Probate houses can be great for rehabbing with fix and flip funding Philadelphia. People die every day in Philadelphia and many of them leave behind houses that cannot be easily sold on the retail market. When the person has a will, an heir or the executor will be responsible for an estate sale which often includes selling the house, especially if it’s older, in need of repair or distressed. We have a few tips for getting into probate house rehabbing with fix and flip funding Philadelphia.
How to find probate houses
Philadelphia is not the easiest place for finding probate houses. Other counties make it easy to access lists of houses that go through probate court along with executor contact information. Here in Philadelphia, you can read the obituaries in the newspaper to see who has died, who their heirs are and then research public records to see if they own houses. You can also check the newspaper for probate sales and estate sales or auctions. You can get better information by going to probate court because the proceedings are public records, but you will have to pay to access them. Getting to know some estate planning attorneys could get you some referrals. Probably the best way to get information on probate houses is through an online list broker. (GreaterPhillyProbates.com is focused just on Philadelphia.)
Show empathy
Too many investors send out generic “We Buy Houses” direct mail, usually indicating they buy houses that need repair, probate houses and foreclosures. It’s better to market to each of these owners directly, tailoring the message to their specific problem. When sending letters to executors dealing with probate houses, you need to show empathy. One real estate investor who reminds me of the grandmother everyone would love to have is skilled at purchasing probate houses because she knows how to talk to grieving family members with empathy. You can feel her empathy for what they’re going through in the letters she sends out. She offers them a solution for the house of the loved one that is unfortunately going to be hard to sell in its current state of repair.
Be tactful
If you focus your marketing on probate houses, you may be accused of being an ambulance chaser or capitalizing on people’s grief. Family members may sometimes get angry with you. Once when it happened to that real estate investor I just mentioned, she responded by carefully saying, “I’m sorry you’re upset. That was not my intention. But we’re able to help a lot of people that inherit a property that they don’t want, maybe it needs a lot of repairs… and they don’t have the money to get it ready for retail sale.” She then offered to be their “Plan B” in case they have any trouble selling the property. She says her kind offer to be the “Plan B” has never been refused.
Work hard at figuring out how to market for probate houses and you could score many good houses for rehabbing with fix and flip funding Philadelphia.