Absentee owners in real estate or those who do not reside on or near the properties they own present a lucrative opportunity for various real estate transactions, including buy and sell, rental investments, flipping, and more. However, locating absentee owners can be quite challenging.
To find or compile the best absentee owner lists, you can buy a list from platforms offering real estate data like LeadVine. If you want more traditional approaches, you can also do neighborhood prospecting, drive for dollars, check the county tax assessor’s record, review Airbnb listings, etc.
To learn how to find absentee owners through these strategies in real estate, check out the rest of this blog. This will provide you with valuable insights to unlock new opportunities for your real estate business.
An absentee owner in real estate refers to someone who owns a real property but does not reside in it. The owner is “absent” or living far from the property, which means they have minimal involvement in managing it.
Note that while absentee owners live far from the properties they own, they are still accountable, and they still hold legal ownership of them. If decisions need to be made for major repairs, setting rent increases, and other related concerns about the property, they still have the authority to decide.
If you are new to the real estate landscape but want to focus on buying and selling vacant homes with absentee owners, you must first understand what drives this phenomenon:
Absentee owners usually acquire properties to generate rental income or for long-term appreciation. As such, they are not actively using the property but instead waiting to sell it to get an ROI. Most of them are not after one-time earnings.
Some owners strategically purchase properties in locations where they do not reside because the real estate market in that specific location has favorable conditions and growth potential. This means they would earn lots of profit when the time comes, even though the properties sit vacant, unlike their current home.
Some absentee owners purchase properties as vacation homes or second residences. These properties are typically not their primary residences, and they may only spend limited time there throughout the year. They may choose to rent out the property when they are not using it to generate additional income.
Property owners who move away due to life transitions such as job relocation, lifestyle changes, and retirement but still choose to keep their properties are also considered absentee owners. These people typically manage their property remotely or they hire property managers.
When someoneinherits a property and they do not live or reside near it, they may become absentee owners. Often, these heirs retain ownership of the property because of its sentimental value and investment potential. They also save it for when they need a place to stay.
As a newbie real estate investor, you might be wondering what is all the fuss about properties with absentee owners. In case you still haven’t realized its potential, check out the following benefits:
It will really be challenging to find absentee owners if you do not know where to look. But through the help of the sources and strategies below, you’ll be able to get a lead list and land an absentee owner deal in no time.
LeadVine is one of the leading data providers in real estate. Over the past five years, LeadVine has developed a list-building strategy that takes into account the unique needs of each of its clients so they useful if you still don't have a list of leads and want to build one. They offer absentee owner lists to real estate agents, house flippers, landlords, and even wholesalers who want to land more deals. They manually screen their leads to ensure their accuracy.
The best thing about LeadVine is that they are not a reseller of absentee owner data. They are the source of it. This means their data is highly accurate and that it shows all relevant property information needed by interested real estate professionals.
What’s more, the absentee homeowner data that LeadVine provides is already skip-traced and mail-merge ready for direct mail. They also do not limit the data they’ll send to you so you can close more deals and maximize your ROI.
To find absentee owners for free through the use neighborhood prospecting, identify an area with a high number of rental properties or vacation homes. While driving or walking around the area, look for telltale signs of absentee ownership, such as messy yards, house neglect lack, empty houses, etc.
If no one’s looking after the property, engage in a conversation with the neighbors to learn about the property’s absentee owner and their contact details. Once you have gotten initial data, search public property records and online platforms for more information. All these data can be used when sending out highly targeted mailing campaigns or cold calling. Note that you may have to do some skip tracing here to get accurate contact details.
Dutifully combine neighborhood observation and targeted outreach to create an absentee homeowner list during neighborhood prospecting. However, always respect privacy laws so you don’t face any legal issues in the end.
The tax assessor's office records property ownership in a particular area of jurisdiction. These records have the name of property owners, owner's mailing address, contact numbers, email addresses, and other relevant contact information. Thus, you can use this as an accurate source of absentee owners in your target areas.
Moreover, the tax assessor's office also has the billing address for property taxes. If you see that the billing addresses recorded by the tax assessor are not like the ones on the property address, this may be an indication of an absentee owner.
Another great thing about the data from the tax assessor’s office is that they’re already classified, so they are perfect for an investor's pursuits. They have a non-homestead properties classification which covers rental properties or vacation homes. These vacant properties are often owned by absentee owners and are available for those who know how to find them.
If you want accurate and up-to-date records or cheap lists of off-market properties to identify your target absentee owners, the tax assessor’s office is your best choice. They keep their records up-to-date for tax records so they are great source for a mailing list.
Owners of airbnbs and VRBOs usually do not live on-site at their rental property. These owners use the investment property for extra income and they only serve as property managers who schedule bookings, manage guest interactions, and overall rental operations.
Absentee owners in Airbnb and VRBO listings typically own multiple properties in different a different city or state. They may own one property that they may be interested in selling because it is not as profitable as their other properties. These owners gives investors, property management companies, or simple individuals a chance to have a new home and property.
Absentee owners of airbnb and vacation rentals post on online platforms to advertise their property and maximize its use. They use these platforms for bookings and management, including handling guest reservations and more.
All their details are listed on the listing because they want their guests to contact them easily since they do not want prolonged vacancies. You can leverage this data to come up with lists of owners ready to sell for real estate prospecting.
Searching for absentee owners in rental listings is a bit challenging since the ownership status of a property is not always disclosed. That said, when browsing rental listings online, look closely at the contact information provided. Typically, when a property management company is listed as a contact or has a different mailing address than the property being sold, it has an absentee owner.
Another way to find absentee owners in rental property listings is to look for those who are looking for tenants. Chances are, the owner is in need of a source of income and is tired of managing a rental, so they may be willing to sell the rental property to you.
It's important to understand, however, that not all rental lists for real estate are owned by absentee owners. Confirm whether the rental property you saw listed online is in indeed owned by an absentee landlord, you can contact its previous tenants or talk to the absentee landlord directly.
Driving for dollars is a prospecting strategy where you drive through your target neighborhoods and identify high-opportunity properties. This also make great sources of leads when buying properties owned by absentee owners. Before driving for dollars, plan your driving route through your trusty driving-for-dollars apps so you can cover as many streets as possible.
Once you are already driving, look for obvious signs that a property has an absentee owner or an owner who does not occupy their property. One sign would be a neglected house exterior, lawns that are overgrown like those we see in reality TV shows, lack of personal belongings, or mail or newspapers that are piled up outdoors.
Typically, the driving for dollars app you’re using can pull up information on properties owned by absentee owners including the owner’s name, number of bedrooms, address, contact numbers, and other information you might find useful. You can often take pictures of the property with great potential using this app and record data you can get from the neighbors.
In case of limited information when building your lists, you can try skip tracing using the information you already have. You may also look in online directories and social media profiles for information. After which, you can market to absentee owners in your area.
Finding absentee owners through the cold calling strategy means reaching out to them via phone calls. Instead of waiting for inbound calls, this means making the first move. There are actually two ways to do this. First is to obtain a list of property data in your target market like the ones from LeadVine or ListSource. You can buy this from list providers online or through public records such as that from the county tax assessor's offices.
Try to filter the list before calling. Check the properties where the mailing address is different from the property address or those that are considered non-homestead.
Another way to go about this is to cold-call all your existing contacts because they may now be owning a property they want to sell so they are already considered absentee owners.
Of course, before cold-calling, anyone, prepare a script so you are more organized in presenting your goals for the call. This also ensures a better conversion.
Finding absentee owners in real estate can offer unique advantages and opportunities for real estate investing. By buying a list of absentee owners from LeadVine, doing neighborhood prospecting, cold calling, and all the other advice we shared above, you can easily identify properties owned by absentee owners.
Often, absentee owners are motivated to sell, so you have better chances of negotiating great deals. But if, in case, the absentee owners you’ve talked to do not want to sell their home, there are still some great alternatives. One of which is buying leads from pay-per-lead platforms.
Here at Property Leads, we sell leads generated from SEO exclusively so our customers have less competition. If you want to start getting leads from us, fill out the form below!
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