That's a pretty cool question.
How can we find out who the owner of a property is?
You see a vacant house down the street and you want to know who the hell owns this house.
How can we find out?
Or, you're interested in contacting an owner to see maybe if he wants to sell his house.
Well, how do we find out who owns this house?
There's a few ways to do it.
Some are simple, some aren't so simple, but they're all effective.
Ready?
Here it goes.
I'm going to give you the first bit of advice.
You want to find out who owns this house?
Get in your car, drive to the house, knock on the door, see if they're there.
If they're not there, what I'd like for you to do is go knock on the neighbor's door.
Ask the neighbor around.
Yeah, it's going to seem like you're being a nosy person, but if that's what you want,
if you want that information, you might want to talk to the neighbors.
The neighbors typically always know who lives in what house in their area.
Ask the neighbor.
They might know.
Or, you could take a trip down to the County Recorder's office.
How do you like that?
Take a trip down to the County Recorder's office.
Now, that typically is, of course, at the County Courthouse.
You go to the County Courthouse and they carry all of the information that's necessary for
a home, the owner, when they purchased it, when it was transferred, the deed ... All
this is public records, you see, and it's all at the County Recorder's office at the
County Courthouse.
The best thing to do if you want any public information is take trip down there and request
it.
After all, it is public records.
Now, the third way, which I believe is the most effective way, especially when you get
your license, is to create a beautiful relationship with a title representative, a title company.
These people are crucial to your business.
Why?
Because they hold a key.
They hold a key to tons of information when it comes to homes.
For example, let's assume you're going to go on a listing appointment.
You're going to go speak for the very first time to a homeowner.
That's pretty darn important.
It's pretty scary, and you want to be prepared.
The best way to be prepared is to know everything there is to know about this house, when the
owner bought it, when the house was built, how many liens are on the house.
You want to know everything there is to know about this house.
How do you do it?
What do you to?
A title representative many times will give us access on our computers to tons of information
on properties.
They'll give you your own log-in code, or whatnot, and you can get in here.
This beautiful computer, now, this database has tons of information on any house that
you want.
All you've got to do is type in the address.
You can search it by address.
You can search by the owner's name, if you happen to have the owner's name.
You can search by APN number.
Now, what's an APN number?
Assessor's parcel number.
You can search by almost ... for any way of those three, by the owner's name, address
of the house, or the APN number.
You search it there and you push enter, and here it comes, all the data on this one property.
You ask yourself, so how do we find out?
You punch it all in there.
This title page will give you when the house was built, how many square feet, who had it
before then, the chain of title, the mortgages on it, the liens on it, everything you want
to know about this house is at your fingertips.
Now, isn't that pretty darn cool?
You grab this information, you look it over, you study it slightly so that when you do
show up to this owner's house, when you do show up to your listing appointment, you're
prepared.
Isn't that part of the game, to be prepared?
Do you ever show up on the first date not knowing anything about the other person?
Some people do, it's called a blind date, and from what I understand they're nerve-wrecking.
It's nice to know something about the other person when you show up.
Title rep gives us the information, you show up to the front door of the seller and say,
"Mr. Seller, I've done some research on your house.
I see it was built in 1955.
I see you purchased it in 1974.
I see you owe so-and-so amount of money on it."
What a great way to introduce yourself to these people.
What a great first conversation you are providing them with resources that they probably never
even knew.
You're updated on all this information because of the title representative giving you this
public information.
Isn't that great?
Let's talk about three ways of you finding information on a home.
Number one, go knock on their door, on the neighbor's properties and say, "Hey, neighbor,
do you know who lives here?"
That's the easy way, if you're luck.
Number two, go to yourself, make a trip down to the County Courthouse.
They provide you with public records right then and there.
Third, do it from behind your desk.
Use a computer.
Type it in there.
Title representatives want to help you with that.
You type in the name, address or what?
That's right, APN number, and it will provide you with everything you need to know.
Hope you learned something today.
California Realty Training here to make your business better but you've got to accept all