019
How to Identify the Best Place to Invest in Real Estate
Neighborhood: Even if you choose a great city for real estate investment, every neighborhood is different. If you want to narrow down your property owner search to a few good neighborhoods, here are a few guides on how to do just that:
Real Estate Heatmap: A Revolutionary Tool for Neighborhood Analysis
What Kind of Neighborhood Has the Best Investment Properties?
Whatever location you decide to go with (be it state, city, or a neighborhood; local or out-of-state real estate market), be sure that it has these characteristics:
- Growing job market and diverse economy
- Steadily growing population due to migration
- Healthy historical and forecasted real estate appreciation rates
- High demand for properties based on your investment strategy
- Plenty of desirable neighborhood amenities
Those are the characteristics of a great place to buy an investment or rental property. With this decision made, you’re ready to start building your owners list.
Step #2: Visit Mashboard and Click Add Owner List
Next, make sure you have signed up for Mashvisor to get access to Mashboard and the property owner list feature. At this point, you can schedule a demo with one of our experts to help you get started and continue with your property owner search.
Alternatively, visit your Mashboard and click the Add Owner List button (as seen below).
Step #3: Set the Property Owner Search Filters
It’s time to set the filters for your property owner search. There are a few important filters and which ones you choose to fill can depend on what information you’re starting out with:
Finding Property Owners by Address
Maybe you have decided to drive around a few local neighborhoods and you’ve spotted a single-family or multi-family home with investment potential. If you have written down the address, then fill in the Address field. From here, the other location-related filters (state, city, and zip code) will auto-fill. In this way, you can easily find out who owns a property with the address.
Finding Property Owners Without an Address
If you don’t have an address and instead wish to build a property owners list like the pros, fill in the following filters:
- State
- City
- Address (for this type of search, you can choose to type in the neighborhood)
- Zip Code
With the location in mind and the filters set, there are a few other decisions you will want to make in order to filter out the property owner information. These include:
- Investment Property Type: You have the option to search for property owners of all kinds of residential real estate including single family homes, townhouses, condos/coops, multi family homes, apartments, duplexes, and more.
- Year Built: Do you want an older investment property that can present a value add real estate opportunity? Or a newer property that will need minimum renovation and can be rented out for positive cash flow right away?
- Sale Dates: The sales date is crucial as a homeowner who recently bought the property is less likely to be willing to sell. You will have to test out a few different ranges through your real estate marketing to see what works best and which property owners are more responsive.
- Contact Data: You won’t just find the property owner name with this method of searching for ownership data. You can get the addresses, emails, and phone numbers as well. Select which type of data you would like to receive.
Once you have set all the necessary property ownership search filters, click Add Contact. You will be notified that the system is gathering the data for you and you’ll have your owners list in under a few minutes!
Step #4: Check Out the List on Your Dashboard and Download the CSV Report
When the property owner information is ready, you will get another notification. You can check out the owner data on your Mashboard. You can also go ahead and download the CSV report to use for your marketing campaign.
Step #5: Start Contacting Property Owners
To make this strategy of finding off market real estate deals even more seamless for you, you can send emails and email campaigns as well as SMSs through your dashboard. Start contacting the owners of properties you are interested in immediately in order to find the best real estate investment.
Remember, not every property owner will jump at the idea of selling to you right away. Be sure to work on perfecting a killer marketing campaign and soon enough, it will pan out. While marketing to and communicating with owners will take some time, the search itself only requires a few minutes and can be done with ease, any time you need to find an investment property. So because the step of finding out who owns a property has been made so simple and easy with Mashboard, the return on your time (and cash) investment will be massive.
Step #6: Repeat!
Because you have easy access to a vast property ownership database, you can keep finding and closing on off market deals. Just return to your Mashboard, set the appropriate filters and generate another property owners list.
Get Started Now
If you want to take your real estate investing career to the next level and find deals like the pros do, then you need to know how to find out who owns a property. And with Mashboard, all the information you need is at your fingertips.
To start your 14-day free trial with Mashvisor and subscribe to our services with a 20% discount after, click here.