One of the most profitable real estate investing ventures is inherited property - probate. Accessing these leads can make you big profits in your real estate investing business.

This article walks you through how to find these probate leads and market to them.

How do you find inherited property?

1)Local courthouse

Your county court house is the best place to find probate leads. All my neighboring counties have a place where they display all the probate filings. The information included in the filings contains the name of the deceased, the executor, also called administrator or trustee and beneficiaries.

The executor is usually an attorney. One of the beneficiaries frequently takes over the role of the administrator to reduce attorney fees.

Beneficiaries are usually relatives, and are the ones who have inherited the property.

2)Publications

In my local market, there are publications that list all filings in the county court system.

These publications list probates as well and provide a good source of leads.

If you live in a big metro area, you may have similar publications in your market. These will cut your workload drastically because you do not have to go to the courthouse to get your leads.

3)Probate attorneys

These may provide you with good leads. In my business, they are not an important source of leads. Even though I have contacted them from time to time, I have not had a single deal that has come from an attorney.

But this may be because I concentrate more on courthouse leads and publications.

4)Realtors

Most people first talk to a Realtor when they need to sell their house. Do not be surprised if you find probate deals listed in the MLS as estate sale.

If you work with a realtor, you should be able to easily identify these deals easily.

Marketing to probate leads

Once you get the names of the deceased, the next logical thing is to find out if they owned real estate. In the current age, you can do this on the internet on your local county website.

You may find that the property may still be in the name of the deceased, or their estate such as John Doe estate.

Once you find they owned real estate, you must then reach the beneficiaries. It is important to remember that because of death of a loved one, the beneficiaries need to be handled with sympathy, not aggression.

I usually send them a series of nicely crafted letters, once every month for 6 months. The probate process can take long, but 6 months should do it.

If you have been consistent in your message, when the time comes to sell, you will be the first person they will think about.

I stopped contacting the probate attorneys because they rarely respond. Also, in order to save money on attorney fees, the role of administrator is usually taken over by one of the beneficiaries.

If you find probate leads through a realtor, then you must make an offer through a realtor. If you send mail solicitations using the name of the deceased, they bounce back with a stamp "Deceased".

If you do not have the addresses of the beneficiaries, you are best off working with the Realtor.

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