Posted by JayHoward on January 17, 2001 at 17:28:11:
Jim’s comments are all excellent ideas. Here in Tulsa, the county land records are online and available at all county libraries. Just type in the address and it’ll give you all the info about the property and the current owner. It also has the tax info and any other legal proceeding on that piece of property. That’s how I find out about owners/purchase prices etc. Before they got online, I went down to the county offices and used the terminals they had. Everyone down there was always very helpfull about looking up this kind of info. That’s where I would start.
In fact, I got a call from someone I sent a letter to after finding them on these records. Unfortunatly, the property needed about $20,000 in piering and had just the week before been listed with an agent, but at least the owner called to tell me all this.
Posted by melvin gunter on January 16, 2001 at 21:47:04:
I found a house that is vacant. I stopped and ask the neighbor what is going on with the house next door. the lady told me that the couple divorced and went seperate ways and the guy wanted to sell the house, but for whatever reason has not put it on the market yet. the phone # that he left with the lady has been disconected and he has left his job (yea i called there) the only thing i think is left to do is put a letter on the door tell him i am interested in his house and hope he gets it. what would you put in the letter and how would you word it? or what else might you do to locate him or her?
Melvin,
There are plenty of different ways to find this person.
First thing you may want to do is check the county sheriffs auction list and see of the home is on it.
The home may be vacant because they gave it up, or lost it already.
After that, if it is not on the list, check the tax assessros office, and see where the tax bills are sent.
If they are still to that house, then its time to find the homeowner.
Here are a few ways to locate someone.
For a fee you can pay a skip tracer to locate them.
If you do, find a company that will do this for a “No find no fee” arrangement. This way you only pay if they are found.
And for free try this:
You could ask a few more neighbors.
Look in the phone book and try calling others with the same last name. They may be relatives and you can ask about him and maybe leave him a message.
You can goto the court clerks office, and check the court records, maybe he got a traffic ticket recently and is listed in the files somewhere.
You can mail a letter to him at the home, and put on the envelope that forwarding info is requested.
You may want to talk to people at his old work, possibly old co-workers, they might know something, or be able to get him a message.
There are lots of ways to find him.
I’d try the letter first, and then go from there.