Driving for Dollars – This is probably the most popular method.  This simply means that you find a target neighborhood and drive street by street looking for vacant houses.  While driving look for missing utility meters, tall grass, no curtains, excess newspapers in the yard, undisturbed leaves/snow, anything that shouts no one has been here.  While time consuming you will most likely find sellers that can easily be motivated.

Networking – Simply talk to everyone you run into whether it be a cashier, waitress or the guy next to you at the pump and make sure you leave them with a business card.  Business cards are very inexpensive, so give them out like candy.  You should never stop networking.  You may not see immediate results here, but you never know when a simple conversation will lead to a potential deal.

Ads and Signs – Whether you place an ad in the local paper, a free listing site on the Internet or on a bandit sign keep it simple.  A simple “We Buy Houses” works that’s why so many people use it.

After you have your list of vacant properties it is time to start locating the owners.  The easiest place to start is the county tax assessor’s web site.  This site usually contains lots of useful information about the property (i.e. # of bedrooms and bathrooms, lot size, zoning, current tax information).  Since a lot of counties are not completely up to date this is just a starting place.  We have a county near where I live that until recently their site said upfront that the data was 2 years old.  Another place to check is with neighbors.  Some locators will even offer cash if the neighbor has the owners contact information and it leads to a deal.

 Remember, this is a numbers game.  The more time you spend and the more houses you look at will result in more deals.  Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find a great deal the first week or even month.  The more you get your name and number out there, the more deals will start finding you.